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This document describes performance characteristics of Webcam32.

How Webcam32 spends time

The purpose of Webcam32 is to obtain images from a camera and make those images available to a Web browser.  To acheive that task, Webcam32 must spend time performing different internal tasks.

FTP image upload
HTTP browser request

• Get Image - Obtain an image from the camera.  The time taken to acheive this task varies with the type of camera used and capture card used.  Some capture devices such as Quickcam, Snappy, Webcam, GrabIt and EggCam obtain the image through the parallel printer port.  Other capture devices use dedicated hardware video capture cards.  These cards are invariably faster than parallel printer port access devices as they are able to transfer image data at very high speeds through internal data buses.
• Convert to JPEG - The JPEG graphic encoding algorithm produces highly compressed, high quality images.  This process takes time to convert the raw image to the JPEG format.
• FTP rename old files - If Webcam32 is configured to save old Webcam32 images (default off) then each image must be renamed on the FTP server.  Each request is performed on a file by file basis.  This operation takes time and is dependent on the number of images requested to save.
• FTP target image - The final JPEG image is trasnmitted to the FTP server (web server).  This means copying kilobytes of JPEG image data from Webcam32 to the FTP server and is a function of the network bandwidth, hops to the FTP server and performance of both the machine running Webcam32 and the machine hosting the FTP server.
• Send to Browser - The final JPEG image is transmitted directly to the browser.  This is a function of the network bandwidth, hops to the browser and performance of both the machine running Webcam32 and the machine running the browser.