I just bought this product and it's all what I expected. I just followed the quick installation guide, plugged in ethernet cable and the power, set the ip as recommended 192.168.0.20 on the camera and my wireless Netgear router and it works. I can view the camera immediately. But when I unplug the ethernet and into wireless mode, it didn't work. I ended up calling tech support and got a live support person in less than 5 minutes, he suggested I reboot(power down and up) my camera and router. The wireless mode now working.I tried to set the camera up behind the router according to the instruction on the manual from the CD provided, it didn't work. After playing around for 3 hours, I finally figured out that the default port 80 and 8481 don't work, you have to open up the second port 81 and 8482. I IPView software provided in the CD does not have motion sensor, you can download the latest version of IPView with motion sensor for the DLINK website, and it works very well. It can detect a slightest movement.
PROS: price, good picture(can adjust brightness), motion sensor software(download latest IPView).
CONS: no audio, can not pan view(must manually pan camera), no email picture option.
I recently examined a Hawking camera. Superficially, it seemed to have security, but there were only two official ways to get an image from the camera. One was by using a facility where the camera e-mailed you an image. This image was tagged as spam by my provider because it used the big5 character set, even though it contained no text. But the other way was to use a java applet which was automatically downloaded from the camera, the same way any applet would be loaded.
This was the only image data displayed on the camera's web interface.
I wanted to get a still image, so I traced the applet's data stream. The applet simply connected to a port on the camera and then presented four characters and a newline. The camera responded with a four byte header and a jpeg. I was able to use echo, sleep and netcat to pull jpegs out of the camera but I did not have to present the password to pull jpegs out of the camera.
The instructions that come with the camera tell you to open this port to the Internet via port forwarding from your firewall. You also open the camera's web port.
If you do this, then a hacker can see that you have this camera and then they can look for other open ports, and if they find the camera port, they can easily pull jpegs out of it with no password.
This is OK, though, since the camera is so incredibly bad that all that anyone will see is sort of a flesh shaped amorphous mass. I took this camera back to the store.
There are two other products on the market. One is the D-Link DCS-900W, and the other is the Linksys Wireless G. Both are comparable to the Hawking and way better.
The Linksys presents both sound and video as an MPEG4 stream. I know of no way to get still images from this camera (other than by having the camera e-mail you one). There is an active X control that allows you to view the video on a windows system, or, with the right codecs, you can use Media Player or Mplayer to view the stream. However, only a Windows user using Internet Explorer can access the camera through the web interfacr and see full motion video. Everyone else can go through multiple layers of frames to determe what the url is for the mpeg4 stream then, that URL can be fed to a regular media player that can play (or record) an mpeg4 stream.
The Linksys can be connected to a 10 or 100 wired ethernet, or to an 802.11b or 802.11g wireless net. It supports WEP. By default it is configured to run at a fixed address but it can run on WEP. A unique feature is that it has a small LCD panel and the LCD panel displays the IP address that it uses. It can look for motion within the camera and send out alerts by e-mail if motion is detected (that is, no external program is required to deal with automated motion detection from this camera). All data is presented on the web interface, and basic authentication (userid and password) is demanded if the camera is set up to require it before the video stream, or any data other than the base screen is presented. There are two levels of users those who can display the video stream and one user who can administer the box.
I have not installed the Linksys management software it seems to be unneeded. If I could find an open source solution that would allow me to convert mpeg4 to a still jpeg, then this would be the winning solution. But the conversion stacks I have found garble the images horribly. I believe that there is conversion available in the support software.
The D-Link has a URL where a jpeg can be accessed. All interaction is via web and all interaction requires basic security. There are two levels of users One user who can configure the camera and those who can just display pics.
The D-Link has a Java applet and an active-X control take your pick that allows you to view motion pictures and it also has full motion video so you can view full motion video from any browser that supports Java applets, or, if you are an IE user who has not installed Java, you can use the Active-X control to look at the video. Thus, the full motion video should work for almost everyone I know it works in Linux and Windows. The D-Link has the best low light capability. It also has the clearest picture, by far. It does not have 802.11g and it does not have sound. It does support WEP. Internally, (to the applet) the motion data is presented as a series of jpegs, using a standard http stream format. All video or jpeg data is presented only after successful basic authentication.
The management software for the D-Link camera works reasonably well, but there is no reason to use it other than, perhaps, for upgrading the flash although the "lite" software can present a very high quality full screen full motion video. All motion detection recording on the D-Link is done in an application on a connected windows PC.
These cameras cost a few dollars more than the Hawking, but they actually have a modicum of security.
The Linksys is a winner if you need sound, or if you want to get the extra performance of an 802.11g device if you do not have any 802.11b devices, you might well not want to introduce the first one.
If you need motion detection in the camera, the Linksys devices also win. Linksys cameras and a wireless router would obivate the need for a computer onsite, and, with a DSL connection, say, would allow for the accumulation, at a central site, of images where motion was detected.
If you do not need sound say, for a manned security setup, the D-Link cameras would allow you to put 16 cameras on a single screen no wiring cost, and you could have motion detection and recording. That would be expensive, but probably much cheaper than any other solution. Considering that you could avoid wiring, it would be a winner.
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for the price, this is a great tool. if u need night time viewing, add a motion detector.i found a 4x4x6 waterproof plastic box at Home Depot, begged them for a 3x3 glass scrap, and mounted this outside w/motion detector light (see above). we'll see how it handles Florida sun next summer.
bingo! i now have 5 of these running very nicely.
please note that i use free linux software instead of PC monitoring app (IP-View) that comes with it, but friends seem to have good luck w/that app. the linux app ('motion') allows me to mix USB, video, and network cams in one survelliance app.
newest firmware for cam (2.28) hasn't crashed since i booted it over a week ago fyi.
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I purchased several of these cameras and I am very pleased with their performance. They are easy to setup and sturdy. Shhh! Don't tell D-link, but I did test their durability on ceramic tile.For the price you can't beat them. I am amazed by their update times over the web. These cameras will act as independent web servers, if you set up your router correctly. Each camera needs to have its IP and port associated correctly, after that it's cake.
As I mentioned, these cameras do update quite fast. A fact I did not appreciate until I experienced the Toshiba IK-WB01. I only use the highest resolution setting (640x400). At this resolution, you will be able to capture moving cars fairly clearly. Meaning, you can recognize make, model, color and driver hair color.
If you want to capture images a night, the DCS-900w is not for you. You should consider purchasing the DCS-950g. The DCS-900w is good to 2 Lux, making it useless at night. The DCS-950g is good to 0.5 Lux to give you an idea of the difference.
Bottom-line:
1-Relatively low cost
2-Easy to setup
3-Good updates at high resolution
4-Very stable occasional power blips confuse it like all my other wireless gear. If power blips are a problem for you, use a UPS or a timer like the guy above.
5-Software IPView light is useful
6-NOT for low light
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I wanted to use this cam for monitoring an office, house or the street, however was unable to use it at any of these locations, except during the day. This camera seems to require minimum 5-10 lux. For example in the evening, even on a well lit street it is already very difficult to distinguish the shape of my car less than 10 feet away. Also indoors there is a lot of noise under any amount of artificial light, unless you put your face in front of the camera or the area is lit by natural sun light. Basically after 5 PM the quality gets pretty bad and after 6 PM the cam becomes unusable.It might be OK for video conferencing if you sit next to your computer with a lamp pointed at your face, however this doesn't require a wireless network camera since many USB models under $50 can perform better.
The camera frame rate on my wireless network is less than 5 fps, though not sure if this is a performance problem with my wireless router (Microsoft), so I am not putting the full blame on the camera.
Generally the concept of wireless network camera is great, but it would need to be coupled with a decent camera. As a standard Webcam this camera wouldn't be worth more than $20.
I've had to do some research to discover that CCD cameras are much better than CMOS, especially in low-light, so I will be looking specifically for those now, even if they are USB-only. Learned my lesson.
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