Bird Box

[witch]

I've come in today to find a bird box on my desk, which has a cable coming off it to some sort of audio/visual plug thing with three sockets - red yellow white. There is a power adaptor plugged into the red connector. The white and yellow seem to go into the box - to a camera maybe?

Sorry, no way of taking a pic so far.

Does anyone understand what I am wittering on about and if so, what on earth does the socket thing plug into? What do I do with it?

[Smee]

what sort of socket thing is it? sorry my visualization skills are a little limited today :/

[witch]

It's a scart adaptor...I think

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SCART-Plug-Male-to-3-RCA-Female-AV-Adapter-Converter-TV-DVD-VCR-Same-Day-Ship/151991925684?_trksid=p2141725.c100338.m3726&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150313114020%26meid%3D62643ba4aaae4830aa375279628507fc%26pid%3D100338%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D17%26sd%3D191247442735

[7UD9]

My SO's parents had one on the farm last summer, it was great! A pair of Great Tits (that's the birds, not her parents) nested in there and the camera let us watch the chicks hatch and then the parents taking turns to hunt bugs and feed them.

 

I'm not sure how they had it connected up exactly, it was to the TV, I'd assume yellow is video and red and white are audio, it might be that white is audio and red power as stereo won't be needed.

 

If you can post photos later I'm sure the collective knowledge of edugeeks can get it up and running!

[witch]

I've figured it out - It is supposed to be hanging on a wall with the cable coming through to a TV. She wants me to sort it out for the website - er???

[elsiegee40]

You should be able to connect those plugs directly to a tv or do it via a SCART adaptor to watch the action live. How long is the cable?

 

PS It's probably a bit late to get residents in the box this year. It really needs to be in place before the winter, but you might get lucky

[caffrey]

You would need some video capture thing, like this CSL - USB 2.0 audio/video grabber | New version / New software (Windows 8 compatible) | VHS - video adapter for processing and post-processing - gold-plated contacts: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories capture a shot every 30 seconds or something and have a page that displays the captured image that refreshes every 30 seconds or so .Problem is getting the cables to the box itself

Ideally this is a good project for a raspberry pi

[difinity]

Sounds like its similar to one of thesehttp://www.handykam.com/Bird-box-camera-and-nest-box-cameras/bird-box-cameras-and-nest-box-cameras.html

The scart goes in the back of a TV, its so you can watch birds nesting.

[pow]

I've got one of them at one of my schools, sacked the camera off in favor of a Unifi Video Micro so we can record and live stream. Something keeps pinching the eggs so we want to find out what!

[witch]

Sounds like its similar to one of thesehttp://www.handykam.com/Bird-box-camera-and-nest-box-cameras/bird-box-cameras-and-nest-box-cameras.html

The scart goes in the back of a TV, its so you can watch birds nesting.

 

The green one is exactly what we have! No TV though

I'll tell her about the USB adaptor and see what she wants to do

Edited March 14, 2016 by witch

[Scifigirl]

We have one of these going for free - somebody signed us up for a new streaming video one- without our knowledge. Getting those cables through the window frame was fun

[Dos_Box]

The last bird box I dealt with had standard AV leads coming off it. We then brought an AV to IP converter to stream it live over the internet.

It was a big success with a pair of blue tits moving in within the week and the streaming worked perfectly. Even when the woodpecker pecked its way in and ate all the young. Live on the internet.

My advice for anyone putting up a bird box with camera would be to nail close-mesh chicken wire around the box to prevent this kind of predation.

Apparently it upsets the younger viewers!

Edited March 14, 2016 by Dos_Box

[southhamster]

You're lucky it's the wired version. I was asked to fit one at one of my schools which used a really dreadful quality wireless connection. More than about 3m away from the transmitter there was just a grey fuzz with interference (from the wifi possibly) as it was loosely on 2.4 GHZ. It needed power anyway so running a video cable would have been much more reliable. However the blue tits have been interested in it so hopefully it will get used!

[Colindean2000]

Hi Witch

We ran one of these for a few years and used the free SEGFL Bird Box project to stream to, we ran the cables from the box into the building and connected to a USB video capture device plugged in to a PC which when working with the software from the Bird Box project allowed us to stream the footage to the web.

 

It worked very well, the only caveat was that it was flash based so users couldn't view the feed on an iOS device. Interest waned however over the years and we no longer run it, but would if an iOS solution were achievable for no cost.

 

I hope that helps?