What our experts say…
It has been a couple of years since we last looked at a Panasonic network camera, and back in 2004 this was still a comparatively new development. The small but rapidly growing market was led by names that were largely unfamiliar in the wider video surveillance market.
The presence of companies like Panasonic undoubtedly helped propel network camera technology into the mainstream and cameras like the WV-NS202 PTZ dome demonstrate that there is still plenty of scope for innovation. This model also pushes the envelope when it comes to camera setup and control systems, but more on that topic later on. However, some things never change, like some manufacturers’ fondness for techno gobbledegook…
The first item on the NS202’s feature list is a case in point. It’s called Super Dynamic 3 (SDIII), and the brochure describes it thus: ‘Super Dynamic III performs gradation compensation of contrast on the pixel base, ensuring accurate reproduction of subjects in any situation’. Pick the bones out of that…
The sad thing is Panasonic really doesn’t have to egg this particular pudding; it is a truly impressive piece of kit with more genuinely useful features (and a few not so useful ones) than you can shake a stick at, but here are the real highlights.
Inside the compact dome the camera module sports a 22x optical zoom with 10x electronic zoom, bumping it up to 220x magnification. Minimum illumination is down to a respectable 0.7 lux and this is all thanks to a .25-inch Interline CCD with a 768 x 494 pixel array. This produces a conventionally interlaced image but it is re-processed for a progressive scan output, which is better for scenes containing a lot of movement.
The pan/tilt mechanics is pretty agile and although it can only pan through 350 degrees, it does so at up to 300 deg/sec and tilts through 120 degrees at 100 deg/sec. The 10-degree blind spot could be a problem for some locations so it pays to spend a little more time on positioning and orienting the camera, but this is the only significant limitation, other than the inevitable network lag when manually moving the camera or tracking a subject.
After that it all gets a bit complicated, since there’s an abundance of video processing options and permutations. The camera employs both MPEG-4 and JPEG compression – simultaneously if required – to process and transmit images through the network connection. The theory is that MPEG-4 compression is the best option for live monitoring, especially when the scene contains a lot of movement. JPEG, on the other hand, delivers higher quality images, containing more detail, so it is better suited to recording.
There’s a choice of three MPEG-4 quality settings (low, normal or fine) in two resolutions (VGA – 640 x 480 or QVGA – 320 x 240), and 10 JPEG settings (also VGA or QVGA resolution), at frame rates of up to 30fps in both cases. Other network specific features include alarm email notification, and an FTP server can upload images to a server for wider distribution and remote viewing.
As well as the network output the camera has two other ways of exporting images; there’s a live video monitor output socket on the side of the camera and the instructions suggest that this is useful for on the spot camera alignment and setup. It also has a built-in SD memory card slot and this functions as an emergency backup facility, recording images on the card in the event of a network failure. Alternatively it can be used for manually storing images.
With the addition of an external speaker and microphone the camera has a two-way audio capability. Motion detection can be enabled on any of the camera’s 64 preset positions, and the VMD can be linked into the pan/tilt mechanism for automatically tracking a moving subject. There’s a privacy mask facility (up to 8 masks can be created) and a very neat 360-degree ‘map-shot’ function that generates a set of thumbnail images, clicking on one of them quickly steers the camera to the relevant position and displays a live picture.
There are a number of installer-friendly features, and these include a ‘one-touch’ fitting mechanism and it supports Power Over Ethernet (PoE), which does away with the need for a separate power supply. Numerous fixture and fitting options are available and as well as normal ceiling and wall mounting the camera (and the image) can be inverted if required.
All of the camera’s inputs and output sockets are conveniently located on the outside of the unit and these comprise three 3.5mm jack sockets for the monitor output and the external microphone and speaker. A set of four spring terminals handle the alarm inputs and outputs.
There’s a two-pin socket for the 12-volt DC power supply and a standard Ethernet socket for the LAN cable. The SD card slot is on the opposite side to the cable connections and it is very well concealed. To gain access it is necessary to depress one side of a small panel and slide open a cover.
Inside the dome the camera module is mounted inside a cylindrical housing, supported on a forked frame attached to the upper part of a metal chassis. The pan and tilt stepper motors act through a pair of chunky worm gear drive mechanisms. The standard of construction is excellent with high-grade, precision-made components throughout, which suggests that reliability and longevity are unlikely to be an issue.
Setup and operation
As soon as power is applied the camera boots up and runs through a short tour. The camera is accessed through a standard web browser, which, according to Panasonic, is the now discontinued Internet Explorer 6. It hasn’t been officially tested on IE7 – now installed on most Windows XP PCs following a recent automatic update – but it worked fine on our setup, however, only after a bit of a struggle…
It may well be that we were simply unlucky but this proved to be one of the most difficult network camera set-ups we have encountered in a very long while, and anyone who can remember back to first generation IP cameras should know what we mean.
Initially everything seemed to go well and the camera showed up on the supplied configuration utility, which lets the installer change the cameras IP address, in case it conflicts with other network devices. But after several hours trying to access the camera (and we tried countless permutations of client PC, network configurations, and in desperation we even swapped known good the cables around…) the browser screen remained stubbornly blank.
Eventually, suspecting a fault, we were preparing to disconnect and return the unit, but we decided to give it one more try and for the umpteenth time, rebooted the router, client PC and camera and finally made contact.
We are still not sure how we managed to get it to work but it seems that a combination of a ‘hard’ reset on the camera followed by a sequenced re-boot of the camera then the client PC somehow did the trick. For some reason this prompted the camera to drop its default IP address and assign itself a new one, well outside of the normal address range, and everything clicked into place.
Once the browser and camera make the browser asks to download and install an Active X viewer from the camera and after a few moments and a brief tussle with the browser’s security settings the opening screen or ‘Live’ page from the camera is displayed.
Down the left hand side there are buttons for Live or Setup mode, screen layout (single, quad or 4 x 4), image type (MPEG-4 or JPEG) and resolution (VGA or QVGA). Beneath the display window are the camera controls, for zoom, focus, Auto Mode (auto track, auto pan, sequence, 360-degree Map Shot). In the middle there’s the on-screen ‘joystick’ for controlling the pan and tilt and on the far right buttons for adjusting brightness and selecting a preset position.
Up until this point the camera has been a model of simplicity and a delight to use but from now on we see the other side to its personality. Clicking the Setup button opens a new page display a set of menu options, which from top to bottom are Basic Setup, Camera Setup, Multi-Screen Setup, Alarm Setup, Authentication Setup, Server Setup, Network Setup, Maintenance and Help.
When clicked most menu items up a tabbed display leading to various sub menus, which in some cases contain scores of options and switches. Rather than wade through them all we’ll just dip into the first couple to get an idea of how deep and detailed it can get.
Basic Setup has three tabs, the first one, entitled Basic, deals with camera title, time and date, switching indicator LEDs on the camera on and off, setting the position of the on screen display and some background alarm functions. The next tab is labelled NTP tab and this leads to a sub menu for setting up automatic time synchronisation with a network time server.
The last of the three tabs is SD Memory. This has selections for switching the card slot on and off; enabling card full notification, overwrite mode, file naming, frame rate, file size and a viewer to display recorded images. All fairly straightforward you may be thinking, but now we come to the Camera Setup menu.
This displays four tabs. The first one is for configuring JPEG and MPEG-4 frame rates, image capture size, client bit rates and transmission settings, amongst other things. Next along is the Camera Function tab and this has a box for composing a camera title, setting the Home position and various pan/tilt housekeeping functions.
At this point you are excused to go and make a cup of tea, or something stronger because we are about to visit the Image/Position tab. Here we find four buttons for a set of secondary sub menus and these are labelled Image Adjustment, Preset Position, Auto Pan and Privacy Zone.
Clicking Image Adjustment opens a new browser window that deals with, amongst other things, Super Dynamic Mode 3, defining the privacy mask area, setting shutter speed, AGC, low light sensitivity, white balance, DNR, chroma gain, aperture level and Pedestal Level, and there are three other sub-sub menus just like it. Don’t forget we are still only on the first button on the third tab of the second item on the main menu…
In the end who is to say what is and is not strictly necessary or useful? Suffice it to say this camera sets a new benchmark for configuration settings and in the future we’ll think twice before grumbling about cameras with too few controls. You can take it as read that if there’s some aspect of this camera’s operation you want to fiddle with or tweak you’ll probably find it buried somewhere in the menus.
Performance
Moving the camera with any sort of precision using the on-screen pan/tilt control takes a little practice but it can be done. However, there is an easier option and that’s to use the mouse pointer and simply clicking on an object ensures that it always stays at the centre of the screen.
In good natural light and on the highest quality settings picture performance is excellent, comparable with and quite possibly better than the best IP cameras we’ve tested, though in the absence of a side-by-side test we’ll just say that it is very good indeed. Nevertheless, there are a number of small but noticeable differences between MPEG-4 and JPEG images; the latter is crisper with fewer artefacts, colours look cleaner and as light levels fall there’s less grain and texture in dark areas. On the other hand MPEG pictures suffer from significantly less lag and are clearly better at displaying moving objects.
Reducing the quality setting to the mid-range or ‘normal’ does have a small impact on sharpness but it’s still quite acceptable and it’s only on the very lowest settings that the deterioration becomes significant.
Low light performance is about what you would expect from a camera of this type; as levels fall there is a big increase in noise and a softening of the picture, but JPEG images always retain the edge when it comes to sharpness and colour fidelity.
The camera’s auto exposure systems cope admirably with changes in light level; even sudden changes, when panning quickly, don’t seem to upset it too much, and the picture normally only takes a moment or two to settle down.