In Use
Once the initial setup is complete, non-Windows users can connect to the camera via web browser to use and configure it further. It appears that the only
Figure 5 shows the initial
Figure 5: DCS-930L Live Video View
In this case, I have a 320x240
At the bottom of this window, you can see buttons for (digital) zooming in on the image and controlling audio (on/off). These worked fine, but the zooming was just a pixel replication so it was not terribly useful.
It's a bit hard to see in this
Figure 6: DCS-930L Low-Light Capabilities
The audio quality coming from the camera was OK and sufficient to listen to conversations near the camera.
I won't have space to cover every item in the configuration menus, but there are options for creation and maintenance of individual user accounts, updating the firmware, permanently turning the blinking LED off, setting the time, etc.
I will cover some of the more interesting features, though. First, I set up a
Figure 7: DCS-930L Dynamic DNS Setup Menu
Support is provided for several different external services and once I had my info entered, it worked fine. To use the camera outside your home network using this method, you'll be responsible for doing the
The next item of interest was
Figure 8: DCS-930L Email Setup
You can see in this screen that the camera can be set up to periodically email images regardless of motion on a
Figure 9: DCS-930L Motion Setup
I found that this feature worked, but selecting the right sensitivity for all occasions was a bit of a challenge. When I first set the camera up, a light snow was falling, so I had to turn the sensitivity way down to prevent getting inundated with email alerts. But when the snow stopped, I had to turn it back up or else I wasn't getting any detections.
I also had a number of false alarms as shadows moved across the image during the day. So, this feature worked but if you are planning on using to view an outdoor scene, be prepared to get a number of
Another problem I saw with the
Note that you can also set the box up to FTP image events to a specified server using much the same type of parameters as for email. But be aware that the emailed or FTP'ed image does not have a
Updated 1/13/2011: Updated D-View Cam info
One thing the camera can't do is record video directly. D-Link includes a copy of its D-ViewCam software on CD, which supports recording directly from the camera to a local hard drive or NAS, triggering motion detection, setting recording schedules and setting e-mail alert notifications. The software will do all this for up to 32 cameras.
D-ViewCam requires Windows XP pro SP3 / 2003 / Vista SP1/ Win 7 and I'm a MacOS guy. So it didn't do me much good. Also note that the CD doesn't install the application by default.
Figure 9a: D-View Cam screen
D-ViewCam appears to be geared toward management of many cameras and supports many different models (note the controls for pan/tilt/zoom). It allows the operator to switch among cameras or view several on screen at once. The app has a distinct business feel and isn't as user-friendly as the web-based view. So unless you really need camera recording you probably won't use it.
You can download a copy of the User Manual to explore further.