TRENDnet Wireless Advanced Pan/Tilt Internet Camera Server TV-IP400W (Version B1.xR)
The Pan/Tilt IP Camera is a full-featured surveillance system that provides high quality video over a wireless network connection. Built-in CPU and Web Server allow the camera to function as a standalone device, allowing users to access the camera anywhere in the world by using a Web browser. Users can also move the camera remotely in almost any direction, scanning sensitive locations for unauthorized intrusion. The IP Camera comes with a CMOS sensor to deliver clear and crisp images, and its powerful IPView software gives users enhanced security options to archive streaming video straight to a computer's hard drive. IP View software can also monitor multiple cameras on a single screen, enable motion detection to trigger automatic recording, and send email alert notification.
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TRENDnet Wireless Advanced Pan/Tilt Internet Camera Server TV-IP400W (Version B1.xR) Reviews
We are contantly resetting and as the light goes down so does the picture quality. Sometimes just dots you have to guess. Someone else in the family has two of these and is not having the problem, only reset once a week and has it on a timer. So there must be something wrong with our camera and we will see what Amazon will do to make this right.
I am an IT guy and I have used several cameras and this is one of the worst I have ever used. I bought this camera for the pan/tilt feature, but I found out that it does not work with well with Vista. I do wish Trendnet would get their act together and make a pan/tilt wireless with a high quality video sensor. I also thought the video would be as good as the TV-IP110W fixed wireless camera, but it is not. Their other products are much better than this one. Buyer BEWARE.
The setup is complex, the manual is sketchy, and there are some bugs to overcome. To be fair it's the same situation with other similar internet camera products, but I would definitely not recommend that anyone new to networking take this on without expert help. I can connect successfully from my WinXP notebook (Firefox), my Nokia N800 linux tablet, or my Windows Mobile cell phone. Once you get past the initial installation and setup, it's easy to connect remotely and see what's going on in the vicinity of the camera (silently though, there's no microphone). The picture gets fuzzier in low light, and the frame rate of video is slow over a wireless connection, but it works well enough. This webcam works reliably for me and does what I bought it for, but the network setup was certainly challenging.
to the "access the camera from anywhere in the world" part. In my case, connecting the camera through a wire to my Linksys router PREVENTED the configuration utility to complete. The pictures sent to the computer are of a poor quality - and I am a bit generous stating this. After some 10-15 minutes of elevator music, someone in India picked up the phone and asked for my phone number, email address, type of camera, date of birth, marital status, favorite food (just kidding). Control is possible but response is slow. What this means is that you may end up with an undetermined number of 'cameras' in the software interface running on your computer, all attempting to control the same device and you will have to guess which one is the one that actually can connect to the camera, every time you reset either your camera or your router. He did suggest that, to make the camera work over the Net, I had to open an account with some independent outfit that allows you to get a DNS name for your device and, therefore, at least in theory, be able to access the camera over the net.
What follows, is my story. too complicated and, in the end, not worth the effort. I can see how a good market for this product would be those technical schools where the students learn how to set up and troubleshoot these things. The product gets 2 stars because someone COULD make it work. I called again and, to my surprise, the guy in India picked up the phone immediately. It's a cumbersome process and, in my case, it did not work very well.
The 'zoom' button does not do anything. Now. It involves getting and setting up a DNS name for your camera, punching holes into your firewall, regularly running some utility on your computer and updating your information on that site. One other problem seems to be the way this camera works with DHCP. I did not encounter too many problems setting up the camera for local use/control. Even though the camera has a unique MAC address, every time the router's DHCP assigns it a new IP address, the software thinks that it sees a new camera.
It's not a defective product. Like someone else who reviewed this device, I had to call the tech support. For example, I have some understanding of DHCP, DNS, IP, firewalls, routers and 802.11 but I'd rather not mess up with them. I, naively, assumed that a product making such a claim, would be easily set up in a way that allowed me to see what was going on in my living room while I was at work, on the road or on vacation.
I ordered this camera because the product description stated that it allowed "users to access the camera anywhere in the world by using a Web browser." In my work, we are doing a lot of video, audio conferencing using packages such as NetMeeting, SharedView, Communicator and son on. The setup eventually completed but only AFTER I removed the wire. Someone never did. After she was satisfied with my answers she told me that someone was going to call me back later and she hung up. I wish I could say that he offered some competent advice, but he didn't.
It's just very hard to make it do what it claims that it can do and the vendor's tech support or the provided documentation are not helping. The manual on the disk is a.pdf file in English but I could not say that it was well-written. After about half an hour to one hour of installing the 2 software items and unnecessarily messing with my wireless router, the camera began sending some video to my computer. To be fair, I believe that this camera COULD be set up to be accessed and controlled over the Internet IF you could afford a dedicated, permanent IP address to it and you properly set up your router and firewall.
It is VERY DIFFICULT to set it up because the vendor does not provide the software and the IP support needed and expects the end-user to go to 'third parties' for that - which is fine but is not mentioned in the 'product description', on the box or in the manuals that come with the camera. I titled my review 'Incomplete' because of the several things missing in this package: a usable manual, competent technical support and support for a DNS name so that the camera can be accessed from the Web when a dedicated IP is not a practical option. One clarification: I am not a geek, but I am not technologically dumb either. The maximum resolution is a poor 640x480.
There is a noticeable delay, 1+ seconds in transmission, even when the camera is on a local loop. By the way, the manual seems to be incorrectly stating that you must connect through a wire to your wireless router and gives some very confusing and sometimes misleading advice on how to set up the camera's IP address.
(i do have some limited knowledge and installed routers before) the price is very good. i have it installed this camera upside down in my hallway facing the door. installation of software and hardware was a breeze.
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