Flash Media Conversion of Elephant Plains

Having already moved to flash ...what I was afraid became true ...I can play only one cam on my notebook ...without having boma on too ...

1. Have you any suggestions to make those old systems to run better ? (even I suspect that many new notebooks can't run more than one flash cam )

2.The quality of the pics on both cam is bad ....Can it be better if you make a little smaller the screens ...420X300  maybe it would give a better quality and it is still enough big

3.Can you suggest what are the minimum of characteristics that a notebook ...can have to run well at least two cams ...boma and a video recording program ?

When animals are moving or the camera changes position, there are zig-zag patterns on the animals and a distorted,  blurry view.  Hope this can be worked out.

Same for me. When the cam moves, the trees look like Crocodile trees! Thanks for caring for a better view!

I too have noticed that when the cam moves to zoom or keep up with the animals, or even when focused on an animal when it moves, the picture is distorted.  We no longer have the crisp, clean images like before when they/cam moves.  Adope flash is installed on my computer and is current version. Thanks for taking the time to make our viewing more enjoyable.

I have also another question

4) Have you tried which browser is best  with flash cams ..Is there a significant difference between Firofox and IE ...Have you tried Googles Chrome ..?

5) By the way until now nk was the only cam we could take clear pics of a moving animal ...now it is worse than other similar cams ...not sure if it is flash or another reason ...In any case advise the zoomers not to move the cam too fast ...mainly at ep but now at nk too..as none can make out what is on the cam ..It's useless to try to follow an animal when it moves fast ...and it is very annoying to try to zoom in and out fast

Hi..I have a concern with going to flash player....does it use more bandwidth than the previous format? 

We have limits with our internet packages here in Australia and I fear that going to flash may mean I can't watch the cams as much as I do now

Thanks

Hi, can you explain if the "ability to upload your own africam highlights" is available now and how that works? If it is not yet available, when might it be?

Thanks!

I'm wondering if flash 10 doesn't work on win 2000.  Since the change the africam.com page gives a  "json parse failed undefined"  error.

My XP computer works fine.

Are we going to get the popup pages back? 

 Please note.

Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista

Important note for v10: Adobe states that users upgrading to the beta 10.0 release should first uninstall any currently installed Flash Player before installing the beta release.

Hiya

I would like to take a moment and discuss the homepage under this new system. Africam has do what it needs to do to cover expenses and make what profit they can using advertising. However, you have got do something better than this. I decided to do some packet and file analysis on the cam page. First....I can't even view the streams unless I disable my Comodo firewall. This is most likely due to the use I-frames or the redirects in the stream. Both are commonly used in malware exploits, so my security flags it. I suppose I can reconfigure.....but that really isn't my complaint. I have found that the homepage is just plain huge. It loads 158 files at a whopping 4.39 MB! Amongst those files are 15 flash movies....and this all hapopens before the stream even starts!

The fact is....older systems simply cannot handle that ammount of CPU-intensive Flash. When I open the homepage, my CPU spikes to 100%....then settles down to around 55%. By comparison, under Media 9 format....CPU levels at around 18%. I watch Petes Pond and it's Real Player levels at 16%.

Now I know that Adopey Flash is the wave of the future. It will be everywhere soon. Wildearth went that route already. It's ideal for feeding advertisements in-stream and like everything else Adopey does, bloated beyond compare. OK fine....I accept that. But you simply must do something about the rest of the page. It's a horrible mess of advertising feeds. I've seen some big pages in my day.....but 4.39 MB? That's just crazy.....

If you plan to stay with Flash as your streaming format.....please consider using a different format for your page ads. Whatever happened to good ol' fashioned JPEG and GIFs? If you really want an eye-opener....do this. Empty your TIF.....then load the homepage. Then look at your TIF again and see how many files are there. Also...I monitored the packets from Voxant, Tremormedia and Quantserve. Not even gonna get into some of the strange things going on there....

Perhaps time for complete redesign....and streamline some things. Stacking code on code on code....well....it's like painting a crumbling wall. Sooner or later it will still collapse. Just my two cents.....

By the way Maxx ...I never open the home page of africam ...I visit only Boma for long now ....

Every pop up window also needs alone 45 % of my CPU ...if I try something else ...it close automaticaly after a while ....just to avoid overheating I suppose ....

We are at the continously run to catch the changes ...OK africam became a part of it ...I wish they had another philosophy ...

This latest development has killed Africam for me.  I am no longer able to watch the cams.  At least I still have Pete's Pond.

Sigh.

Hujorno ...you too ...I think none interested about us ...we left in the margin ...New cam watchers will come with better machines and maybe better financial base

Funny enough but ..

I ve just noticed that if you open the player in a normal window that you can resize ..and then you make it smaller so you can see only the half of the cam ...the usage or CPU is much less o)

of course this is n't a normal way to watch ....LOL but still I can see the half of the animals ...ROFL >>>

I must be really addicted

...But commercial and posting on boma still hits a 100%

I must also accept that the night view isn't too different than the previous ..only I think the sound isn't as good as it was in past

Fani!..i  also have a  problem with the size of the cam. I have a large screen moniter but i do have other things on it and i cannot have a cam that big on without being able to make it smaller.. and to make it smaller the way it is.. as you say is to lose some of the cam! I'm just hoping they can do something about this !

Fani, you have talked about this "large viewer" before.  I do not understand - on this laptop, the screen is 30.5 cm wide and 19 cm high.  The viewer is only 11.5cm wide and 8cm high.  I think that issmaller than it was with media player.

Hello Roger and Sheila ...my problem isn't exactly the big view of the window ...but the usage of CPU...this is the reason I keep only the half of it running on my screen as suprinsingly (for me who knows nothing about such things) the usage is less...and my old notebook can play the cam without problems (I hope, still testing)

Edited : 

About the size of the cam window ...It has changed several times in past at players too ...At WMP it was 390 x295  (still try to find the units ,I can see it from the snapshot) ...while now it is 470x345 approximately. ...I think  at players before it was 430 x300..I suggested it with the hope that the quality will be better ...in fact the real feed is much smaller in dimensions ...and they enlarge it ...so the quality decreases...(I think ...)

Hello Again Africam Members,

Thanks to everyone who is posting in this thread, and across the forum, their technical problems and constructive criticism concerning our change over to Flash video. We have already addressed a number of these issues thanks to you bringing them to our attention including the problems with the volume control.

Feel free to continue to post your technical problems and we will try and sort all of them out as soon as we can.

Enjoy the cams!

-The Africam Team

Bush greetings Admin! There is a high-pitched whine on the NK feed. I don't know if it is the feed or the mike. The daytime NK feed "seems" to have improved in the last 24 hours. Thanks.

Edit to add: The nighttime resolution at both waterholes has deteriorated significantly.

Hi,
I am desesperate... 10 days (or more) without africam.
I download Flash player... and re-install... and re-install... nothing, nothing, nothing ... at all...
I don't know what I can do....

Whoever did this research please note that "Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT," cannot load the neccesary Flash to play this site. Also in Windows 2000 it can only be viewed using the Firefox Mobile browser since IE cannot handle the correct uptodate Flash plugin.

Same here anne-marie, nothing works with this new stuff.

I'm glad I still have wildearth cams to watch!

I am no computergenious, maybe i should try helpdesk as this norweigan man!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pyjRj3UMRM

It would be helpful to let viewers know when you plan a change. It is frustrating to "guess" what is happening and why. I suppose the pop-up ads are less intrusive than stopping the live stream but they are too frequent. They are displaying every two minutes, or less. Will they display in pics and videos? Africam is a part of my life. I want to support you.

I agree with Donna on the pop up ads.  I have been out and when I brought NK's cam up on my return I wondered what had happened and why I kept getting pop up ads. They were far too frequent - less than two minutes apart -and I couldn't really see through them at the bottom of the cam.  I closed the cam and then brought it up again and so far no more ads!  If they were to be as frequent as that I wouldn't watch because I found it far too intrusive and frustrating.

I don't think people are going to want to watch video clips of wild animals with a commercial popping up every couple of minutes, and there are too many to cut them out of the clips.

I was quite upset this morning when I first saw the pop ups also ...but after a while I noticed that  Hey ..no annoying voice overs at full blast, and messing with my volume control !  And no total loss of the viewing screen.  If I had to choose between the two methods of Ads ..this is the one I would choose.

AdBlock Plus (for Mozilla/Firefox), IE7Pro (for Internet Explorer), (both free) or turning on the Ad Blocking feature of an Internet Security Suite (such as the one in Kaspersky Internet Security) will all remove the new ads at the bottom of the streams.

Now we are all watching ..with the same way ...only with the 2/3 of the window LOL!!! I haven't seen them until now as I have them covered ..he he..

I think Africam tries new things ....Lets wait till they take their decisions ...I would like to hear from them ...though

I have to say that the pop up ads kind of take away the remoteness of the cams and make them too commercial.  I liked it better when the site was better than the Discovery channel. I know you want the ads to increase revenue so I am going to have to go with the ads every 20 minutes for 15 seconds.  Pics look better without the pop ups too.

Hello....I am having trouble. I can't go to full screen with the page and that is also how I adjust the sound. Any ideas.

April