PANASONIC BL-C30A Wireless Network Camera

Rating:
Summary: Not good on a Mac!
Review: First, I will say that this camera is great! The image is clear even in low light, and we found it pretty easy to set up with our Linksys wireless router. I did have a few questions and had an excellent experience with their customer service number--both times I got someone immediately who told me what to do.

However, customer service told me that this camera will not stream video to a Mac! The next best option is to have the image refresh every 3 seconds. It is better than nothing, but I felt mislead from the info provided on Amazon. It works great on our PC, though.

Rating:
Summary: Good value, reasonable image
Review: I have had my BL-C30A for about 2 weelks and overall I am satisfied with the performance. I agree with the reviewer who said image was not adequate for detailed surveilance. I would suggest you go to: http://www.securityideas.com/securitycam/demos.html to view and work an actual camera. I pretty well knew what I was getting. I use my camera as a weather cam and it is C+/B- for this purpose. Wireless setup and Internet access were quite simple, thanks to a good instruction manual. Three features that would have been nice are zoom, focus, and a date/timestamp on the images. I really didn't want to spend the additional money to get these features. I wrote an email to Panasonic regarding lack of a date/timestamp and got an automated reply 2 weeks later that didn't even address the question, let alone answer it, so D- for technical support. For the money, I suspect that this is as good as it gets.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not good enough for surveillance
Review: Let me begin by offering my overall experience with this camera. I had no difficulty at all setting it up for either wired or wireless operation. The included software worked flawlessly allowing me to easily operate the pan and tilt operations, and allowing me to record sessions.

For my purposes, my intention was to supplement a surveillance system I currently have in operation using two high resolution Toshiba network cameras. I was hoping to be able to get half-decent quality from a camera costing about 1/2 of the cost of the Toshibas. Unfortunately, that's what I got...about half the image quality.

In general 640x480 does not provide sufficient resolution for surveillance as you cannot make out features in any detail. For example, you may be able to see someone entering your home, but you'll never be able to identify that person. Overall clarity was ok, better than, for example, another Linksys camera that I tried, but still I was unable to identify facial features in a person standing just 10 feet from the camera (using all of the highest image quality modes). Comparing this to my Toshiba cameras operating at just 800x600 is like comparing night to day, as the Toshiba is able to distinguish relatively fine detail.

All in all, for the price, it does what it advertises, and is better than other lower cost cameras that I've also tried (like the Linksys). However, I've found no camera in this price range to be able to work as a true surveillance camera. (I suggest the Toshiba IK-WB11A as the entry point of true surveillance network cameras.)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent camera, but can be hard to setup and requires IE
Review: The Panasonic BL-C30A is a wireless camera with embedded web server. It can be connected to your home network through an ethernet cable or wirelessly (the initial setup has to be performed through the ethernet connection). Once you've properly configured it for wireless mode, you don't need a computer: just plug the power adapter into an outlet and place the camera wherever you want (within the range of your wireless network).

Anyone can connect and view/control the camera remotely. If you have a broadband connection and know how to configure your router to open a port and assign it to the camera's IP address, you can see your webcam from anywhere in the world. Very handy to keep an eye on your office or empty apartment while you're away.

The embedded web server supports access restrictions through passwords of course; and users can pan/tilt the camera lens -- the only drawback is that Internet Explorer is required to use the camera (the display and controls are handled through an ActiveX control, which basically means that only Windows PCs with IE will be able to use access it).

Image quality is pretty good: you have a choice of straming video at 320x240 or 640x480 (at a reduced frame rate) and you can control brightness and video quality from remote. Users can also take 'snapshots' (i.e. save individual images).

I have another wireless webcam (a Linksys WVC11B) and the Panasonic's image quality and features are definitely superior (on the other hand the Linksys is also $100 cheaper).

The camera also offers additional advanced features like heat detection (which can turn the camera on automatically and send an email alert if someone, or something, warm gets within the sensor's range) and scripting. I've never used this, but I suppose it can be useful if you plan to set up the camera as part of a rudimentary security/surveillance system. Some cameras offer motion detection, but it can be triggered by changes in light -- heat detection seems to make more sense.

Main caveat: configuration can be tough, especially if you're a newbie. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable and it still took me a while to get it work with my wireless network until I figured out that I had to set the WEP encryption mode to 'open key' on my wireless access point (shared key mode is not supported, though this fact is buried in the documentation).

Overall, I recommend the BL-C30A but I wish Panasonic provided a way for non-IE users to access the camera (and the configuration software could also be vastly improved).

Rating:
Summary: Great Network Camera!
Review: This is a fantastic network camera - the best of the consumer cameras out there (plus it's very small and looks cool too!). I only wish the CMOS camera was better - it's not very sharp and blurry on the edges.