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
56 Comments so far
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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?
Hi
I have found it impossible to access my BL-131 via the internet. I am using a belkin F5D7633×4 router. The indicator light on the camera tells me that Upnp is not working but it is enabled, and i cannot find what setting is incorrect. However my main problem now is that i tried updating the firmware and the process was interrupted and i cannot now access the camera. I have tried accessing via the mac address but it will not accept my user name and password. Any ideas please.
Many thanks
@Paul:
Yes, you should be able to view the image on an iPhone. Just use your public/external IP address in Safari or use your public/external IP address with the ‘/mobile’ suffix.
@Ron:
1) It sounds like UPnP just isn’t going to work. I’d forget trying to use automatic settings. Turn UPnP off in the camera and set up port-forwarding manually by assigning a static IP address in the camera, leaving the camera on HTTP Port 80 and following these instructions for the router setup: http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Belkin/F5D7633-4/HTTP.htm
2) Updating the firmware won’t change your password and the camera doesn’t have a default password if it’s been reset so double-check it is actually the camera when it is asking for a password. It may be the router instead?
If you can’t log into the camera you will need to factory reset it. You do this by pressing the reset button on the base for 1 second with an opened paperclip (etc.) while the camera has power. The process will take a minute or so then try using the easy config setup tool to find the camera’s IP address and re-configure.
Hi,
I wish to ask for help on changing the port setting of my BL-C131 IP Cam.
My office has blocked most of the TCP ports, leaving only a few well known ones as open. I wish to change the ports of my cam to match. It’s ok with HTTP and RTSP, which use only 1 port. But with RTP, it use over 130 continuous ports, which is just not possible in my office setting.
Is there a workaround? Or shall I giveup MPEG4/MJPEG at office? :s
Thanks in advance!
@Sam:
Put the camera on port 80 and access it through a web browser.
You can change the port number in the camera on the network settings page.
ı am using INCA IM-204W ADSL 2/2+ Modem router for ADSL internet connection. Also, ı have a Panasonic BL-C131 camera. But, ı didn’t configure my panasonic BL-C131 IP camera to see view on another computers. ı don’t understand how to configure it?
Take a look at our guide on port forwarding here: http://www.networkwebcams.co.uk/blog/2007/10/22/howto-port-forwarding-101/
Hi,
Does anyone know if these devices can also be connected up to your electric gates system?
No, these models do not offer any external outputs.
Hi,
I am fnding it impossible to access my recently purchased BL-C131 IP cam. It works fine on a wired connection but as soon as I switch to wireless no connection is possible. What is even more frustating is that I lose my wireless connection on my PC, the SSID is not shown ehn I list the wireless networks.
I spent a couple of days trying to get back online wirelessly from my PC. Eventually figured out what is happening, my router appears to reconfigure itself after I switch on the BL-C131 in wireless mode.
Setting changes from mixed mode 802.11b & 802.11g to also include 802.11n and this causes my PC to lose connection until I change the configuration n the router back to what it was.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Regards,
Steve.
This is a strange problem Steve. I’ve never heard of a camera changing the wireless settings in the router, that should never happen. The Panasonic camera isn’t compatible with wireless N so it won’t be looking for that either.
I suggest you ask the router manufacturer for a possible explanation.
How do I get my camera, BL C131A to send a notice and picture to my blackberry when the motion sensor triggers it on?
@Tim:
You can have the camera send you an email when it detects motion, which can be picked up on the Blackberry.
Here’s a guide on setting up an email trigger on a Panasonic IP camera: http://www.networkwebcams.co.uk/blog/2007/01/12/howto-get-your-panasonic-network-camera-to-send-email-on-motion-detection/
i recently purchsed a blc131.i set it up in about 20 minutes and it was working find wirelsely.it worked fine for about 2 weeks locally and externally[from other side of the world].then all of a sudden the picture froze and i have had problems ever since.when i restart the camera[switched off and on ]the camera starts up ok and the light turns grren as it should.then when i try to access it over the internet[either via viewnetcam or ip address]its possible to access it for a few minutes then it freezes again.i ahve tried changing the port numbers and ip address of the camera.also firewall is off on the router and i have also done DMZ.the camera light is indicating correctly i.e green.anyone come accross this problem.all setting are definetly ok[ip,port numbers etc etc].i have done total factory default settig on camera also.
HELP
I am Aldo having the same problem as above. It works ok for a while then it times out and the light on the front hoes Amber and flashes. If I leave
it it will go back to green and work for a bit before timing out. It is set up on a wireless network. Any ideas? Thanks.
@Max:
An amber light indicates that the camera has no network connection. You may be suffering from wireless interference of some kind. See our guide on wireless intereference here: http://www.networkwebcams.com/ip-camera-learning-center/2008/05/09/howto-prevent-wireless-interference/
Hi Greg.
I am not sure if it is wireless interference? It is in the same room as an apple airport, and my computer next to it gets a four bar signal strength.
It happens when it is being accessed. So normally the light will be green most of the time, then if you access it you can view a picture for around 30secs then it will freeze up and the light goes amber.
I have recently set it up with a QNAP recording device, so now it is constantly being accessed and then becoming unavailable.
Thanks
Max
@Max:
This could also be a UPnP issue. (UPnP is the technology which allows the camera to set up rules in your router’s firewall automatically to allow external access)
A flashing amber light on a 2-sec interval indicates a UPnP error. Are you accessing the camera using a viewnetcam address?
To solve this I would turn UPnP off in the camera and set up port forwarding in your router manually. More info on port forwarding here: http://www.networkwebcams.co.uk/blog/2007/10/22/howto-port-forwarding-101/
Hi Greg,
. Any mobile phone that you can recommend? I Have a netbook that works perfectly fine but still too big for me to bring anywhere, I hope you can help me. Thanks a lot!
I have BL-C111 and BL-C1 setup in my home. For me it works well in viewnetcam and 3rd party server after strugling to setup for 2 mos. Now, I am more curious to view my cameras in a 3G phones. So far I tried windows mobile phones (HTC,S-OMNIA) and symbian (Nokia E-series) but I cannot view under MJPEG or MPEG-4 streaming so I have to switch it to 3sec refresh rate to view jpeg snapshoots and without audio from my BL-C111. Only Apple Iphone Safari can view this MJPEG and MPEG-4 stream flowlessly but I cannot hear Audio from BL-C111 as well. Is there any settings to hear it or any 3rd party sofware for iphone? Alternatively, How about for windows mobile and symbian phones, is there a way to view MJPEG and MPEG-4 with audio? because I preffer to buy mobile phone that has a long battery life
@mac:
To my knowledge I’ve never come across a phone which will be able to produce audio from a Panasonic BL-C111. The reason for this is that the BL-C111 relies on ActiveX for audio output and most Internet browsers on a phone aren’t as fully featured to allow ActiveX plug-ins.
Hello Greg,
Could it be use with a smartphone with windows mobile 6,
I use Skyfire browser on a Samsung Omnia II, but I also
have Opera mobile.
Thank you.
@Robert:
You should get a snapshot image from the camera using any cell phone/mobile device by putting “/mobile” at the end of the camera’s address. This accesses the camera’s mobile viewer which offers a live snapshot image and camera control.
I changed out my linksys WRT54G router for a linksys WRT160N router. Neither router was set up under a secured connection (no security on the router), the my BL-C131A camera does not make a wireless connection to the new router. Is there something I need to do to make the camera and router recognize each other?
@Tim:
You will still need to enter the SSID of your wireless network into the camera. This is the identifying name of your wireless network and is case sensitive. You will find it in the wireless settings page of your router.
I’d also recommend you have some form of security in place on your wireless network. You will be responsible for any content downloaded through your network even if you didn’t download it!
Since I kept the same generic SSID name on the new router still named “linksys” I thought it would still work. The camera shows up and can now be “seen” by the router, but only locally (when I am connected to the actual router, either wired or wireless). When I try to set up the camera to be accessible from the internet through the router, it keeps telling me the set up failed. Any suggestions, I already made sure UPnP was enabled
@Tim:
Well the wireless is working. To set up external access you would need to configure the firewall in your new router so that external connections can be made to the camera. UPnP attempts to do this automatically but it doesn’t sound like it is working so…
I would turn UPnP off in the camera and set up firewall rule manually (this process is known as port forwarding). I assume your camera is on port 80 so look at this website for instructions for your model number of router and follow the guide for “HTTP”: http://portforward.com/ Where is asks for an IP address it will mean the local IP address of your camera.
Been playing with the BL-C131, it’s quite easy to setup and works okay the easy way …. out of the box with their software. But here are a couple issues that maybe someone has the answers for that could save me a lot of trouble hunting and hacking around:
1) The darn thing won’t work in the MP4 or motion JPEG mode using IE 64 bit version. What’s up with THAT? What’s the point of supporting IPv6 but not 64 bit browsers? That is where things are headed.
2) It won’t do MP4 in Firefox, selecting MP4 from their built in webpages always defaults down to motion JPEG, which of course floods the network (it starts streaming out at around 4mbp which is the total bandwidth of my cable internet connection, whereas MP4 uses about an 1/5 of that bandwidth). And there are no bandwidth controls for motion JPEG, just MP4??? Doesn’t this camera support the netscape plugins for other browsers?
3) Since it does MP4, what are the URLs to open the thing up in Windows Media Player or other MP4 streaming player? I want to stream video though my own webpage for others to see without anyone having to use IE 32 bit AND install some funky Panasonic ActiveX control (i.e. I want to stream to a flash player like on youtube so people won’t run away when asked to install some suspicious software). ??? If it does MP4, it should be cable to DO MP4 to any other MP4 player, or it’s not a REAL MP4 camera. ???
BTW, if I can get this to work through a generic like flash viewer website page from ANY browser, I would like to use it to monitor my cats while away, while also allow other to peep the catatorium. If it won’t really do REAL MP4, then I have about a week left before I have to return it for a refund.
??
Thanks for any help,
Mike
Hello Mike,
I have my BL C131A working ok on a wired connection, was a bit hit and miss on wireless. I am accessing from the net using viewnetcam, the picture is fine but I am getting lots of inteference on the sound. I have a Netgear DG384G router, i had the noise inteference when it did work wireless so i have tried the wired option instead but it is still the same. Is there anything i can do to reduce this.
Thanks in advance
Marc
Hi
What do you mean about noise interference? (Audio?)
I have 2 cameras working wirelessly, both show up on the multiple cameras page, but It was a bit fiddly to get it to work.
You have to open a port on your router to each camera to allow this to happen. I use a DG834G, I have no issues other than they both have different firmware.
The original firmware shipped with the units allows access via a mobile phone, and you can position the camera using numbers to move up down left & right.
This has disappeared in the new firmware, and you can only view your presets.
Anybody else experience this?
Cheers
Tony
Hello Tony,
Sorry should have been more specific, I meant noise as in a crackling sound on the Audio side. I have opened the port on my router and I can access the camera over the net and the picture is ok bit on the Audio there is inteference as i would call it.
I can here what is happening in the background, voices etc but its not clear due to this foreground noise. The Audio is just not clear enough, I have tried a wired and wirelss connection and i get the same noise interference. Maybe it is my internet connection or my filter, not sure just wondered if anybody else had had the same problem.
I have accessed through my mobile as you described but you only get still images at the moment.
Cheers
Marc
I see a comment above that someone was having trouble getting the camera configured for internet viewing with a 2wire modem. I’m not sure the question was actually answered. I’m having the same problem — except with the newer BL-C230. I’ve got my port forwarded (quite an accomplishment for me), but can still not access over the internet. What specific advice would you have for the 2wire 2701HG-B?
@mohare:
Have you tried testing it from another connection on the Internet away from your local network?
You may be suffering NAT loopback which means if you use your public IP on the local network it won’t work. Try testing from another computer at a different location or ask someone to test it for you.
Hi Greg - I have an annoying problem with the Panasonic BL-C111. 6 months ago I bought 4 of them for different branches of my fitness studio. I’m having ongoing issues with my network
camera, installed appx 6 months ago. They all worked fine for 6 months, but last week one of them stopped
being visible, either locally or
remotely. I went into the IP config and
noticed that the local IP address had somehow
changed itself. I changed it back to what it
was originally, and can now see the camera
locally again. However I am still unable to
see it online. The network and router are working fine. Do you have any suggestions as to where the
problem could lie?
@Rudy:
My guess is that the firewall rules in the router have all been set automatically up until now, something changed and the automatic rules are now broken. I’d suggest putting the rules in place manually so you know they will never break.
This is a 2-step process. First make sure your camera is set on a *static* IP address by going on to the network settings page and choosing the static link. This will fix the IP address in the camera.
Secondly you will need to enter the firewall rule in your router which allows external access through to the camera and this needs to point to the local IP address of the camera. This process is known as port-forwarding.
For more information about port-forwarding see our article here: http://www.networkwebcams.co.uk/blog/2007/10/22/howto-port-forwarding-101/