TRENDnet SecurView Wireless Day/Night Internet Surveillance Camera Server with 2-Way Audio TV-IP312W (Silver)
by TRENDnet
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List Price: Our Price: $130.55 You Save: $94.44 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $99.99 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of TRENDnet SecurView Wireless Day/Night Internet Surveillance Camera Server with 2-Way Audio TV-IP312W (Silver)
Customer Review: For the Price, it's a decent IP camera with night day/night vision
Summary: 4 Stars
I'd really give this camera 3.5 stars. If setup were easier, it would be a solid 4, if it didn't have manual focus 4.5, if all of above were true and the company's manual or website gave decent support, it would be 5 stars because of the low costs but high features.
My Trendnet IP312W is connected to a Mac (OS X Leopard) airport express network used for home and baby monitoring. Mac support from Trendnet's site and manual for this product is woefully low.
I am using it with Evocam software, which provided moral support during the various evenings I spent getting it to work. (Eventually selecting "use RTSP" for this camera in Evocam brought an image from the camera, that was after I changed the camera's default IP address, etc).
The camera provides a decent picture day and night via our local network. The image is browser accessible via the local network with most browsers (Safari, Firefox, IE).
The price on this camera was significantly lower than many other wireless cameras capable of joining a more secure WPA2 wireless network and also providing night vision. Word to the wise, you can't buy some other color network camera and a standalone infrared light from Amazon and expect to make your own, budget, night vision system.
Customer Review: Does what it says it does
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this to basically serve as a baby monitor. It works great and is much better than the stand alone, purpose-built systems that you can buy. The camera does what it says it will, and works great in total darkness.
The other reviews that discuss the horrible documentation are right though. The manual that comes with it is scarce on specifics. It does take some time and finesse to set it up with your wireless system, but if you're computer literate or just willing to put in the time you'll figure it out. I have yet to set it up as an internet camera, so I can't speak to that, but given the documentation and support issues, if that's your primary purpose and you're not tech savvy, you may want to look elsewhere.
Bottom line, its a good camera, provides a nice picture with excellent in room IR capabilities, the software is simple and very functional, it has two way audio and is priced right. I'm looking to buy another for my other child's room.
Customer Review: Excellent features but extremely poor instructions make setup very difficult
Summary: 3 Stars
Having read the Amazon reviews for the IP312W I expected some degree of difficulty in setting up the camera. It ended up being much tougher. I'm not an IT specialist but have set up wireless networks and devices to work over the internet. However I could simply not get the IP312 to work over the internet. Actually I still have not gotten it to work on my wireless network. I gave up and am waiting for someone from my company's IT department to assist in setting up the wireless connection. I was able to get the camera to work while connected via an Ethernet cable. The picture quality is excellent. Also the night mode works extremely well. The software is pretty straightforward. If only setting up the camera were as easy! If the camera were simply plug and play it would be 4-5 stars. However the difficult setup coupled with very poor instructions have me giving only 3 stars. TRENDnet could have a real winner here if it improves its instructions and the ease of use.Customer Review: Cannot use on Qwest Broadband for standalone email
Summary: 3 Stars
After spending a lot of time with technical support I finally got the camera working through a router. The biggest problem (2 hrs) was actually ZoneAlarms firewall. It shut down the window needed to configure the camera with no notice. Turn off your firewall!
Now to the real problem for me. I wanted to use the stand-alone advertised email capability of the device. And I can't. The problem is that the firmware does not support "secure password authentication" required by my broadband SMTP If you are using Qwest Broadband you cannot use the camera to send email. You have to leave your PC on to send an email.
The documentation in general is marginal and the front line tech support folks are rookies. Nice but rookies.
Customer Review: Poor documentation, undocumented URLs
Summary: 4 Stars
For some reason, trendnet does not document the most useful URLs for this camera, so I'll set forth some that I use below. For instance, it is possible to stream the video via rtsp to your blackberry. You can also stream simple mjpeg video to the chrome browser natively.
Streaming video:
(blackberry) rtsp://ip:port/3gp (must enable 3gpp in the admin panel first. Use rtsp port (default=554))
(chrome browser) http://ip:port/cgi/mjpg/mjpg.cgi
(quicktime?) rtsp://ip:port/Mpeg4 (Use rtsp port (default=554))
Static JPEG
http://ip:port/cgi/jpg/image.cgi
streaming audio
(unknown what software supports this)
http://ip:port/cgi/audio/audio.cgi