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102 of 106 found the following review helpful:
 Excellent video webcamFeb 19, 2006
By Nathaniel Gildersleeve
"Nat"
I 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.
Addendum:
I have now had this installed over 4 years and it continues to function as good as the day I bought it. As it is in a vacation home and I am frequently gone, I have had some problems with loss access via the internet. It appears that this is secondary to flaky DSL router. I finally purchased a simple timer at the hardware store. It turns off the router every night at midnight and then turns it back on a minute later, effectively resetting the router each day. Since then no problems. It doesn't require a computer to be running so both the router and the camera boot back up following a power failure.
15 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 Worth itFeb 15, 2008
By Archer Koch
I've used this camera for the better part of a year now. I've used it in a variety of locations and conditions. It's presently mounted outdoors and transmitting wirelessly to a router sitting indoors 340' away. I use dynamic DNS to access the camera remotely via DSL. The framerate is decent, but still-picture quality (clarity) could definitely be better -- especially when the subject is moving. The motion detection is good and triggers reliably to upload images to an FTP site. The camera is very configurable, but best-suited for the tech-savvy. Plus, it's evident that a lot of the instructions written into the camera firmware were done by a non-native English-speaking individual. I've successfully viewed the camera remotely via my Motorola Q. Sound quality from the camera is very good. I can hear the frogs chirping in a nearby riverbed right now.
For what it's worth, I also own a very expensive Axis camera. The bottom line is that, although this camera has room for improvement, it still comes pretty close to justifying its cost.
27 of 32 found the following review helpful:
Software Has ProblemsAug 20, 2008
By A. Conti
I purchased this camera because I didn't want to run Ethernet cable to my router. If this is not a problem for you, I would recommend you check out the BB-HCM311A. Note that with the BB-HCM371A, you still have to run wire for power, which sort of defeats the wireless concept.
Be warned that you still need an ethernet cable to plug into your router for set up.
Speaking of setup, if you don't know your network settings, this camera will be a pain to setup. For example, if you don't know the IP to your DNS, you're in trouble. Fortunately for me, I managed to configure it successfully and I'm no system administrator.
Physical installation was straight forward. I mounted my camera high and I was afraid I was going to drop it while threading it to the mount. Panasonic really should have come up with a safety system where you can tether the camera while you screw it in place.
My biggest gripe is the web-based software. It's feature-rich, but I cannot capture images the way I like. For example, I cannot acquire a time lapse movie of an overnight shot. I either get the first few seconds or the last few seconds. If a prowler saunters into camera shot at 2:00AM, I wouldn't see him. There's also a bug when you play the time-lapse motion image. Once you play it once, you cannot play it again. :-(
Also, downloaded images are in PCN form. What the heck kind of image format is that?
Another gripe is that night vision isn't great. In this day and age, a camera like this should perform better in terms of night vision.
33 of 40 found the following review helpful:
 Bad Quality CameraFeb 10, 2007
By W. Wong
"mikmuck"
I 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.
27 of 33 found the following review helpful:
 Too PC-dependent and lacks WPA for wireless securityOct 10, 2007
By C. Roberson
I just received this unit and have to state that I'm rather disappointed. First, we are an all-Mac household with a SonicWall firewall but this unit is so heavily PC-dependent that it would not work out the box with either.
Another reviewer said it would work with the Macintosh but I couldn't even see the unit in the ARP cache or the DHCP leases of the firewall. The only way I could initially talk to the unit was to dig out an old PC and use the enclosed CD. It would be nice if there was a switch that could be flipped manually to tell the camera to use DHCP instead of UPnP (which I don't find "that universal").
The second thing that really surprised me was that this unit only supports WEP wireless security instead of WPA. For all the talk about security in the documentation and in the setup tools, WEP is a very poor choice. To use this unit wirelessly in my network, which is why I bought it, I will have to gut the security of the rest of my network. This is a serious shortcoming, in my opinion, especially for such an expensive camera.
Finally, I'm finding the Panasonic support site clumsy and limited in scope and utility. This product has potential but it its shortcomings get in the way of its utility. Until they add WPA, I can't recommend this unit. If you're a Mac user, make sure you have access to a Windows machine to get it out of UPnP. I think it defaults a 192.168.x.x. address.
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