Monday, June 13, 2011

Getting the most out of Live Cams Pro

Here are a few quick tips for new Live Cams Pro users:

Hide or Show Thumbnail Labels
A simple swipe upwards on the thumbnails will remove the labels from the screen. This is useful if you want to maximize the viewing space available on your iPhone. To bring the labels back into view, swipe down on the thumbnails and the labels will reappear. Settings are saved when you close the app so that it looks the same when you launch it again later.

Install the app on multiple devices (iPads, iPhones, iPod Touches)
If you have more than one iOS device then you probably want to have a copy of Live Cams Pro on each one. Simply download the app onto each device and make your initial license purchase using iTunes on one of them. On each additional device you can press the "Restore Purchases" button in the store tab to bring your purchases into effect. This is also how you can recover in-app purchases if you replace or re-install your existing device.

Keep your camera information up-to-date on all devices
Any private cameras or favorites that you have are stored locally on your iOS device. This is not posted to a server or shared with the world in any way. If you want to have the same information on another copy of Live Cams Pro, use the IMPORT/EXPORT functions in the settings screens. A wireless transfer of your data will take place (using Wifi or Bluetooth) from one device to another when you choose "Import" on one and "Export" on the other.

Advanced camera features can be accessed on the iPad thumbnail screen!
Double-tap on a private camera thumbnail when on an iPad to bring up the advanced options for a particular camera. For many models you can alter contrast, brightness, resolution, alarm settings, LED settings and more!

Drag the PTZ or Advanced Settings window out of the way
Tap and hold the title bar of the advanced settings menu (or the open space in the PTZ window) to drag the window out of the way. On the iPhone this can only be performed on the PTZ window.

Use "List" mode when travelling abroad to save $$$
Roaming charges are bad enough when you are simply sending emails and text messages. If you are using Live Cams Pro to monitor personal surveillance systems then you will probably want to change the app to show text-based lists of cameras instead of the usual thumbnail mode. Video will only be loaded when you select a specific camera. The app automatically reduces the refresh rate of thumbnails and video on cell networks but it can still be costly if you are pulling images from a high-resolution camera.
Individual frames of video can be as much as 2 or 3 megabytes.