Location: Midwood, Brooklyn, New YorkWebcam refresh rate: 20 seconds.
What's new?
- August 29, 2011
- Have you missed hurricane Irene? Don't worry, I've taken live HD footage from webcam when Brooklyn was right in the middle of that "thing":
Thank you all for kind letters and support. We're OK, but thousands of other people in New York are out of electricity for second day in row. It's really tough. We hope ConEd restore power soon.
- August 28, 2011
- 04:21 Hurricane Irene is hitting us in Brooklyn pretty badly. Windows are shaking, power goes out sometimes - but webcam is operating normally (so far..) thanks to backup power UPS and backup DSL link. If image freeze for 1 hour or longer, we either: a) lost power, b) backup batteries drained or c) both.
- August 24, 2011
- I was thinking that from 9/11 we went through "everything". It looks like "everything" is just to begin. Earthquake in Brooklyn last for about 30-40 seconds and it was pretty strong! I was in Brooklyn and entire old building (built in 30s) was shaking badly. Webcam is operating normally. Now we're preparing ourselves for another thing — hurricane "Irene". Stay tuned.
- July 22, 2011
- Heat wave in New York: temperature is about to reach 100F. Cyperpower UPS installed few weeks ago will be extemely handy. So far we had one short outage in Brooklyn (voltage dropped from 120 to 90 volts for 3 seconds).
Tonight we disconnected battery backup from AC for 48 minutes (for test purposes). It shows 19% of remaining battery backup power now, so webcam (webcam + midsize computer w/o monitor + cable modem + router) may run for about 55-60 minutes on backup unit. It's good idea to get second unit just in case of extended power outage in New York. Or install 15K diesel generator :-)
Yesterday we brought online backup DSL link. If power goes out, cable will be out for sure. Since DSL goes through regular phone lines, internet connection will stay on, as long as power backup has power. DSL modem takes very little power, it may stay alive for hours. I think we should put it on external power backup unit. I'll show details later.
- July 13, 2011
- «Brooklyn Man Admits To Killing, Dismembering Lost Boy» We're deeply shocked...
- July 12, 2011
Thousands of people, local jewish police, NYPD, FBI are searching our neighbourhood (South Brooklyn) for missing 9 year old boy.
Unfortunately, we do not store archive webcam images on local server (lack of spacing resources).
- July 5, 2011
Fireworks in Brooklyn, New York. Right spot this year! I am glad that we changed location.
- June 27, 2011
Brooklyn Webcam is now protected by Cyperpower UPS! It will allow us to run webcam during power events (blackouts/brownouts), which are frequent during summer times in Brooklyn, New York.
- June 25, 2011
- Yesterday I found out that focus issues were addressed in new webcams built after 05/2010. So I immediately ordered new one Logitech C905 (red color — nice touch, even better than silver/black) and also replaced webcam enclosure (to get rid of minor scratches on the glass) with VITEK Outdoor Enlosure. Wow, what a nice image we get now! :-) Please leave your comments or suggestions in our guestbook.
- June 23, 2011
- Webcam is now live! Right side of the image is off focus — well known bug of all Logitech C905. But overall, image is good and I like location as well (facing South Brooklyn — Coney Island).
- June 22, 2011
- We've replaced drives, camera, fan and even reloaded Windows 7. Webcam came back to life, but still in beta test. If it won't crash, we will install it in Brooklyn (slightly different location). Stay tuned.
- May 29, 2011
- I am glad that hard drive has fried tonight. Image quality was really blur during the day (but night was OK). We will replace both - failed disk and camera by June 20th, so please be patient. Thank you!
- May 12, 2011
- We have received very exciting news from our friend Adi. Robin bird is nesting just outside his window. There are some eggs, one chick already hatched last night. Crazy as we're about webcams, little Robin got connected to the internet :-)) You can view live images of American Robin here. Please leave your comments and suggestions in our guestbook.
- April 6, 2011
- We (Mike and Russell) were trying to fix webcam for 6 hours last night. It was a bloody mess for real —
I cut my fingers by sharp stone somehow. Webcam didn't die, all cables were fine as well. However, we decided to replace entire setup (even wires)
with new Logitech C910. No luck at all. Today I put all cables (over 50 feet), camera and weather proof enclosure in house, tested with different computer then moved
whole thing. It worked, but for how long? If it fail again in the next 24 hours — we will replace computer.
Image quality didn't improve, regardless of "5 megapixel" sensor size (same as 2 megapixel). I thought it would be much better :-( However, focus issues were resolved in the new Logitech model. Objects on the left and right are in focus. We have no idea how new webcam operate in dark, so all of us are "beta testers".
- April 5, 2011
- Webcam is working again. I wish we could have a remote reboot function. Anyway, new webcam is on the way. We will try to replace old one in a few days. Before that, we should complete our webcam archive (images from 2001-2011).
- April 4, 2011
- We will replace failed webcam on April 7th — April 8th. Please stay tuned for more updates.
