TitCamInfo

TitCam Information

{last edited: 21st April 2009}

BlueTitCam

This is a miniature monochrome camera housed in a wooden birdbox with a 25mm diameter entrance hole.
The size of the entrance hole limits its use to coal tits or blue tits. Coal tits seem to select the nesting boxes a long way from the house. This box (being just a few metres from the conservatory) has been used successfully by blue tits every year so far.

The camera has an integrated microphone and 6 infrared light emitting diodes (l.e.d.). It is an analogue camera so can be connected directly to a TV or video recorder. It could also be used with a computer so long as it was equipped with a video capture device (e.g. pci video capture card or USB video capture device). An extention cable carries 12V d.c. to the camera, and returns audio and composite video signals.

The camera lens angle of view was specified as 69° but when replaced with a 90° version there was no difference. Either way the image is not wide enough, but I can't mount the camera any higher in the box.

This camera is mounted in an abs box in an attempt to keep it dry.

GreatTitCam

This is a miniature colour camera housed in a wooden birdbox with a 30mm diameter enterence hole. The size of the entrance hole allows it to be used by great tits, while keeping out the larger birds. Although this box has been successfully used in previous years, we had big problems with cats for the first time last year so have moved it to a safer location. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing whether this new site is going to be acceptable to the birds.

Again the camera has an integrated microphone, and this time 8 infrared light emitting diodes, and requires a 7.5V d.c. power source. Although colour, the camera normally shows a monochrome picture due to the low natural light levels inside the box and the limiting factor of the infrared l.e.d. light source.

This lens on this camera was changed for a wider angled version (from 37° to 90°) so we could get a better view of the inside of the box.

This camera was very hastily fitted directly into the bird box, with none of the protection added to the BlueTit camera.

Capturing Video

Initially the 2 cameras were connected to 2 line inputs on a DVD recorder, with a small portable TV connected to the DVD via SCART. This allowed easy switching via the DVD remote so we could watch "live" or view playbacks.

However, as both boxes became occupied, we wanted to be able to view (and possibly record) video from both cameras. For a while we used a pc & monitor for the second camera (teckie details here) but decided the loss of quality using an old Pinnacle PCTV card was unacceptable.

So the current configuration uses 2 portable TVs. It would have been nice if they were equipped with video outputs, then we could have connected both to the DVD recorder, and switched recording streams via the remote. However, the DVD recorder is slow and can only do one task at a time (e.g. stop recording, switch line inputs, re-start recording) so I have now made a simple switch box which allows us to instantly switch recording from one camera to the other.

Running the DVD on standard play (SP) allows us to record just over 2hrs of "action". We have tried the EP settings, but the video quality is noticably inferior.

Cabling

The cable supplied is not really intended for the great outdoors, so could do with the added protection of conduit. We have just strung up tort green wire about 8ft above the ground and attached all cable to this.

Patience, patience, patience...

This is in short supply in our house, so we use a couple of tricks so as to avoid the need to stare at the TV for hours on end:-
- Audio Monitor: audio from both cameras is fed into an old stereo amp. Any bird entering a box creates enough noise to be heard anywhere on the ground floor of our house.
- Saw dust: before nest building gets under way, we add a layer of clean saw dust to the bottom of each bird box. We can leave the DVD to record for 2 hours and then check the playback in super fast-forward mode. Any change to the saw dust pattern as we whizz thru' is easily detected, and probably indicates a visitor. Otherwise (if no visitors) it just takes 2 or 3 minutes to check a 2hr DVD.

Editing & Publishing the Video

Being a cheap-skate (...and now an unemployed cheap-skate) I don't buy software. And being an upright member of society I don't pirate it either. So rather than pay for Microsoft XP or Vista I use the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, and use some of the hundreds (possibly thousands) of free applications available.

The video file from the DVD is edited in avidemux to remove the bits we don't want and to create short video clips.

Originally the edited video clip was saved in MPEG-TS (A+V) format, and then reduced to half size (to reduce file size) and converted to MP4 using VLC Media Player. However, my understanding of avidemux has now improved to the point where I can crop, reduce and save to mp4 without using VLC.

In an attempt to further reduce file size, some of the video clips have reduced bit rates, but this has had an adverse affect on quality. For example on some clips the bit rate has been reduced from 800 to 700kb/s and the picture looks OK until the bird moves, then you notice pixellation. Reducing the audio tracks from 2 to 1 and the rate from 128 to 44kb/s has some affect on file size without any noticable problems...this is work in progress.

Ordinary (still) pictures are edited using the Gimp to crop them and possibly improve sharpness or contrast. I've also created a Gimp script which creates 2 additional copies of the photo; one thumb-nail (smallest dimension 200 pixels) and one web friendly large image (smallest dim 800 pixels).

The pages for this website were created using Kompozer, with some minor HTML tweaks using the text editor gEdit, and were published to the net using FireFTP, an add-in for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.