ISpy FAQ!

FAQ: On this 'Frequent Asked Questions' page you will find up-to-date information about our ISpy WebCam software used with Creative Labs WebCam I/II or any other framegrabber manufacturor [video-capture hardware devices] in general. Please click one of your questions listed below;

2. Do I need to keep my dial-up networking connected all the time? No. ISpy will make a dial-up connection only when it needs to transfer an image, and will hang up the connection as soon as it is done transferring. If you already have a dial-up connection open, ISpy will use that, of course.

3. Is the use of the free demo version of ISpy restricted in any way? You may use the free demo version of ISpy as much as you like. You are not allowed to sell it to others, though. Also, you need explicit permission from the authors before you are allowed to redistribute the free version of ISpy.

4. Do I need to register my purchased copy of ISpy? No. The release-version of ISpy performs automatic registration. If you have your site running with ISpy, we would appreciate an email so we can add your site to our gallery.

5. Do you have a more secure way to transfer files than using FTP? No. But, if your provider/ftp server supports S/Key or OPIE, you can use one-time passwords for FTP authentication. This means that if the password is 'sniffed' on the network, it is still not a security problem because the password is not valid a next time. For every login a challenge is sent out by the ftp server which is used to calculate the one-time-password. You can find out more about S/Key and OPIE at http://www.inner.net/opie, including the downloads for your server. The ISpy installation program has an option to install the client-side support in ISpy for it.

6. what WebCam hardware is recommended? ALL!, if your webcam hardware driver is installed as an 'video-capture device' in Windows95, Windows98 or WinNT. You can see the driver by looking at 'My Computer, Control Panel, Multimedia, Devices' and look at the [+] video-capture devices which driver is listed. ISpy will work with any (webcam) hardware which is listed.

7. Does ISpy work on WinNT 4.0 with the Connectix Color Quickcam? Yes. Connectix has released WinNT 4.0 drivers for the Color Quickcam, so ISpy will work in that environment. There are some quirks in the driver, though: after changing the color settings of the camera, you should reboot your machine, or the ISpy images will look garbled. Download the drivers from http://www.quickcam.com/.

8. Does ISpy work on WinNT 4.0 with the Creative Video Blaster Webcam II? For the parrallel port version of Webcam II there are new drivers for WinNT. For the USB version there are no drivers (yet). You can check the appropriate web site http://support.soundblaster.com/.

9. Does ISpy work with the Snappy from Logitech/Play? Yes, it should, but we have heard no reports about it yet. You will need Snappy 3.0 Deluxe (a non-free upgrade from regular 3.0, see http://www.play.com/products/snappy/deluxe.html), plus Snappy 3.0 Deluxe Patch, downloadable from http://www.play.com/products/snappy/patch.html.

10. Does ISpy work with Geocities web pages? Yes. But you need version 1.40 or newer of ISpy, you need to use a remote path of just 'ispy.jpg' (do not specify a directory), and you need to put ISpy in 'Simple' FTP mode. See the appropriate section of the manual.

11. Does ISpy work with AOL for uploading? Only if you're using AOL software for dial-up connections. You need the latest AOL software, version 3.0 for Windows 95. Specific instructions can be found at ftp://members.aol.com/usersFAQ.txt; please read section 9 'How about using a different FTP/WEB-update programs while on AOL?'. Bottom line: set ISpy to hostname 'members.aol.com', username 'ftp', password 'yourscreenname@aol.com', remote path 'yourscreenname/ispy.jpg'.

12. Clipboard problems with ISpy v1.20? Whenever you are experiecing problems with ISpy v1.20 and the Windows clipboard please upgrade to version 1.32/1.41 FREE of charge now! ispy132d.exe or if you already are using version 1.32 upgrade FREE of charge to ispy141patch.exe or order the full ISpy v2.0. upgrade for only USD$ 10.-

13. what PC do I need? Any PC that runs under Windows95, Windows98 or WinNT is suitable, of course connected to the internet with a dial-up connection. ISpy does NOT require a fast Pentium processor when used as a WebCam PC only. 'parallel port' camera's tend to load your system much heavier than internal or USB framegrabbers; however, if you disable the preview in ISpy with a parallel port camera you will only notice it when the image is grabbed. WebCam kits run fine on older Pentium systems of 100 MHz. Faster processors or more memory however intend to run Windows95/98 or NT more stable.

14. Does LIVE video require a permanent connection? Yes, however because our 'ISpy' webcam software uses the Windows defined dial-up connection to call the internet, you do not need a permanent connection all the time. If you want to show NEAR LIVE images using simple JAVA scripts or (server-push) you do NOT require a permanent connection. The PC will 'capture' for example, a few hundred webcam images and sends them with the next scheduled internet dial-up connection to the server of your internet provider. Using simple JAVA scripts or scripts in Perl (Unix) or ASP (WinNT) you will see LIVE video in Netscape- or Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers. Microsoft Internet browsers only support 'JAVA push' scripts for viewing LIVE webcam images.

15. do I need another internet account or subscription? No, if your internet provider allows you to have an homepage, uploaded via FTP than nothing has to be changed. Our 'ISpy' webcam software works with it's own FTP interface.

16. are there additional costs?? No, after we receive your order and we get authorization from the creditcard company, we will send you the FULL version of ISpy WebCam 2.0. at only USD$ 49.- or USD$ 10.- for upgrades.

17. I want LIVE video, is that possible? Yes, we offer several solutions; server-push using Perl- (unix) or ASP (NT) scripts. More common and easier to use are simple JAVA scripts which can be downloaded here. Just copy the two javacam files in the directory where your ISpy images are placed and use the following HTML code.

18. ISpy supports bigger images? ISpy supports framegrabbers [video-capture cards] that can produce high-resolution video images, however if we look at the highest video resolution (PAL), the resolution in pixels would be 720x576. It has no use to produce images higher than 720x576 pixels using regular videocameras. Videocameras that produce a higher resolution than 720x576 do not exist. However there are videocameras that have better color seperation by using three different scanning CCD chips. 3CCD videocameras are very expensive ( > USD$ 3,000.= ) and sending images of 720x576 pixels over the internet makes the connection very slow.

19. can anyone see my WebCam image? Yes, but only if you make your WebCam image known to the public by, for instance, adding it to your website in an HTML document. If you DO NOT WANT anyone to see your WebCam image, just type the URL and name of the image you are uploading. In this case YOU are the only person to see the image, because nobody knows your specific URL. The name of the image you can define in the ISpy software. If it needs to be hidden behind a password authorization box you can use several options.

20. dial-up to webcam? The ISpy WebCam software calls the internet for instance every 10 minutes, the connection time is less than 1 minute to login, send the image and hang-up the connection. Because you are calling the internet at a local telephone rate the costs are low. If you are using a cablemodem the images are in 'real-time'. Calling the WebCam, not via the internet, directly on your PC is not advisable. The costs are much higher and your WebCam system will become less stable. [modem lock-ups, etc.]

21. use webcam on the network? Our ISpy WebCam software sends the images automatically to the internet or places them on the harddisk locally or on a harddisk in the network. (internet) Via the network you can view the images from any PC using Windows Explorer or a regular internet browser. The jpeg images hardly take any bandwith or storage, in most cases they are less than 20Kb. (QCIF: 352x288 pixels)

22. WebCam for apple? No, our ISpy webcam software only runs under Windows95, Windows98 and WinNT v4.0. and will not be available for Apple OS. We have no apple webcam hard & software kits available because they are, in general, much more expensive than PC solutions.

23. WebCam on cablemodem? Yes, our ISpy webcam software works together with cablemodems and sends the images to your website or homepage automatically. You will not notice any delay while surfing the internet. The jpeg images are very small in size, less than 20Kb at 320x240 resolution.

25. best compression to use? Image A is twice as big as image B. Image A was uploaded by ISpy with 75% quality in progressive jpeg format [21Kb size] Image B was uploaded by ISpy with 30% quality in progressive jpeg with only a size of 10Kb which load much and much faster. Note: you can set the quality however you like, [1-100%] however we advise to use about 70% quality before you will see any quality loss.

26. ISpy can not run: failed to connect to capture device! ISpy could not connect to your video capture device. This means that either your video capture device is not Video for Windows compatible (see Appendix A - Supported frame-grabbers), or, another application is already using your video capture device. In that case, exit the other application and start ISpy again. If you have had other frame grabber boards installed before your current one, it may be the case that the drivers for that are still lurking around on your system, and ISpy selects one of them. Go to Control Panel - Multimedia - Advanced, double-click the Video Capture Devices item, and delete any capture device no longer installed on your computer until the one you want to use is the first one. (Use Properties - Remove to delete drivers.)

27. Failed to load Internet extensions. Either you chose to not install the Internet System Extensions during installation, or, your system did not reboot after installing these extensions while it should have. In the first case, please reinstall ISpy, and make sure you choose to install the Internet System Extensions. Otherwise, exit ISpy, restart your system, and try again.

28. Version conflict - A file being copied is older than the file currently on your computer. You have a newer version of the Internet System Extensions already installed on your computer, e.g. by having installed a version of MS Internet Explorer newer than 3.02. Please select Yes (default), to keep your newer files, on this question.

29. Failed to load dial-up networking If you have ISpy set to use dial-up networking (default), but your computer does not have dial-up networking installed, this message box will appear during startup of ISpy. After this, dial-up networking functions in ISpy will be disabled, and ISpy will only offer the LAN (static connection) option when connecting.

30. File error: Locking problem If you get this message frequently, go to the 'Settings' dialog, choose tab 'FTP', and select 'safe mode'. Your web site is apparently very busy and the webserver keeps locks on the file a lot.

32. Could not grab frame Your framegrabber may be set to a proprietary image compression format. Use the Video menu options to change the video compression. A typical example of this is with the Connectix Color Quickcam, set to use 'Videc compression'. Switch to 'Thousands of colors, uncompressed' and the problem will go away.

35. The video image looks great, but the uploaded image has very poor colors When drawing caption text, ISpy is limited in its image grabbing capabilities by the color depth of your video adaptor. If you have your Windows set to 16 colors, ISpy will only grab a 16-color image. The video image looks ok because it is using a hardware overlay mode, not limited by the video adaptor. It is highly recommended to set Windows to hi-color (16 bit) or true-color (24 bit) mode when using ISpy. The images will look much better. To change your setting, double-click on the ‘My Computer’ icon, double-click the ‘Control Panel’ icon, and double-click the ‘Display’ icon. Under the ‘Settings’ tab, you’ll find the ‘Color palette’ option. Make sure it is not set to ’16 Color’ or ‘256 Color’. If no caption text needs to be drawn, ISpy will just grab the image with the same quality as the preview image you're getting. This means that for framegrabbers and camera's that don't support hi-color or true-color, such as the Connectix B/W Quickcam (which only does 64-grayscale), you should disable the caption text for optimal results. (For the demo version you can't disable the advertisement text, which has the same effect on colors as the caption text in 256-color mode, so you can't try this.)

36. Dial-up connection fails If you get messages like `Dial-up connection "xxx" does not exist', or `Dial-up connection "xxx" has no valid username/password combination', you should check the dial-up settings in ISpy. If the connection password is not saved by Windows, you can not use the connection in ISpy.

37. FTP session failed If the connection is established correctly, but the FTP session fails, you should check the FTP settings. Make sure to have a valid host name, a username/password combination that gives write access to the server, and to type a correct path. Make sure to check this section of the manual for details on how to enter a remote path. Some FTP servers such as ftp.geocities.com and MS personal Web Server have problems with the FTP rename command as used by ISpy. Set FTP to 'simple mode' to solve this. If you have the Internet settings on your computer set to use a proxy server, ISpy will use this proxy server setting as well. ISpy will switch to the `passive FTP protocol', as this is supported by more proxy servers. However, there are quite a few proxy servers that do not implement the FTP protocol completely, and will not allow you to send files. Check the FTP settings for ISpy and try disabling the proxy server.

38. After many uploads, Windows hangs Be sure to install the latest operating system patches in your system. For Windows 95, that's available from http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ Be sure to install Service Pack 1, and Kernel Update 32, as a minimum for stability. If you are running Windows NT, check out http://www.microsoft.com/backoffice/ and http://www.microsoft.com/servers/ for update information and the latest service packs. If you are running Windows NT 4.0, you should install Service Pack 3 or newer. If you are running Windows NT 3.51, you should install Service Pack 5 or newer.

40. The video size is not remembered by ISpy If you are using ISpy version before version 1.41, the video size is restored by the video driver and not by ISpy. If your driver does not restore the size correctly, the video window will go back to original size the next time you use ISpy. From version 1.41 of ISpy the video size is automatically restored properly for the Creative WebCam II. If you have a different camera but also experience this problem, you need to launch RegEdit.exe and set the value for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ISpy\ISPY\General\RestoreSize from 0 to 1.

41. Support & Updates If you have version 2.00 or newer you can get free updates to the most current version 2.xx from our web server. For the older versions 1.10 to 1.31 you can download free updates to full version 1.32, and a patch from that upto version 1.41, from our web server. Upgrades from version 1.xx to current version 2.xx are US$ 10.-