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| Panasonic BB-HCM371A Outdoor Wireless Network Camera | 
 enlarge | Brand: Panasonic
Category: Photography
List Price: $849.00
Buy New: $629.25
You Save: $219.75 (26%)
New (19) Refurbished (1)
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 5926
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6
Dimensions (in): 11.6 x 7.5 x 5.5
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: BB-HCM371A
Model: BB-HCM371A
UPC: 037988809776
EAN: 0037988809776
ASIN: B0009PD0ZI
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 7 | | NEXT » |
 Worth it February 15, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've used this camera for the better part of a year now. I've used it in a variety of locations and conditions. It's presently mounted outdoors and transmitting wirelessly to a router sitting indoors 340' away. I use dynamic DNS to access the camera remotely via DSL. The framerate is decent, but still-picture quality (clarity) could definitely be better -- especially when the subject is moving. The motion detection is good and triggers reliably to upload images to an FTP site. The camera is very configurable, but best-suited for the tech-savvy. Plus, it's evident that a lot of the instructions written into the camera firmware were done by a non-native English-speaking individual. I've successfully viewed the camera remotely via my Motorola Q. Sound quality from the camera is very good. I can hear the frogs chirping in a nearby riverbed right now.
For what it's worth, I also own a very expensive Axis camera. The bottom line is that, although this camera has room for improvement, it still comes pretty close to justifying its cost.
 Too PC-dependent and lacks WPA for wireless security October 10, 2007
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I just received this unit and have to state that I'm rather disappointed. First, we are an all-Mac household with a SonicWall firewall but this unit is so heavily PC-dependent that it would not work out the box with either.
Another reviewer said it would work with the Macintosh but I couldn't even see the unit in the ARP cache or the DHCP leases of the firewall. The only way I could initially talk to the unit was to dig out an old PC and use the enclosed CD. It would be nice if there was a switch that could be flipped manually to tell the camera to use DHCP instead of UPnP (which I don't find "that universal").
The second thing that really surprised me was that this unit only supports WEP wireless security instead of WPA. For all the talk about security in the documentation and in the setup tools, WEP is a very poor choice. To use this unit wirelessly in my network, which is why I bought it, I will have to gut the security of the rest of my network. This is a serious shortcoming, in my opinion, especially for such an expensive camera.
Finally, I'm finding the Panasonic support site clumsy and limited in scope and utility. This product has potential but it its shortcomings get in the way of its utility. Until they add WPA, I can't recommend this unit. If you're a Mac user, make sure you have access to a Windows machine to get it out of UPnP. I think it defaults a 192.168.x.x. address.
Not very impressive!!! August 9, 2007
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Purchased this Camera expecting it to operate as good or better the the much less expencive BL-C20A did. The picture quality was sub-par for a camera that was 400 dollars more, I expected more. The wireless set up was a ritual in frustration, reset the camera multiple times, repowered, downloaded the updates, packaged it up and am sending it back.
I think for a camera that is 650 dollars, it should preform considerably better.
The Weather Proofing and WiFi was why I purchased it, so I will look elsewhere for another product.
 Excellent high-quality outdoor web cam March 31, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
I had first purchased a couple of Panasonic BL-30C wireless web cams to keep an eye on a vacation house that is far away from us. I wanted to put one outside too and decided to give this one a try against the weather. It was a bit harder to set up than the BL-30c, but after a few trial and errors and some persistence, I managed to get this one going too. The picture quality is very impressive and the audio is a nice optional feature! Very clear viewing in the daytime, and good night mode too. It has been reliable, and I am very pleased I bought it.
 Bad Quality Camera February 10, 2007
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
I am extremely unhappy with this camera. On the surface, the camera looks great--it offers SD recording, wireless connectivity, and remote management. But this is a really poorly made camera with poor supporting software. Firstly, it took me 3 nights trying to set this up--and I'm a long time techie. I followed the directions EXACTLY... got wired connection working fine... but the wireless was terrible. The camera kept telling me it wouldn't connect, even though I had all the settings correct. I even reset my wireless router to setup the most basic wireless LAN, and it still didn't work. Then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason it worked. Garbage. I still don't know why it worked.
The remote management was interesting and I like the fact that it let me control and move the camera remotely. It also lets you setup specific times to allow "triggers"... but the trigger software is spotty. The sensitivity controls for when the triggers set off didn't work well at all and it basically capture everything or nothing. Axis has much better event management software.
Finally, the picture quality is TERRIBLE. It claims that it can record up to VGA at 12 frames/sec, but it doesn't even COME close to that... at VGA it records maybe 1 or 2 frames/sec at best. Even at that quality there are noticeable artifacts and blurriness. I researched all the other cameras at this price level and amazingly this seemed that it had the best specs, but I suppose there's no subsitution for first hand experience. This is a terrible camera... I ended up buying the Axis 207w. It doesn't have movement capabilities, but for half the price, it's picture quality is 2x better and setup was a breeze.
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