User Stories

NetComm IP Cameras make teleconferencing a breeze

Like many of you I have tried USB web cameras in the past and have never been pleased with the ressult. These range in price from about $70 to as much as $250. They tend to be sold on Mega Pixels but as I found out that is pure marketing hype (and relates to the still image capture not video stream) as sending a 1.3MP image down the internet would badly overload most connections. I also find those models with a built in microphone less than adequate. Being USB they use the PCs CPU and memory to process images and try as I might I could never achieve the claimed 30 frames per second at 640 x 480 resolution (about .3 of a Mega Pixel) or even at 320 x 240 (.077 of a Mega Pixel).

I needed an alternative to a USB camera that worked and had read about IP cameras (these have their own IP address and internal web server so they dont need a computer to send images) and last time I looked they were over well $500 each. I jumped on Google and looked up IP cameras (Australian search) and up popped our very own Aussie NetComm with MyLanCam starting at $248.60 (wi-fi 54g version $348.70) http://netcomm.com.au/products/ip-cameras and a very good portable speaker phone V35 at $128.70 http://netcomm.com.au/products/voip. NetComm loaned me the hardware to do this test.

Precious pets become recovery room stars

Vets can now keep an eye on their charges more frequently, writes Glenn Mulcaster in the Sydney Morning Herald (30 September 2003).

An anxious pet owner asks veterinarian Simon Drummond about the welfare of her dog. It was undergoing surgery and she sought reassurance that her animal was OK.

"We just cannot admit owners to the operating theatre," says Drummond, co-owner of the Berwick Veterinary Hospital, in Melbournes south-eastern suburbs. "We do not know how they will react." There is a risk the pet owners could disturb the veterinary surgeons by fainting, talking or trying to interfere if they become distressed.

On this occasion, Drummond did not send the dogs owner back to a waiting room. Instead, he showed her to a consulting room and logged on to a standard webpage on a computer, which monitored images of the dog in the nearby theatre from a digital camera mounted on a trolley.

The veterinary practice had installed the camera a few days before to check on animals that stay in hospital overnight. The duty vet logs on from home to see if animals are trying to chew a cast or dislodge a drip line when they should be resting. The vets can also read settings on equipment over the web.

"It has been a real learning experience," Drummond says. "We are using it for different purposes than we originally thought."

There is scope to offer a webpage for pet owners at home to log on to the hospital intranet and view animals as they recuperate, although there are security and privacy issues to overcome. It is possible that images may also be attached to an animals medical history treatment file for future reference.

The camera is an internet protocol (IP) digital camera designed by Sydney company NetComm, which builds modems and other communications equipment. It is fitted with a fixed lens, but other lenses such as fish-eyes can also be used.

NetComm sells IP cameras to network managers who want to monitor building sites, pipelines, warehouses and factories from afar, to prevent theft or check that equipment is working properly.

Simon Hall, NetComms camera division product manager, says the animal hospital's application is a first for the networked camera. He says the device is basically a video camera and computer all in one, and in this pilot project it can capture images at 10 to 15 frames a second and transmit to other parts of a computer network as required.

Drummond, his business partner Geoff Chapman, and three other full-time vets treat about 150 animals a week at their hospital. Several of the animals require cages overnight, but the hospital is not staffed 24 hours. Previously, when an animal required supervision after hours, a vet would visit the hospital regularly to check the animal. Now if theres a problem, we can identify it straightaway, Drummond says.

He says they previously experimented with low-resolution webcams on a network but image quality was poor.

The NetComm IP camera was installed by a local system integrator, Computer Initiatives, whose owner Tim Moore has his dog treated at the vet hospital. Moore says many of his companys clients are veterinary and doctor surgeries who would be interested in this installation.

Sujay Vilash, business development manager at Computer Initiatives, says that although IP cameras are not new, they were previously considered an expensive solution for a small business. Vilash says it is possible to use other third-party software to manipulate and archive streaming video or store still images from the camera.

Drummonds practice connected the NetComm camera to a wireless network card so it could be moved to different parts of the hospital without being tethered to a wall.

Another wireless network card was fixed in a central part of the building to receive images using a wi-fi connection. This card, in turn, was connected to the internal computer network using a standard Ethernet cable.

Digital imaging is already used in the hospitals theatre equipment during surgery, with endoscopes, gastroscopes, colonosopes and rigid scopes all connecting to digital viewing systems to improve real-time diagnostics and treatment.

Drummond says digital images can form part of an image trail that documents treatment for particular ailments.