Afke explained that water got into the camera when it rained and hasn't evaporated yet..that is why the focus is 'soft'..to use her word

Bonnie:

 For the past week or more the pictures coming from the pond have been out of focus. I check with some others and they are having the same problem that I am.  This focus is the same on the main page and in RP.  Can you help.  Thank you, Bonnie

 ps. I'm using the new url sight.

 For the past week or more the pictures coming from the pond have been out of focus. I check with some others and they are having the same problem that I am.  This focus is the same on the main page and in RP.  Can you help.  Thank you, Bonnie

Rachael NGS:

Hi Everyone,

A few people have asked us about whether WildCards will be available again.  The reason that they are not on the website anymore is that WildCam is no longer run by NG magazine and we re-skinned the website so it was in the correct format for our new division.  We are trying to find a way to re-format the WildCards so they will be compatible with our new websites and it's taking a little time.   We know that they're a great resource for viewers and educators.  Thanks to everyone who has written about them!

Rachael

 Thanks for the info, Rachael. The WildCards were so nice because they are specific to the pond. We really would appreciate having them available again, and adding more species would be great.

Hi Everyone,

A few people have asked us about whether WildCards will be available again.  The reason that they are not on the website anymore is that WildCam is no longer run by NG magazine and we re-skinned the website so it was in the correct format for our new division.  We are trying to find a way to re-format the WildCards so they will be compatible with our new websites and it's taking a little time.   We know that they're a great resource for viewers and educators.  Thanks to everyone who has written about them!

Rachael

 Hi, redfisher. Are you on a PC or a Mac? If you are on a Mac, someone on the Mac users support group thread may be able to help you. Here is the link to that thread: http://forums.ngm.com/forums/t/2385.aspx

Here is the newest from NG:

Rachael NGS 11/04/08 - While troubleshooting with one of our viewers, we found that many people may still be using the old URL to get to WildCam Africa.  Please change your bookmarked site from

http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamafrica/  to  http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/wildcamafrica/   This way we can ensure an optimal viewing experience for everyone.  Enjoy WildCam Africa!

Are you using this newest addy from Rachael?  If so and you are still having trouble... are you trying to get the pond directly from the main page or just from RP?

Not sure if this is where I need to post this or not...

 I can't get the player to load... it shows a white box in the upper left corner on a black screen.  What do I need to do??

The last 6 or 7 times, this has happened.

Please help!!!!

It's 9:25 pm CST  (5:25 am at the Pond) - color is almost non-existent - like an old black& white with color tinges.

 I've also been forced to use the new web site, and find the video stream is now pixelated.

Anyone found a way to fix this problem?

Ta,

Anne Archbold

There was a major power outage at about 3:15 AM EST.  Afke has not been able to get the sending PC going again and is waiting for help.  You can get more timely info on things like this by checking on the Sightings and Sounds thread.

 Is it me or is the camera offline again? I'm just getting the replay.

 NEW SETUP AT PETE'S POND SUCKS! GO BACK TO OLD SCREEN SETUP!

 http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/wildcamafrica/

The url has changed for the pond..try this addy and you should see the pond live. Make sure to save it to favs!!

Happy camming!!

 Rita, do you know if the pond is live anymore? If i'm able to get to the pond it is always just a night time video as of right now which is 1:30 pm at the pond and the buffering is insane!

8:25 PST: - Speakeasy speed = 890 Kbps

 2:15 EST  cam went down and won't even connect to play the ad..two more tries and cam back up

2:26 down and back again

matthewcalder:

I got a message that they are having local internet problems there today, which throws a wrench in our testing, but would account for some of what you are seeing.

Who is "they"?  Do you mean at Mashatu?  If so, that problem was over before the following:

A little after 5 PM PST on WEdnesday, after 8 minutes of playing, I started receiving slides instead of full motion video.  Clip info showed the following:

Notice "Displayed" = 2.2%!  "Dropped" = 8 - it is off the screen to the right.*  Speakeasy said that my incoming rate was 960 Kbps, yet RP was only getting 3Kbps.  This would lead me to believe that that was all that was being sent, for some reason.  At 9 minutes 48 seconds it stopped completely and had to be re-started.  It came right back to the live feed - did not go to the rerun, so transmission from Mashatu had not stopped.  This has beome typical behavior lately. 

 BTW, the new Conaco/Phillips commercial does not play properly.  It stalls and pixillates.

* Melia Tech, are they ever going to put back the horizontal scroll bar in forum messages?

 Hey Lap, I got the pond up but Belize was the one that would not restart. When it did it was a clip and still is!

 Well, not to confuse you too much, I have been watching for 5 hours and my rp only quit twice and both in the last hour ...even the sound is staying on today. It says it is running at 150kbs if that means anything to you

Thanks, Matthew. Now Rp quit on me and won't restart on the pond. I can get the Belize Reef cam, just not the pond...????  I have 3 addys I use and none works... another viewer says hers started right back up ok, so guess I will keep trying... even thout the "connection to server has timed out"... I will be persistent !

I got a message that they are having local internet problems there today, which throws a wrench in our testing, but would account for some of what you are seeing.

Now RP has stopped and does not want to start again... Yikes !

IT is acting really stupid today.... lots of "communicating", stuttering, at which time the sound quits. It will not let me "grab" the button to bring it to actual like it usually will (and I know you probably won't understand that but it gets behind actual time when communicating and I can usually pull the little button to the right to catch it back up to actual time). Today when I try to pull it forward it ends up restarting and I lose anything in the cache.

It is encoded at 150 Kbps and is actually playing at an average of 155. Well, it was. Now it totally quit and had to restart. Current is jumping from about 132 to 159 Kbps.... Min of 80.3, Max of 204.9 Kbps.

Thanks.

Edit: Now I have a Min of 15 and Max of 645 Kbps...

 I've tried with both IE7 and Firefox 2.0.0.7 to get RP to load without any luck. No viewing of the web cam at all. Just a blank space on the web page where the cam should be.

Worser and worser.  In the past half hour RP has been unable to play for more than a few seconds without stopping to reload.  The Clip Info data is becoming even more bizarre.

Note the "Lost" and "Dropped" data.  Also, right after this image was snapped the "Displayed" reading dropped down to 23%, and the FPS down to .2.