Latest revision as of 15:01, 11 January 2011

Features

• Stylish & compact
• Human Detection Sensor

If it detects someone, it notifies you by e-mail!

• Color Night View mode

View images even in low light

• Privacy mode

Privacy mode ensures your privacy.

• Setup is easy with UPnP

Even a beginner can setup the camera thanks to UPnP support!

• Camera control

Even when away from home, you can change the direction of the camera lens!

Pan/Tilt

Viewing the camera via mobile phone

Other features

Multi-camera feature

Image buffer feature

• Viewnetcam.com service
• Built-in web server

The configuration page : http://<camera_ip>/CgiStart

Panasonic BL-C10 website.

Installation

This camera can either be installed as a Motion device (but Pan/Tilt/Zoom will not work, there are various mentions of this on the forums) or it can be installed as a simple viewer with Pan/Tilt/Zoom controls (this is PnP).

I did both; once under motion (for recording motion only), and then as a viewer (for use with the Orbiter Scenarios). This may not be the best way of doing things, but it worked for me.

Note: If to begin with the camera is not detected, perform a factory reset; this is achieved by holding the reset button down for a few seconds. Especially important if you bought the camera second hand.

Motion

1. Install motion wrapper (if it is not installed already). In web admin (type "192.168.80.1" in a browser of your choice), click "Show devices tree" (very bottom of left-hand pane), click on "CORE" and then "Create Child Device". Then press the "Pick device template" button, which will open a new window. Under "Device Template", select "Motion Wrapper" and press the "Pick device template" button.
2. Add camera MAC address to Generic Motion IP Camera template so that it is automatically detected. MAC addresses are usually in hexadecimal form; it must be converted to decimal form. Once you've done this, go into web admin, then to Advanced -> Configuration -> Device Templates. Under "Device template", select "Generic Motion IP Camera", and click the "Pick device template" button. Under the "Plug & Play" section, insert your decimal MAC address in the "From" and "To" fields, and select "DHCP" under "PNP protocol". You may want to consider adding a note to the "Comment" field also, to remind you which MAC address is which (assuming you have more than one camera). Press the "Save" button and "Close".
3. Plug in your camera. Take a look at your nearest orbiter. The camera should be detected as both a Panasonic IP Camera and a Generic Motion IP Camera. Click on "Generic Motion IP Camera", and then select the room in which the camera is situated.
4. At this stage I set up the username and password for the camera. This has to be done with a Panasonic utility which I assume accompanies the camera on the driver CD. My cameras did not come with the CD, but I easily found the utility online. (Drop a PM to "purps" on the forums if you can't find it). If you do not have a windoze box, this utility can be run under wine. Run the utility, give it a moment, and the camera should pop up. Make a note of the IP address and enter it into a web browser. Set the username and password. Additional: I have found it necessary to set a static IP via the camera's own web admin when using multiple cameras, as the IPs and MAC addresses were jumping about all over the place in web admin.
5. Find the camera in web admin, under Wizard -> Devices -> Surveillance Cameras. Or look in the devices tree under "Motion Wrapper".
   1. Under the "Device Info" section, type in a description of your choice.
   2. Under the "Device data" section, define the path as "http://192.168.80.XXX/nphMotionJpeg?Resolution=640x480&Quality=Motion", where "XXX" is the camera's IP. If you prefer, the resolution can be changed to "320x240" and/or the quality changed to "Standard" (instead of "Motion"), although I have not tested this personally.
   3. Define the TCP Port as "80"
   4. Add the username and password you specified earlier to the Username and Password field respectively. Click "Save"
   5. Press the "Advanced" button. Check the IP and MAC address in the "Device Info" section. If it's not the same as the MAC and IP you saw in the Panasonic utility, change it. Click "Save"
6. Do a Reload & Regen, and that should be it. This camera can now be used as a motion sensor and/or for recording movement (recordings are stored in "/home/cameras/XX" where XX is the device number of the camera, and last for 5 days I believe). A scenario will automatically be generated. I chose to remove this scenario (due to aforementioned lack of PTZ control), and added the camera a second time as a standalone viewer. Read on...

Note: After reloading/restarting the Core, motion dies. It has to be restarted manually by doing a "sudo /etc/init.d/motion restart". This issue has been reported http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/904 & http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/715 (not sure whether these two tickets are reporting the same issue or not).

Viewer

Note: These instructions assume that the camera has already been added as a motion device. If you wish to add the camera as a viewer only without motion, all you need to do is plug the camera in, select "Panasonic IP Camera" (this should be the only option if you didn't add the MAC address to the Generic Motion IP Camera template), select the room, and do a Quick Reload. Then you just need to set the username and password as explained above, and that should be it. You might want to check the IP address is correct also (by checking with the Panasonic utility).

1. In web admin, go to Wizard -> Devices -> Surveillance Cameras. Click the "Add Device" button at the bottom of the page. This will open a new window.
2. In the window that just opened, pick "Panasonic IP Camera" from the dropdown menu in the "Device Template" section. Press the "Pick device template" button.
3. Find the new camera in Wizard -> Devices -> Surveillance Cameras. Change the description to something more obvious if you so wish and select a room.
4. I changed the "Path" field to "/SnapshotJPEG?Resolution=640x480&Quality=Motion"; you may not want to do this.
5. As we didn't use PnP, we now have to fill everything out manually. Change AuthUser and AuthPassword to the username and password you set earlier. Copy the IP and MAC address from the motion camera we just installed. Press the "Update" button.
6. Now do a Reload & Regen, and that should be it. Like before a scenario will be generated automatically, but unlike before, the PTZ controls should work.
7. Rinse and repeat for additional cameras (if any).

Note: Very occasionally I have found that the scenarios sometimes require a little bit of tinkering. If there is no image displayed when you click on the scenario, look in Wizard -> Scenarios -> Security scenarios, select the scenario in question, select "Advanced Wizard" in the "Edit scenario using wizard" section, and just check that the number in the "#2 PK_Device (int)" field corresponds with the camera's Device #; if it does not, change it. Reload & Regen.