Downloading Pontu pictures

[ame]

Downloading single Pontu pictures
is as easy as viewing them: after opening a picture right-click on it and select "Save Image".
to open a Pontu picture you'll need to have the address of the picture correct. the format of addresses is normally given in one of the first posts of each nest topic. the date usually appears twice and sometimes the address is also case-sensitive (CAPITAL letters need to be CAPITAL).


then you will be asked where you wish to save the image and with what name. when your selections are done click "Save". the default name can be seen below.

[ame]

downloading one picture at a time is far too laborious and time consuming if one wishes to see more than a few of them. then some other means is needed to download pictures in bulk. i assume that there must be many tools to carry out this task. in the following i shall describe the use of one such program. our member 0Hansen once taught me this procedure. many thanks to him!

for downloading Pontu pictures in bulk a practical tool is a program called NeoDownloader

they have two versions of the program: the Lite-version which is freeware, and the Full Version which you have to pay for. the Lite version is slower but it has been quick enough for my purposes. you need to download an old version of the NeoDownloader, version 2.9.4. you can download it for example from this web-site:
http://neodownloader-lite.soft32.com/old-version/
the newer Lite versions don't work properly, because they are fixed so that the download speed decreased to zero during the downloading process. this is probably a trick built in the program in hope that people will buy the full version.
i shall not describe how the downloading of the program happens. as far i remember it was very straight-forward: download it and then run the installation. it was very simple.

i'll write ND instead of NeoDownloader in the following.

[ame]

first you need to create a list of the addresses of the pictures which you wish to download. this can be done using any text processor, for example Word. first copy carefully one address:
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-07-44.JPG

then make 60 copies of this one address. here the end, the hour-minute-part varies from one picture to the next. you'll need to edit these 60 lines so that you all the minutes in an hour. then you should make 24 copies of these 60 lines, one for each hour. then it'll be a relatively small task to replace 07 first with 00 for 60 times, then 60 times with 01, then 60 times with 02 etc. in the end you'll have a list of all the minutes of all the hours in a day, 1440 lines altogether. save this file with an easy name, like for example PontuDayJuras-Erglis2015.

for every different day you'll then need to edit this file by replacing the date-part with a new day. for example Replace all '2015-02-24' with '2015-02-25'. then you'll get all the dates right.


i'll give here the first 10 lines of this address list so that you can copy it from here and use as a "seed" for your own list. start by making copies for tens of minutes, then twenties of minutes etc for one whole first hour.

193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-00.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-01.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-02.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-03.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-04.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-05.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-06.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-07.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-08.JPG
193.40.124.24/2015-juras-erglis/2015-02-24/juras-erglis-2015-02-24-00-09.JPG

make sure that there are no extra returns in the file, and that all necessary returns are there. then save you file (Ctrl-S), then select all (Ctrl-A) and copy your selection (Ctrl-C). this will copy the list of the 1440 addresses on the Clipboard.
next open the NeoDownloader program BUT KEEP Word OPEN,too . in this case the copied address list will remain on the clipboard.

[ame]

this is the opening view of ND. click "Continue".


click on the green + to create a new project. Ctrl-N will do the same trick.


in the next window
- click CTRL-C on the first line. this will copy your address list there (unless you have copied someting else on your clipboard after copying the addresses).
- press Tab-button to jump to the next line. there you'll have a title like in the picture below, highlighted. select the title by for example pressing arrow-right. you can also give soem other title if you with butthis default is practical.
- finally press "Next"

[ame]

in the next window
- first un-select "Start immediately"
- then select "Open advanced ..."
- confirm by clicking "Finish"


in General options you can select the folder where you want to get your pictures. ND does create a folder for each project itself, but here your can change this default if you wish. note that the folder must be created before you start ND. otherwise the browser function will not find it.


i have created a folder structure like shown in the picture: a folder for each day in each month. in this structure the folder name corresponds to the project name.
after your selection click "OK".

[ame]

then go to "Starting Addresses". there you will see the first line in your address list. either add after it the whole list by clicking Ctrl-C, or replace the one line with your list. finally click "OK".


then click the green "Start"- button.

[ame]

the project will start, but the Lite version only crawls... very, very slowly. you need to first "Stop"


... and then click the "Resume project" -button.


then finally the ND Lite will start downloading the pictures starting from the bottom of the list, three at a time at the total rate which ND Lite promises (about 128 KB/s). it's a good practice to check after a while that pictures really are being downloaded (the bottom lines of the window). otherwise ND will keep crawling and no files will actually be downloaded. - i can't remember how i learned this start-stop-restart -procedure. it is perhaps a trick which the ND-people use to make people buy the Total Version.

[ame]

some years ago our member debianuser made a nice little tool for viewing a small amount of pictures from the server without downloading them. i don't know if this tool is still available.

debianuser
is the tool still available. could you please write a short description of it here?

some of you may know other tricks to view or download the Pontu pictures than the ones that i have described above. you are most welcome to write descriptions of your methods here!

[Biker]

do you mean this:
http://pontu.ca/ ?

[Biker]

I found the Link in my bookmarks. Now I remember where I knew the link
debianuser wrote:

Mobile/full versions open based on the browser identification string. Did you try opening this page on other browsers?

_________________
*New: Now includes snapshots for Red Deer,Latvian Osprey and Bear cam*
http://pontu.ca/ Pontu video and picture archive viewer with easy date and camera selection.

[ame]

do you mean this:
http://pontu.ca/ ?

yes. so it seems to be available still. thank you biker.
and debianuser of course, too.

[debianuser]

some years ago our member debianuser made a nice little tool for viewing a small amount of pictures from the server without downloading them. i don't know if this tool is still available.

debianuser
is the tool still available. could you please write a short description of it here?

some of you may know other tricks to view or download the Pontu pictures than the ones that i have described above. you are most welcome to write descriptions of your methods here!

I know this is a little late, but sure I can.


Its as simple as 123. 1 is Camera name, 2 is type of media(Snapshots or Video stream) and 3 is date and time for snapshots and multi-view snapshots. In snapshots mode, it works as you would expect. You select exact date and time and it shows you that picture if it exists.(or server/camera is not down)
Multi-view works a little different: instead of select one specific photo, you can see 6 photos at the same time for the hour you selected. The last digit of minutes will determine the last digit of every 6 snapshots in an hour. So, for example, if you set 09/01/2015 06:34, it will show you pictures for 6:04,6:14,6:24,6:34,6:44 and 6:54 of September 1st 2015.


To save images, or get the pontu link you can right click photo on pretty much any browser.