|
 - Not very impressive!!!Purchased this Camera expecting it to operate as good or better the the much less expencive BL-C20A did. The picture quality was sub-par for a camera that was 400 dollars more, I expected more. The wireless set up was a ritual in frustration, reset the camera multiple times, repowered, downloaded the updates, packaged it up and am sending it back. I think for a camera that is 650 dollars, it should preform considerably better. The Weather Proofing and WiFi was why I purchased it, so I will look elsewhere for another product. Rating:  - Excellent high-quality outdoor web camI had first purchased a couple of Panasonic BL-30C wireless web cams to keep an eye on a vacation house that is far away from us. I wanted to put one outside too and decided to give this one a try against the weather. It was a bit harder to set up than the BL-30c, but after a few trial and errors and some persistence, I managed to get this one going too. The picture quality is very impressive and the audio is a nice optional feature! Very clear viewing in the daytime, and good night mode too. It has been reliable, and I am very pleased I bought it. Rating:  - Bad Quality CameraI am extremely unhappy with this camera. On the surface, the camera looks great--it offers SD recording, wireless connectivity, and remote management. But this is a really poorly made camera with poor supporting software. Firstly, it took me 3 nights trying to set this up--and I'm a long time techie. I followed the directions EXACTLY... got wired connection working fine... but the wireless was terrible. The camera kept telling me it wouldn't connect, even though I had all the settings correct. I even reset my wireless router to setup the most basic wireless LAN, and it still didn't work. Then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason it worked. Garbage. I still don't know why it worked. The remote management was interesting and I like the fact that it let me control and move the camera remotely. It also lets you setup specific times to allow "triggers"... but the trigger software is spotty. The sensitivity controls for when the triggers set off didn't work well at all and it basically capture everything or nothing. Axis has much better event management software. Finally, the picture quality is TERRIBLE. It claims that it can record up to VGA at 12 frames/sec, but it doesn't even COME close to that... at VGA it records maybe 1 or 2 frames/sec at best. Even at that quality there are noticeable artifacts and blurriness. I researched all the other cameras at this price level and amazingly this seemed that it had the best specs, but I suppose there's no subsitution for first hand experience. This is a terrible camera... I ended up buying the Axis 207w. It doesn't have movement capabilities, but for half the price, it's picture quality is 2x better and setup was a breeze. Rating: - Defective camera, lousy serviceI already have two Panasonic BL-C30A cameras that work ok, though not perfectly (see below). I purchased the BB-HCM371A for use outside the house. However, when I connected it to my router I got a blinking red light. According to the installation manual that indicates an internal malfunction. Although it appeared that I got a defective product I decided to contact Panasonic service to see if I was missing something. First, I sent an email and quickly got a typical reply, probably automated. The reply was simply to connect the camera to the router exactly as described in the manual, which of course I had already done. So then I called the 800 number. The automated answering service was one of the worst I have ever encountered - asking me to describe the problem in normal language but then unable to understand what I was saying. It was almost a parody of an automated answering service and I finally gave up in disgust without ever getting through to a real person. I am returning the camera to Amazon for a refund. I will definitely not purchanse this camera again and cannot recommend it. I have had better luck with my two BL-C30A cameras but it does have some annoying bugs. For example, when accessing the camera over the internet it automatically recenters which can be quite aggravating if you want it pointing to the side. Rating: - Excellent video webcamI looked for a long time for a remote camera to keep an eye on a vacation residence. Reviews of other similar cameras like the Toshiba IK-WB11A were spotty at best especially when using in wireless mode. Panasonic cameras seemed to get good reliability reviews, so when an outdoor wireless-G came out I decided to give it a try. I had some difficulty getting the ports forwarded through my router. The directions are pretty sparse when it comes to setting up your router. I guess there is a fair variability in how each different router is set up. Once that problem was solved it has been rock solid. In the 4 months I have had it running, I only had to reset it once, after a 3 day power failure. Actually, I think it was the router, not the camera that needed to be reset, but I reset everything. It does everything it is advertised to do although I don't use the audio feature. The motion detection feature works better than other webcam security software that I have tried.
|
