Bird house / Wildlife Cameras for streaming?

[555tech]

A school I look after wants to update its bird house camera and streaming set up. They used to go through a company that did an all in one solution but have now gone bust. This is some way out of my comfort zone and wondering how others did it?

 

I envisage a camera feeding OBS which will then provide the school's YouTube account with a stream for posting to the school's website. Will any kind of waterproof IP camera do the job, or any specific recommendations? I think the school would be happy to get some sort of capture card if it means less hassle long term but I know if it can just be done direct between camera and OBS via network that would be best.

 

Thanks in advance

[elsiegee40]

GardenNature does a good range and has advice on their website.

 

https://gardenature.co.uk/

@LeMarchand has experience in this I think

Edited December 15, 2022 by elsiegee40

[LeMarchand]

Indeed I did. The biggest problem I found was power as, unless you have someone who will religiously change batteries, you are limited as to placement.

 

We bought a bird-box with space for a camera from HandyKam (who seem to have gone bust) similar to https://gardenature.co.uk/collections/camera-ready-nest-boxes/products/product-pitched-roof-bird-box but with a felted roof. Got a perspex panel from eBay to replace the internal "ceiling", though most such boxes seem to come with a wooden one with a hole for the lens. This was paired with a small wireless IP cam - we used the C1 version of https://foscam.uk.com/foscam-c2m which just about fitted under the eaves when the stand etc was removed. Bought a long micro-USB lead to provide power (the plug was connected to a RCD just in case). The box was placed high on a wall in our courtyard garden with the lead going into the building through a window. As we have old wooden ones it was easy enough to make a channel.

 

The supplied app worked well and I managed to get the feed to stream using VLC to the "display board" (Laptop/TV) in the school entrance - so something like this with OBS should be possible. As I had to Google OBS, don't take it as a given! The site above does do an "all in one" solution if you have the budget: https://gardenature.co.uk/pages/wifi-bird-box-camera-system though rolling our own looks like it will save £50 or so.

 

Unfortunately last autumn some kids used the bird-box as a climbing aid whilst trying to break in after hours and it is no longer useable. Camera is still OK, somewhat surprisingly!

[555tech]

A few months old but realised I hadn't posted a follow up. Thanks to both responses. We purchased a kit from gardenature.co.uk plus a cheap, HDMI capable, capture card off Amazon and it all works very well. Very simple to set up and start streaming in conjunction with OBS and a YouTube/Workspace account. We've had a few issues with the stream not lasting longer than a week at most and currently investigating this. I'll post a further follow up when we find a solution so future searches by peeps in similar positions get a bit more value out of my travels.

[555tech]

Though I'd post an update to this as we've managed to get round the short stream duration issue.

 

It appears that YouTube was at fault. Simply put, you need to "Schedule" a stream in YouTube Studio rather than just going live. YouTube has an itchy trigger finger for killing streams that aren't scheduled and since using the Schedule feature we've been able to reliably get streams to last for weeks at a time, and sometimes well over a month! This video explains the steps in greater detail

and also offers a theory as to why it happens at all.

 

Based on the theory in that video I also adjusted a couple of default settings in OBS to stabilise the stream upto YouTube:

 

In OBS settings goto Advanced, then:

 

1. Stream Delay > Enable > Duration “30s”
   
2. Automatically Reconnect > Enable > Retry Delay “1s” > Maximum Retries “30”
   

 

You can set these however you like, these settings seem to work well. Also worthwhile tweaking AV, Bitrate, and general quality settings too.

 

Happy streaming.

Edited August 25, 2023 by 555tech