Panasonic Network Camera and Pet Cam (BLC1A)

I recently had something damaged ($$$$) in my apartment and both cleaning lady and Super denied involvement, so I figured that at least going forward I should be smart about my stuff. I was looking for a "small" surveillance solution ("small" in size, effort, running cost, intrusion, and wallet), and so far, the Panasonic seems to fit my bill. Details:

HARDWARE:

This device has a somewhat odd shape which, together with the bright white enclosure makes it stand out a little too much for my taste, especially if you planned to discretely put it on a bookshelf. Inside the (easily openable) enclosure, you'll find a single square motherboard where the actual camera is soldered onto. Bummer for those DIY-ers who perhaps hoped to separate the cam from the board in order to conceal it in a stuffed animal or something. The camera has a power led which to my surprise is software- controllable: it can be on, off, or on while recording.

The camera sensor itself is very tiny. From the picture it looks like you'll get 1/2" worth of camera, but most of it is ornaments (like space to prominently print "digital zoom network camera") and the CCD is no bigger than in a cheap cellphone. With that small a sensor, I would have hoped that Panasonic forewent the color filter and make the camera black&white, which would have increased sharpness and light sensitivity, but clearly engineering folded to the marketing department here. Also, the field of view seems quite narrow to me - surveillance should be as wide- angled as possible, even at the expense of detail. Finally, the resolution of the sensor is low (640x480), yet the digital noise is high. I'm subtracting 1 star for not putting in a better or more specialized camera.


SOFTWARE:

This product comes with some PC software, but frankly I haven't touched it after reading a the other reviews here. You can set up the camera entirely with a web browser once you figured out the address. As for making the surveillance available on the net, it is no different than exposing a web server using dyndns.org.

The in-camera software is better than I expected. I addition to some camera preferences like brightness, etc. you can set days/hours of
operation, and register other cameras so you can view them all on one screen. On the actual life view screen you can specify the refresh interval or "motion" to save on bandwith when you're monitoring remotely. In addition to live viewing, the unit can also buffer or transfer pictures. This works as follows: you have five "triggers", which can be configured independantly. For each trigger, you can specify hours of operation, how it's triggered (interval or motion), how many pictures to process, how long to wait to retrigger and whether to save them to internal memory, or transfer them via email or ftp. I find this concept very versatile yet understandable. The internal buffer is very small though, holds barely 90 pictures in lowres(!).

On the minus side regarding the software, the translation is sometimes challenging, especially in important sections. For example, there are two sliders on the motion detection tab, the explanation reading: "Threshold: Adjust the threshold. If the threshold is set low, this software sensitively detects changes. Sensitivity: If you set sensitivity high, amplitude of motion detection bar gets jumpy.". I assume these sliders are meant to configure the camera so it doesn't take your small pet for an intruder, but good luck figuring those out! Also, you cannot define any dead zones for motion detection. However, the firmware is upgradeable, so perhaps these things will improve.

This would be a 5-star device if it wasn't for the weak and narrow- angled camera. The only two ways to go up from here though are to either shell out four times as many dollares for an Axis megapixel camera or buy a good webcam for the same price as this panasonic and then use surveillance software on an always-on PC.

This camera works really well. I have been using the D-Link 900 series cameras for years but this camera is a breath of fresh air. It's very easy to setup. It will stream video to just about any web browser. It will also stream motion video to the iPhone!

Night video is very clear for a camera in this price range. It will pickup any object in very low light conditions. Much better than the D-Link cameras.

The buffering feature is awesome. You can set the camera to take one snapshot every minute giving you the ability to view a time lapse video of the past 4 hours (320X240) or 2 hours (640X480). Have it point outside and it makes a very cool video of clouds changing shapes.

Excellent camera and well worth the price.

For me, using XP, it was easy to set up. I was able to view from the internet also but then something went wrong and I had to reset it and now I cannot view it from the internet, only local access. I bought it because I have a sneaky child and I busted him being bad not even 10 minutes after setup LOL. I spy with my lil eye! There is no "night vision"; it works well in the day, and you can't see a thing in the dark. That is not good for me because half of what I need to watch is that he will go to sleep when he is supposed to. I also wish it had pan/tilt, so obviously I will need to upgrade. But for the basic purpose it does well and I do like that it records! I can also see the dog LOL! She's sneaky too. For $50 gold deal, it was a good bargain. It was supposed to be "silver" though and it looks white to me.

When you try to set up this pet cam it looks like it will work great. Then, when you try to set it up through Panasonic's system, it is impossible. After spending several hours on the phone with "tech support" I gave up and sent the item back. It's sad when a large corporation like Panasonic can't
even make the set up through their system work. Don't waste your time and money on this product!

L. McLane

I love this camera because I'm able to easily monitor my home and my dog, from my laptop or even my cell phone. The setup was easy BUT I had to go download more info from the Panasonic website, because the instructions are really confusing. It's quite simple, but they make it confusing. Otherwise, great, totally worth it for my peace of mind with my pet.