Flash Media Conversion of Elephant Plains

When you start the cam via the link to the left or from the main page below the cam view area, there is a volume control slider just under the cam view.  To the right of that is an icon with an arrow pointing upper right in a box.. that is the full screen button.  Click it and it should go to full screen.  I hope this helps.  Oh, to change volume you need to click and drag the bar to what volume level you think would be good then release then the volume will change to what level you set.

I have read the posts, and I am one of the fortunate that has a new system that can handle the flash players, for both viewers at once .... and at times the players are fine. I honestly have to say that I feel the quality of the viewing has diminished drastically, and now with the pop up ads and the constant reminder at the bottom of the screen ..... the contemplative quiet times I had watching the true wildlife in Africa is no more. I am quite disappointed, such a wonderful program has been destroyed, I sure wish I had found this years ago, I missed so many great years of viewing

ever hopeful Tara

Thanks for the feedback.

We are trying to find the best way to serve the ads on the feeds. We want the overlays to be less intrusive and are trying them out. We are looking at what will be the best time intervals between ads. Hopefully we can find a happy medium.

Thanks for your patience and we are addressing the other matters.

I have just turned my computer on in the hope that the pop ups wouldn't be there. EP doesn't seem to be working for me but the ads are back at NK. At one point I timed them yesterday and they were less than a minute apart. This is far too intrusive and totally spoils the pleasure of looking at the cams so I have turned NK off and won't be watching unless the pop ups go or I can somehow find a way of blocking them. I fully understand the need for extra revenue and accepted the ads in their previous form but the pop ups are a definite no-no for me. I fully agree with AntyTara except that I did discover the cams years ago (including the old Africam) so I am grateful for the years of camming I have had.

Instead of not watching, give africam a time schedule which you can live with.

Of course not once every hour, it will have to be more than that.

We understand that the pop ups are new and the timing between them is something we are going to change. We are really trying to find out if ther overlay ads are less intrusive than the mid roll ads.

Lets find a happy medium. Again from our side we are hoping the pop ups will not interupt your viewing experience and will find an acceptable solution.

Spot on! Lets work togeher on this. What we need to know is what is an acceptable time frame for the ads and if the overlays are better than the mid rolls?

We want to find a solution and keep you all watching.

Paul, please explain overlays and mid rolls?

A mid roll ad is when the live feed stops and an ad is played, like the ad before the stream starts. This form of ad interupts the live feed and you have the noise of the ad. An overlay ad is when the ad is overlayed on the live feed but does not stop the feed and there is no noise from the ad. These are the ads you are currently seeing on the live feed. Both forms have the pro's and con's and need your feedback. Would a middle ground be to run the overlay ads with a reasonable time intervals? The current time setting is overboard but was out of our initial control. We will be talking to the ad netwrork today about it and make changes.

Please understand that we will find a solution and your comments are what will get us there.

We are trying the overlay ads as a better solution to the mid roll ads that break the live feeds and make a noise. The time intervals of the overlay ads will be changed and it was more of a proof of concept. We will find a healthy medium and need your feedback. Do you prefer the overlay ads to the mid rolls?

Thank you, Paul and Cerinthe, for your communications and for trying to address the problem.  I think the frequency of the overlay ads is what has got to me - no sooner does one go than another seems to appear and that is what is so intrusive.  Perhaps at 5 minute (or even more) intervals it might be acceptable.  It is worth a try. 

I am sure everyone realises the need for revenue to pay for the cams - it is just finding the happy medium which can be acceptable and 45 seconds to one and a half minutes for me is not acceptable.

I think you will find a big difference once we change the the timing of the ads. I am talking to our ad network tonight and will post the changes. 

Penny2 wrote:

Thank you, Paul and Cerinthe, for your communications and for trying to address the problem.  I think the frequency of the overlay ads is what has got to me - no sooner does one go than another seems to appear and that is what is so intrusive.  Perhaps at 5 minute (or even more) intervals it might be acceptable.  It is worth a try. 

I am sure everyone realises the need for revenue to pay for the cams - it is just finding the happy medium which can be acceptable and 45 seconds to one and a half minutes for me is not acceptable.

 

After watching the cams for an hour or so, I guess I have to say that if we have to have advertising (and I understand that we do) I prefer the overlays.  But as others have said, every minute and a half is WAY too much.  No one has yet to answer Paul's question, as to what would be acceptable, so I will.  From my point of view, I could live with a 15 sec ad that pops up every 5 - 10 minutes.  With no sound!

By the way, what ever happened to the idea that paid membership might be had with ad free viewing.  For some of us who contribute, anyway, that would be an attractive option.

Thanks Roger,

I think you are thinking on the same lines as us. We will change the ad intervals soon. The idea is to come up with an acceptable advertising model and for the people who donate and want an ads free site to offer that once we have the ad model nialed down. So this is a process but i have laid out the goal posts.

The advantage of the overlay is no sound and a lot shorter. In my mind to have an overlay makes a lot more sense and you dont miss any of the action.

I am going to try and change it within the next 24 hours depending on the ad networks speed of process.

thanks guys.

Dear Africam admins, just my two cents.

 I'm having problems playing the videos, because my laptop is not fast enough to play just one video smoothly, it has small pauses in the video (audio is OK). Two videos is out of the question now.

Ads are very disturbing. I understand you're looking for fundings, but I think this is excessive.

And finally, I used to play the video with the software VLC, that plays smoothly and has a audio equalizer. I could remove the crikets in the night and listen to other "lifeforms". No more.

I really hope that the increase in ads income compensates our frustration

Regards.

I was going to ask if there were any other options for the new ads but I see you are already addressing the issue. Thank you so much. The ads are very distracting.

The overlay ads have been moved to every 5 minutes. The advantage of them is that you can have the feeds in the background and listen to the sounds with no interuption. They pop up and go very quickly.

The sound issue that Igo spoke about is very interesting and we will look at that. We will be doing some tweaks to the system tomorrow so please post some comments if you see any change in the quality of the video streams later tomorrow. 

There is a method to our madness with the ads. The people who only watch the feeds when there are animals will not mind the ads as they do not watch for extensive periods. They will benefit from our Alert that we will launch in the near future. The "adicts" who watch the feeds all day will be able to subscribe to an Ads Free Subscription for a nominal fee. We love the fact that you watch the feeds all day and get enjoyment from it but we need to cover the costs.

I hope you can see the building blocks of where we are going. we are looking at the ads and video quality now and will then bring in the Alert and the Ads Free subscription.

Thanks for your comments. You guys are great.

I am getting no picture at all.

I have Adobes latest installed.

Do you have any security program or other utilities that might be blocking Flash player files or adblocking software running?  I assume your "Adobes latest" was refering to the flash player not an other adobe product. What browser and operating system are you using?  I think 3rd party cookies must also be accepted but not sure on that, just read that it was a cause for some websites flash content not working right.

I too have just a black screen, and my Adobe flash player just updated this morning.  I was on earlier while it was daylight there and the picture was great.

I have tried time and again to download Flash 10 with no joy.  I have cleaned out files, rebooted the computer, removed 10 again and again before re-downloading.  Nothing works.  I have XP.  I can watch Pete's Pond, but not the streaming cameras on Africam or Djuma.

For those of you that watch petes pond ..I have never been able to watch that one without messing up all the settings on my 'puter.  Sometimes the sounds and sometimes the video, sometimes both  ..but I would choose Flash over Real Player anyday !  Just as I would choose Africam over all the rest 

Really glad to see the overlay ads back !!!  was so afraid everyone would talk you into going back to the full screen , blast you out of your Happy Place voice over ads 

about the time you posted this both cams were down.  They have been down at times recently due to storms, power outages or possibly other technical issues.  If you check the daily created waterhole chat thread you will see when others are also noticing when the cams go down.  Hope it is working ok for you now since they both are back up again.

Not sure if this helps or not....but for those removing and re-installing Flash 10....be sure you are doing it properly. Adopey has a bizarre way to do it....

First....you can't do it from your control panel. That will just pooch your player. You can't do it manually through the C drive....that could pooch your whole browser maybe. There is an uninstall utility that should be given to you when you install the player. They don't....that's why they are Adopey. You can get the uninstall utility here:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14157

Now you download that critter to your machine....close down ALL your browser windows and anything else you don't need....then run the utility. After that....you reboot your machine. Then you open ONE broswer window and go here for a fresh install of the latest player.

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

If all that doesn't work....then the problem is elsewhere....like firewall, your ISP, etc.

After a couple of weeks we moved on flash ...I would like to add those

1) The quality of the pictures is remarkably good ...I think even better than what it used to be in past ...at least when animals don't move ...Our zoomies ...mainly on nk ...do a nice work with it ...and I suppose they learnt to work with flash ...Unfortunatelly the quality is still not good when something moves fast ...or the camera itself moves .....It had improved significantly and we don't see anymore the 'saw' images ...but still the cam is fussy and blur ...I don't know if there is any chance to correct it a little more ...but in any case ...I can still enjoy the sightments ...

2) Still I srunggle to get the cams on my old computer ...One cam and boma are already too much ...It became to difficult to post pics ...Is there any way to make boma ...a little 'lighter' ...??

3) I had no problem with what ads you will choose ...but I find the pop ups better ...You simply click on the cross and the ad disappears so I can still take nice pics ...or I can cover them when there isn't anything around ...If they were a little below of the real picture then maybe it would be better ...Or otherwise ...you can still find a way so that the zoomies  centilize the animals a little above ...I hope you understand what I mean

4)  I really hope that some day we will have a better camera work at ep too ...Maybe if you have more incomes from the ads ...

5) As many people can't have more than one cams on ...can you think of a way that we can be alerted if somehting is at the other cams ?  ..For example when we were at the refreshing cams ...I used to have the cam tracker on ...Now ...?

Fani,

Your remarks are spot on!!!

We were tweaking EP yesterday and trying to improve the quality. So please give us some feedback if you can see any improvement.

The Zoomie issue at EP is being addressed along with remote access of the cameras over the internet....

I come from a TV backround and we would zoom out when ads appeared on the screen. We wiil be chatting to the zoomies about this.

The Alert is something we are currently testing and it will change the whole viewer experience. 

Just a thought, would having two smaller windows open on one page be a solution so you can see both cams. When there is action on the one cam you can then click on that cam and it then  goes to that waterhole? Just a thought and dont even know how possible it is. 

Once the quality of the feeds issues have been fixed we will move onto the others. 

We will ge there!!! 

thanks for your comments.

This would be good only if it doesn't consume too much CPU usage ...so to be easy to watch everyone ...even can have one or two cams on ...

I have suggested it in past too ...but I had no answer ...

But now we can choose between the streaming cam and the refreshing for the flamingos ...and it is very helpfull

If we have the refreshing option for the next two cams ...maybe it will give a chance to everyone to watch ...either has no good internet connection ...or not a good PC or notebook ...more than one cams

For example me ..now watch NK on streaming and flamingos on refreshing ...If I will see great close ups on refreshing I still can go to the streaming ...Maybe then it is easier to put all on a page ...and having links to go to one we want...

This is a way ...for everyone to watch ...no matter what is the system ...