A few weeks ago, I purchased a Linksys WVC54GCA Wireless IP-Camera and found myself somewhat frustrated.  The has been dutifully monitoring the breakfast nook in the kitchen, and sure enough, the pups spend minutes out of the day in there.  That's right, minutes!

Since Romy and Mothi have decided that the living room is more their style these days, I thought it was a good opportunity to revist the IP-Camera project, and (hopefully) correct some of my first-time missteps.

 
What's over there?

PTZ.  Pan. Tilt. Zoom.  One of the issues I had with my Linksys fixed camera was that it monitored only a fairly narrow portion of the room.  Now in the living room, I knew I need my camera to be able to cover a larger area, and the ablity to move the camera around was a necessity.  The Pannie sports a 180 degree pan, and a 150 degree tilt.  Its digital zoom isn't going to win any awards, but the range of movement easily compensates.

But it'll cost ya!

PTZ adds an easy $100 to the standard fixed versions.  If I wanted to also keep wireless, I'm looking at $250.  Yipes.  Enter Powerline Adaptors.  I'd like to write a more detailed post on these suckers alone, but in a nutshell, Powerline Adaptors convert the electrical wiring in your home into network cabling.  So anywhere you have an outlet, you have network at abour 85mbps.  A fantastic compromise which put my camera investment back down to $160.

Network Printing should be this easy...

The BL-C111A.  Box to streaming video in less than 6 minutes. I timed it.  Fine, I cheated a little.  I only run Macs at home, so using the included setup CD wasn't going to fly.  I found this fantastic tip that pointed me to the camera's default address (192.168.0.254). 

By     Jefferson Harkins (FL, VI, NS) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)  
Panasonic doesn't support it, but this camera, and all Panasonic Netcams, work fine with a Mac. Later versions of Safari, Netscape and Firefox allow you to view full motion video. No add-ons or active-x or other such nonsense is needed with. The video just works.

As for setup, you will have to set this (and other Panasonic Netcams) up with a broswer, not with the automatic setup CD that works with windows. It's not difficult. Configure your Mac to use the built in Ethernet connection only, configured manually to IP address 192.168.0.5, subnet 255.255.255.0. Connect an ethernet cable between your Mac and the Camera (with a modern Mac any cable will do, with older ones you'll need a crossover cable.) Then access the camera at the address specified deep in the documentation (for this camera it's 192.168.0.253). The first time in you'll be asked to select a username and password. Do that and then you'll have full access to the setup utilities where you can change IP addrerss, DCHP, and other parameters. You can also setup the excellent free viewnetcam.com service and give your camera a real internet name. This is my third Panasonic Netcam, and I've been very pleased with them all.

The web setup is comprehensive and intuitive.  While the camera can stream RTSP, I've found enabling my router's UPnP setting and allowing the camera to auto-configure its port forwarding is a much better bet.

The web portal works like a charm on my iPhone, and supports display from upto 16 cameras.  So I'm officially on the lookout for as many as these little Pannies as I can!  If you're on the fence about picking up an easy, solid camera to keep an eye on your pets or kids or whatever, you cannot go wrong with the BL-C111A.  Git one!