Getting the correct security for your home or business can be a costly affair, and with so many different choices of cameras, monitors and recorders available, choosing the right kit can be a bewildering experience. It’s all too easy to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to set yourself up with the latest in motion detection or heat sensor technology, but what if you require a simple camera that doesn’t break the bank and won’t require a team of specialists to come and install it? Panasonic might just have the answer in the shape of the BL-C101 – a single-box solution that will set you back less than GB pound 150 and offers far more features than its affordable price tag suggests.
Panasonic has just provided the security equipment for the London Olympics and although the high-end static and point-and-zoom cameras that kept the likes of Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis safe aren’t what we’re looking at here today, it’s reassuring to know that at its heart the BL-C101 has the same technology running inside of it.
With a price tag of GB pound 135, the Pansonic BL-C101 is aimed squarely at SMEs, homes or those that just want to be able to keep an eye on the dog while they’re at work or monitor their baby when it sleeps. Designed for indoor use, it takes around ten minutes to install and all you’ll need is an internet router and a PC to get it up and running. You’ll then be able to monitor your footage at any time online or via a mobile phone, making it the perfect introduction to the wonders of CCTV – a my first security camera if you like.
What’s included
It’s difficult to believe that a box not much bigger than two house bricks will be able to provide you with everything you need to set up your own CCTV system, but that’s precisely what the Panasonic BL-C101 offers. Inside you’ll find the camera itself, an AC adaptor for connecting it to the mains, a power transfer unit, a stand for mounting it to the wall and a CD-ROM for installation. You’ll also require a pair of LAN cables (of the CAT-5 variety) to hook the whole lot together, although frustratingly these aren’t included in the bundle.
The CCTV camera itself provides a lesson in simple, understated design. It’s white and constructed from a robust plastic, and with its 85 x 85 x 27mm (H x W x D) dimensions, is small enough to be mounted on a wall or ceiling without becoming obtrusive or immediately obvious to those that it’s supposed to be keeping an eye on. The camera screws onto what Panasonic like to call the ‘Flexible Stand’, which is basically a white metal bracket with a ball and socket connector that enables it to be manoeuvred and locked to the required position.
The front of the camera unit is home to the lens, a built-in microphone and a small green light that indicates that it is working. Around the back is the input for the LAN cable, an in-set button for resetting the camera to its factory settings and an external input/output interface for doing more fancy things like hooking up a sensor or motion detector. Obviously, this is a feature that is less likely to be used by the average home user, but it’s reassuring to know that the BL-C101 has the capability of offering such high-end options considering its price. The circuit diagrams to do such an installation are provided in the instruction manual, but you’ll more than likely need to employ the services of an electrician or security professional to take advantage of this feature.
Installation and setup
Provided you’re not interesting in using heat or motion sensors, installation is a no-nonsense affair that can be carried out by even the biggest technophobe. It’s a simple case of mounting the bracket on the wall in your preferred position, attaching the camera and then hooking up the cables. Plug one LAN cable into the camera to connect it to the power transfer unit (which, as the name suggests will need to be hooked up to the mains) and then use the other LAN cable to connect the power transfer unit to your internet router, and that’s about it.
The rest of the fine-tuning will need to be done on your PC. The Panasonic BL-C101 can be installed using any PC running Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Windows 2000, but not Macs so Apple fans will have to look elsewhere. Again, the process is ridiculously simple as it’s just a case of inserting the CD-ROM into your PC and then following the onscreen instructions.
The BL-C101 works by piping live footage to a secure website, which you can then log on to from any device that has a browser (including mobile phones and Macs). You select your own username and password for the site to keep your footage private and Panasonic even provides a neat way to tailor the link to a more memorable URL than the address it automatically generates. Some ultra simple recording software (again this is PC only) is also bundled so that you can review footage at the end of the day to see what you’ve missed out on.
All adjustments and fine-tuning of the camera are made online (these can be done by Macs) and enable you to do things like adjust the quality of the footage (192 x 144, 320 x 240 or 640 x 480-pixels), set the refresh rate (MPEG-4, MJPEG, 3s, 5s, 10s, 30s and 60s), adjust the brightness and white balance and make alterations to things like backlight. In short, it’s not too dissimilar to the range of options that your mobile phone offers for shooting movies. It’s possible to monitor as many as 16 cameras at once, so if you choose you can have a number of cams set up around the home.
Usability
Once the CCTV system is up and running, it’s surprising just how well it performs. In its highest quality setting footage is impressively sharp with surprisingly little in the way of motion blur or noise present. Colours are perfectly reproduced, looking natural and free from bleed. As you’d expect with a resolution of just 640 x 480 pixels, the image doesn’t come close to the sort of high-definition pictures that some of Panasonic’s higher-specced cameras offer, but it’s important to remember just how affordable this system really is. It’s certainly possible to make out fine details (such as the print in a book if it’s held up to the camera – why you’d want to is another matter altogether), but there are signs of jaggies on edges that would appear sharp in reality.
Motion is similarly impressive, with little in the way of blur or smearing visible. It’s not even close to HD quality, but it’ll certainly let you see if the person that’s nicking the company biscuits has spots on their face.
Understandably, there’s a noticeable drop-off in quality as you lower the resolution and refresh rate and we’d recommend you carry out a series of experiments to find the combination that best suits the specific requirements of what it is that you’re filming. We would say, however, that the lowest resolution 192 x 144 pixels option is probably best avoided as it’s like trying to look at a screen the size of postage stamp – there appears to be oodles of detail on show, but everything’s just too small.
We experienced mixed results with the audio side of things with sound dropping out intermittently. On the occasions when it did work, it provided a perfectly serviceable way to monitor what’s being said, albeit not in crystal clear clarity. A quick note on monitoring footage using your mobile phone, you’ll only be able to get stills, rather than real-time moving pictures. The quality of these images is more than adequate and the size of the mobile phone screen really limits the precise sort of detail that you can pick out on a PC screen.
Overall Verdict
In conclusion then, the Panasonic BL-C101 provides the perfect package for those that want to be able to keep an eye on their home or business around the clock. It’s simple to install, ridiculously easy to operate and provides good quality CCTV pictures that will enable you to pick out fine details if required. It’s also available in a wireless form (the GB pound 250 BL-C121) for those that don’t want cables trailing around the room. It’s certainly not the height of cutting edge sophistication and you can bet your life that it’s not what’s being used at Fort Knox, but that’s not the point. For simple security at a knockdown price you’ll be hard pushed to find a better way to spend your money.