Panasonic BL-C131 Vs BL-C30
We’ve just taken delivery of a Panasonic BL-C131, the new successor to the amazingly popular BL-C30. We’ve had a play, and here’s a list of the key improvements that the new model offers over its original:
- Simultaneous MJPEG and MPEG-4: The new MPEG-4 mode (the Panasonic BL-C30 only offered MJPEG video) allows video streaming at a full 30fps across all resolutions including VGA 640×480, giving a much smoother performance at the camera’s maximum resolution. As this relies on an Active-X plug-in this feature is compatible in Internet Explorer (IE) only.
- 1-way Audio: The BL-C131 now offers 1-way audio support by using a built-in microphone allowing the viewer to listen in on sounds where the camera is positioned. We found the microphone to be extremely sensitive and work rather well. Again, this is reliant on ActiveX, so IE only.
- Motion Detection: The Panasonic BL-C30 could only trigger events based on the thermal sensor input. The new BL-C131 offers built-in motion detection support as well as thermal sensor detection. A nice addition. With clever use of triggers you can now reduce the number of false positives you would normally recieve from a camera alarm using these detection methods. For example, if you set up both motion and thermal detection and you recieve an alert from both then you know, with much more certainty, that there is a person in front of the camera as it has detected movement and heat.
- Full Screen Mode: This improved model now offers a full-screen mode which enlarges the field of view significantly when monitoring your camera. In any other browser it seems to display at the same size but in IE it is significantly larger than VGA (640×480) so this is probably reliant on the Active-X control again.
- IPv6 Compatibility: To future-proof the camera it now comes as standard with IPv6 support out of the box. Probably not required right now but handy to have when it’s needed.
- Improved User Interface: The configuration menus within the camera are much improved over the Panasonic BL-C30, particularly around event management and it seems much more emphasis has been put on automatic setup.
A full evaluation of the product will be available shortly.
We’re taking orders right now for this camera and its sister model the BL-C111 (wired ethernet equivalent/non-wireless), please see the links below for full specification and ordering details:
Panasonic BL-C111 Compact IP camera Pan/Tilt Audio Heat Sensor
Panasonic BL-C131 Wireless IP camera Pan/Tilt Audio Heat Sensor
22 Comments so far
Leave a reply
Wireless now supports WPA and WPA2.
(Previous BL-C30 model only supported WEP & Panasonic said no plans to add WPA in new firmware)
Yes!
Many thanks for adding that. I only concentrated on the main key improvements but there are even more little features which make this model superior to the BL-C30.
Support for WPA/WPA2 encryption is hugely beneficial to those who already run with this enrcyption method on their wireless network. It is also more secure so people who use this are less likely to want to revert to WEP encryption.
Initial setup of the camera and dynamic DNS configuration for external access are also areas which has seen improvement.
I just installed a BL-C131 and it works great. Has anybody been able to monitor the camera utilizing a Blackberry Pearl?
Many thanks…
The Blackberry should have a standard HTML browser built-in so it should be fine. Note that the Panasonic BL-C131 has an optimised page for mobile viewing. This can be found at “http://[your camera’s external address]/mobile[:your camera’s port number]” where your camera’s external address is the public IP address or ‘viewnetcam’ address of your camera and the port number is the port number specified in the camera which can be left blank if unchanged. Here’s an example address: “http://mycamera.viewnetcam.com:8080/mobile”
If you have any problems setting up external access to your camera from the internet let us know and we will be happy to help. Also, this should work fine but we’re not 100% on this as we don’t have a Blackberry Pearl here but if you’d like to send us one we would be more than happy to test this for you (pls mark it FAO Greg)…
BL-C30
I have tried setting up the BLC30 as per instructions/setup CD. Works fine over the internal network but can’t get it to work over the internet. My router is a Netgear DG843PN. Can anyone help with the router set up ?
Thanks
Amar
Sure Amar. Sounds like the router is blocking access to your camera from the internet and that’s very normal. What you have to do is add a rule to the firewall to allow access (only) to your camera. To add the rule do the following:
I will assume your camera is on port 80.
1. Log into your router (probably using address 192.168.0.1 - default login details if you haven’t changed them are U/N: admin P/W: password)
2. In the menu on the right hand side click the link for ‘firewall rules’
3. Click the button to add an inbound service.
4. Where is asks for a LAN server IP address input the local IP address of your camera.
If there is a ‘category’ option it’s not important what you select.
In the ’services’ drop-down box select HTTP Port 80.
Click ‘apply’
5. That should be all you need to do. Now test access to your camera from the internet using your public IP address. If you find that you can’t access it from the same network that will be normal. Try and access from another location on the internet or ask a friend if they can access.
If you need any further help let me know or visit our IP camera forum at: http://forum.networkwebcams.com/
anyone know of a way to modify the camera’s firmware? the UI is horrible and it would be a fun project to change it…
Unfortunately, while the camera runs a cut-down version of Linux there is at this time no way to change the pages it serves.
What about noise of the horizontal and vertical motions of the camera?
Will someone hear camera’s motions in the room?
About firmware.
It is strange that the camera works under linux but client side is windows only…
Yes, the Panasonic BL-C111/C131 definitely make a noise when making any kind of movement.
Hi. I had too many problems with the wireless connection so I connected it to router. I’ve ordered another BL c131 and would like to set that up too. Is it easy to add another camera. What happens when i view this on my phone. Theres no option to select a different camera. Also are there any other problems or settings i need to know when adding 2nd camera?
Anybody using a BL-C131 with 2Wire?
Yes I am using to cams (bl-c131 and bl-c30) with a 2wire gateway modem both work great on local lan but only the bl-c30 works from the internet. I have opened the correct ports still nothing can anyone help?
viewing two cameras remotely is perfectly possible using a 2-wire router. Just follow the following steps:
A) Select a different HTTP port for the 2nd camera. You can’t use the same port number for multiple cameras because when you access them externally you have only one public IP address. You get around this by specifying different ports.
B) If you are using the viewnetcam service only set this up in one camera so you can use the same address for both. If you set this up in both cameras you will have a different address for each. If you disable it in the 2nd camera you can still access it using the viewnetcam address from the 1st camera and specifying the port number of the 2nd camera as described above in step A.
C) You will have to add the firewall rule for both cameras to your router to allow external access. Check the instructions found on www.portforward.com for help.
if it had Windows on the inside it would probably be:
-1- more expensive
-2- bulkier due to the needed diskspace
-3- crash every time you press the tilt button
It would be nice to be able to control more through root-access to the camera but they (panasonic) will have done everyting in their powers to refrain you from doing so. Thus protecting the more expensive camera’s with better functions.
I suspect you will have to gain access through a hack in the firmware. The ip access has been disallowed on standard ports. Maybe send one of these camera’s to our geek-friends who know how to.
Downsides of the BL-C111: When buying i thought it had zooming capabilities aswell. Too bad that’s not included. Also i am not too impressed with the image quality, especially the night-view (wich is a special setting but adds nothing) and i am disgusted by the fact that this is a windows explorer-only camera (audio wont work under firefox). Network installation kept saying my router doesn’t support UPnP (wich it does) so installation was tough. On the bright-side: it does work. Use a (free) proxy to test your settings for your friends in stead of asking them to test it themselves!
Hi Greg,
I have a blackberry curve 8310 with ATT and a BL-C131 which can I connect fine over the internet from any PC but not from my blackberry ; I tried all the the possible combinations described above with address and port but nothing… keeps timing out the connection…I was wondering if there is a specific setting for the blackberry that is needed to view the cam.
Thanks
Have you tried using the mobile viewing page in the Panasonic camera? For more info see our Resource Center article: http://www.networkwebcams.com/ip-camera-learning-center/2008/06/19/howto-view-your-panasonic-ip-camera-from-your-cell-phone-or-mobile-device/
I understand that there is only static images for phones from the previous post, however some pocket PC’s have the ability to view streming media. in the setup tab at viewnetcam.com there are settings for this but i cant find the (rtsp://) address for my cam any help from anyone???
from further research i was sent to this website and told to look for the tutorials on streaming. Panisonic has no idea how to give me the answer i simply want to set up a streaming media URL (rtp,rtsp) or find the one that exist.
Just talked to someone with intellect and was informed that “the engineers have been informed of the problem for the last 2 months and tech support has received no response”. I was also told it depends on how many complaints are registered whether the engineers will respond. The guy told me that the engineers have confirmed its possible but have not given any instruction. I feel duped.
@Daniel: I will look into it for you. Meanwhile check out our forum topic where other people are discussing the same thing:
http://forum.networkwebcams.com/viewtopic.php?t=252
Does anyone know if i can check the c-131 camera through a 3G iPhone?