I have a site that outputs in JPG's updated every few seconds. How can I record the images for later viewing?

I tried googling 'jpg recorder', but got nothing.

Anyone have any ideas?

1/7/2009 12:53:15 PM

give more details

a website displays a jpg image every few seconds and you want to save them all?

can you give us the link? is it actually a jpg image or is it in some other sort of container

1/7/2009 12:56:09 PM

can you elaborate on what you want?

[Edited on January 7, 2009 at 12:57 PM. Reason : ^]

1/7/2009 12:57:06 PM

well my son's daycare uses http://www.watchmegrow.com which my account only allows me to view his classroom.

it has a frame which updates the image every 5-10 seconds or so. they are jpg's (i can right click and 'save image as').

i'd like to store the jpg's to view at my lesiure and also for any problems that crop up.

it has 5 selectable cameras that i can view. i would like to record all of the images on all 5 camera feeds.

here's the code.

<TABLE CLASS="maintext" BORDER="0" WIDTH="100%" CELLSPACING="0"
  CELLPADDING="10"><TR><TD VALIGN="top">
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
  accesslimit = 15;
  framedelay  = 1100;
//-->
</SCRIPT>

<div class="videopanel">

    <div class="camlogo">
      <img src="webimages/wmg_logo_thin.gif" width="210" 
			height="40" alt="WatchMeGrow">

    </div>

    <div class="floatselect">
      <div class="row">
        <span class="label">Camera:</span><span class="formw">
          <select name="camselect" id="camselect"
                  onchange="javascript:cameraSelect();">
            <option value="0">Select a Camera</option>
          </select> <b><i id="camstatus"></i></b>

        </span>
         
      </div>
      <div class="row">
        <span class="label">Time:</span><span class="formw">
          <select name="timeselect" id="timeselect"
                  onchange="javascript:change_video();">
            <option>Select a Time</option>
          </select> <b><i id="timestatus"></i></b>

        </span>
         
      </div>
    </div>

    
		<br clear="all"><center>
    <div class="controls">
      <a href="javascript:rew_video();"><img src="webimages/rew2_btn.gif"
      alt="rewind" name="rewind" border="0" width="26" height="22"></a>

    	  <a href="javascript:start_video();"><img
      src="webimages/play_btn.gif" name="play" alt="play" border="0" width="54"
      height="22"></a>

    	  <a href="javascript:stop_video();"><img
      src="webimages/stop_btn.gif" alt="stop" name="stop" border="0" width="54"
      height="22"></a>

    	  <a href="javascript:pause_video();"><img
      src="webimages/pause2_btn.gif" alt="pause" name="pause" border="0" width="26"
      height="22"></a>

    	  <a href="javascript:fwd_video();"><img
      src="webimages/fwd2_btn.gif" alt="fast forward" name="fastforward"
      border="0" width="26" height="22"></a>

    	  <img src="get_times.php?time=none" alt="timestamp" name="timestmp"
      ID="timestmp" border="0">

	  <a href="snapshots.php"><img src="webimages/snapshots_btn.gif" alt="Snapshots" border="0"></a>
			  <a href="help.php"><img 
			src="webimages/help_btn.gif" alt="help" name="help" ID="help" border="0" width="54" 
			height="22"></a>
    </div>
    </center>
	
</div>
<div class="camviewer">
	<center>
		<img src="webimages/space.gif" border="0" ID="cameraview" class="camview"
				 alt="Video">

	</center>
</div>

1/7/2009 1:36:23 PM

if you are looking for a program you can install and point to the site and have it download the photos, i don't know of anything that will do that. especially considering you have to log in.

if you're ok with leaving a browser open somewhere, you could possibly find a UI automation tool that will do it. or even write a greasemonkey script that could do it.

if it were me, i would write a php script using curl or wget

[Edited on January 7, 2009 at 1:53 PM. Reason : or a c# app if you don't want it web-accessible]

1/7/2009 1:51:23 PM

this isn't a hard script to write and you may find someone on here that will write it for you - if you don't though a simple solution would be one of these - http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-to-capture-save-screenshots-of.html

just setup a scheduled task to run (the wizard doesn't allow you to set one to run as frequently as you want but i imagine that can be tweaked with a little googling) or just write a quick batch script to do it for you

i'm assuming you can login once in the morning - leave that browswer open or maybe not even have to depending on how it times out your login

1/7/2009 1:54:12 PM

there is an auto logout on idle timer with watchmegrow.

1/7/2009 1:58:41 PM

^ if you go the browser route, you could probably get around the autologout with a greasemonkey that just reloads the page every so often

1/7/2009 2:06:01 PM

You guys are making this terribly compliated. UI automation?

I did something similar to download an XML file from the IMF every hour. You need a JPG, but it's basically the same thing, just download a file after logging in.

http://philihp.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-get-xdr-exchange-rate-xml-feed.html

In this, I have 2 wget commands... the first which submits a request to their page that gives me an output table rendered into an HTML. The format of the output table is saved to the session, and a session cookie is returned. The second imitates clicking on the "export to XML" link, which includes the session cookie from the first request.

Yours will be very similar. You need 2 wget commands. One that makes it look like you're submitting login info to their site, and saves the session cookie. The second which immitates your browser looking at the image file using the session cookie. And I guess in your case you need a rename command to rename the image file to the current date and time (my 3rd step was to process the XML and save it to a database). Schedule it in your crontab for whatever interval.

1/7/2009 3:33:15 PM

i only gave the "terribly complicated" option because i didn't assume he is going to write his own software. not everybody is a programmer. and if he is, you can do what both of us suggested and write the script

1/7/2009 4:36:32 PM