Hi guys,
I just want to let you know that we’re experiencing problems with the new Web cam in Roanoke and we’re trying to get it resolved. (I assume it’s from the flood of traffic from the past 24 hours since the site went live.)
I’ll provide updates as I receive them.
Bergie
What is the address?
…Go to the top of the forum page and click on Web Cams.
…Just checked the Roanoke Cam and it’s up and running right now…A bit after 11. It seems to be a very slow scan. Nice view though.
Edit: Now, a bit over an hour later {than above}, I can’t connect. So guess problems remain.
…Checked again…and once again, the Roanoke cam is working, but oh so slow scan. {5:23 pm}…
hi everyone it’s appears to be up and running i watched it for about half hour
…I just checked it again to see what it looks like after dark and it’s not available now…Again.
When I launch the link, IE shuts down. Is this a provider problem?
When I click the link the Browser freezes. Either IE or mozilla/firefox. Is there a fix for this?
Pete
Web cam is up and running again now…{a few min. before 9 ET}. Using IE. But oh such a slow scan…One must stop and look for 5 or 6 sec. to see if it actually is live.
Bergie,
Congrats on the web site redesign. I work for a marketing company that works for Chrysler and Mopar and we do major redesigns on mopar.com quite often. I know when you update a web site you open yourself up for all kinds of problems an criticisms, but it’s very cool.
Ross
hi everyone. i have been watching the roanoke rail cam for about 5 months . i e-mailed the guy in charge about 3 months ago and he said it would eventually be set up so you could pan the camera while you are online . i was wondering if you have to download a special program to be able to do this . i watch several other cams and am able to move the camera . is it my computer or is that feature not set up yet? RON
Welp!
I finally gave in and took a look at this so called “Roanoke Rail Cam”. I will say this, they got the “Roanoke” part right. They should have named it the “Roanoke City Cam”! From high atop the Hotel Roanoke, its a long way down to those “Z scale” looking trains. Nice view of the city though. Then there is this big tree smack dap in the middle of the screen blocking the view of the herky jerky movement of trains and cars going by.
Overall, a nice picture of Americana, but hardly what I would call a “Rail Cam”.
Yeah, I think all of us forum members really need to get together and lobby them to chop that tree down in the middle. That thing is irritating! I’ve read the issues regarding speeds some have been having. Although the cam is slow to load, it seems to update every few seconds, though that may be just from the morning. It might slow down quite rough as people wake up and log on to it. I’ll check it out more when I have more time to watch it longer. I still like our Rochelle cam over it. Will it include snapshots like Rochelle does?
I hardly think that Hotel Roanoke will go cutting one of their trees down for any such reason. Besides, in my opinion, the camera isn’t close enough or sharp enough to even be called a “rail cam”.
I have yet to see this cam after several attempts. My first try booted me out of my ISP. I’ll keep trying. The still photo looks interesting enough. I will say however that my experience with other “you control the camera” webcams is that 1) you hardly ever get to control it and 2) it is an invite to technical difficulties. So I hope they don’t go that route.
Dave Nelson
The “you control the camera” feature is not activated in Roanoke.
Thanks for the feedback, Dave.
Erik
We have found that when the browser is being shut down in most cases it is because of Sun’s JAVA. You may need to uninstall the current version of JAVA by going through Add/Remove programs and then install the latest version. Here is the link to install JAVA http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp?cid=jdp123383
Hopefully that will stop the browser shutting down.
Thank you,
Michelle
I was able to connect 2 days lsst week (Wed-Thur) and saw a lot of trains. Fridat on have not been able to connect.
A couple things about this cam. Now it loads in a Windows Media Player application, which closes the initial window. Because of this, the trains.com web site should automatically open a new window when the link to the web cam is opened, so that that window gets closed when media Player opens, rather than the window you were working in getting closed (especially if you wanted to return to previous pages).
Second, although the cam now provides a live stream (and more action with it), and is now worth watching, I find it impossible to save snapshots. There were a couple interesting shots to me this morning, and I tried to save the snapshots with printscreen, a tactic I use for live shots on the Rochelle cam. Well, when I pasted it in Paint, it was simply showing the live picture there! I could not save the snapshot I thought I had taken with Printscreen. How can I save snapshots from Media Player from a live stream?
Third, that tree in the middle is still irritating. Can’t they at least trim the top if they won’t chop the whole thing down? Is there any way to nag the city enough into getting them into doing it? [edited for content by selector] Finally, looking at the top, the lens seems to have busted!