Setup and Configuration

Though a multi-language Quick Installation Guide is included with the camera, I was still disappointed by the TV-IP301W setup and configuration. I was mainly annoyed that only the briefest description existed on how to configure the camera after installing the hardware.

The Quick Installation Guide says that you must assign a static IP address to the computer that you'll use to connect to the camera that is on the same subnet as the camera's fixed address. You then connect to the camera using your Web browser. By default, the camera is configured with a static IP address of http://192.168.1.30.

In all fairness, I must add that the information is covered briefly. The User's Guide does provide a single paragraph on page 96 for changing your computer's IP address to match the default subnet of the camera. But the directions to use the Windows TCP/IP Properties dialog were presented without the aid of screen shots. Ultimately, I felt the footnote on page 23, Note: Extensive knowledge of LAN will be helpful in configuring the camera, probably sums up what it takes to get your system working.

A far simpler method, I thought, would be for TRENDnet to default its camera to acquire an address through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), and then have a utility "discover" the camera on the network.

Interestingly, TRENDnet does not supply a Setup Wizard built into the camera's admin webserver. Instead, the Setup Wizard is available on the Utility CD-ROM. However, the User's Guide and the Quick Installation Guide do not make any reference to it! Since Setup Wizard is only shown as a menu option in the screen image on page 62 of the User's Guide, it can be easily overlooked.

To satisfy my curiosity, once I had the camera configured on my subnet, I ran the Setup Wizard. It, in turn, discovered the camera (as shown in Figure 7 below) and enabled me to configure the camera's basic network settings.

Figure 7: The Setup Wizard discovers the camera

Figure 8 shows the Setup Wizard summary screen with my camera's basic network settings.

Figure 8: Basic Network Settings Summary

Since my test unit was the wireless version, I set the camera up to connect wirelessly so that I could move the camera around my home and test it in various locations.

Through the wireless configuration page, I was able to specify the name of the wireless network I wanted to connect to and define the security settings. Unlike many older cameras on the market that only support WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), the TV-IP301W supports WPA-PSK TKIP and AES.

The wireless configuration utility within the Web browser also offers a Site Survey option to determine which APs the camera can see. The camera saw three APs, or perhaps, the Site Survey only showed the three strongest APs. By contrast, my notebook, which sat a few feet away and was equipped with the latest 802.11n (Draft N) D-Link DWA652 Card, found 12 APs. In spite of the Site Survey's findings, I felt the camera had adequate coverage within my house.

Tags: Network camera, Trendnet, WiFi,

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