A new widescreen, high definition weathercam has gone live on the site today, bringing much clearer pictures and improved time-lapse video quality to the site.

The new camera replaces the old standard-definition camera which has served FifeWeather well for the past 6 years (yes it really has managed to stand up to the Scottish elements all that time!), which will be permanently retired once the new weathercam has had time to prove itself reliable.  The image refresh interval is still 15 seconds, as per the original weathercam (with the small preview image on the home page also unchanged, refreshing once a minute).

The installation of the new camera brings a few new features including:

A new weathercam history page, with clickable weathercam stills for the day, which zoom-in, when clicked.

Clearer time-lapse videos (the first, from the 7th of January is now online) with increased resolution and smoother motion due to four (rather than the previous two) images used per time-lapsed-minute.

The ability for us to publish ad hoc, full-motion live video streams for significant weather events, such as snow fall (details will be published when video streaming goes live).

Better low-light performance.

For those into the technical specifications, the new camera provides images at a resolution of 720p, at 25 frames per second (max 30) over RTSP.

On a lighter note, the observant amongst our visitors, particularly those keen on viewing the daily time-lapse videos, may have noticed the installation of the new camera taking place on the 6th of January, when there were a few fleeting glimpses of the face behind FifeWeather.co.uk on the old weathercam. :)