Captions

SiteCam lets you add up to four text messages to your video image. Each caption can contain static text, time stamps, and date stamps.

You can select a font, size, style, and color for your text captions. There is also a transfer mode which changes how the text is drawn on the video image. Text can be vertical, as well as horizontal.

Hint: Position the Preview window and the Caption window so both can be seen at the same time.

Mode

• Normal: text is drawn on the image without a background color
• Background: the background color is painted behind the text
• Invert: uses the background color
• Gray blend: uses the foreground and background colors to blend into the video image
• Shadow 1: paints a 1-pixel offset drop shadow using the background color below the normal text
• Shadow 2: same as Shadow 1 except the offset is 2 pixels down and to the right
• Overlay 1: adds a 1 by 2-pixel border using the background color around the text
• Overlay 2: adds a 1 by 4-pixel border using the background color around the text

Orient

Direction that the text will orient itself:

• Across, left-to-right
• Down, top-to-bottom
• Up, bottom-to-top

Position

Where caption will be located on the SiteCam image. Must choose from both the horizontal and vertical columns:

• Horizontal: from the left, from the right, or centered
• Vertical: from the top, from the bottom, or centered
• Other: Horizontal: You decide how many pixels in from the left
• Other: Vertical: You decide how many pixels down from the top

The <COUNTER> variable is for testing purposes. It can be used to help determine how many images are being streamed per second. It is incremented each time the caption is drawn. Its usage is subject to change in the future.

Hint: Click the "Randomizer" button to test different color &drawing mode settings.

Making your Captions Look Good

The secret to good looking captions is to use colors that show up well in all lighting conditions and at the image quality that you're using. If you use JPEG lowest quality setting, text needs to be big enough to be seen at the low resolution.

For best results, use a two color font by selecting one of the Shadow or Overlay modes. Sometimes white makes a good text color when used with a contrasting background color.