The Amission Tritium Ipcam 200W is a wireless IP camera that can operate
independently of a PC.
It's a security product that also boasts mobile phone streaming so footage
can be accessed from a mobile phone's browser.
The camera is fairly easy to assemble and comes with screws so you can mount
it on a wall in your home.
For initial setup you must plug the camera directly into your router via an
Ethernet cable.
A program, rather confusingly called Installation Wizard, can be used to find
the Ipcam 200W's IP address on a home network. Be warned though, this tool isn't
automatically installed with the main software and wouldn't work on our
corporate network.
In the home, it's perhaps just as easy to log into a router and note down the
IP address for the camera.
Installation is both difficult and unnecessarily time consuming. For example.
it's not until page 16 of the 67-page manual that you find out the default
username is 'root' and not the name you chose when you installed the software.
Once you're logged into the camera, the 802.11g wireless feature can be
enabled, meaning the camera can sit anywhere within range of a wireless router.
ActiveX controls must be installed to set up the camera; this
means it is only compatible with Internet Explorer and rules out other
browsers.
Further complexities arise since the camera's IP address must be added as a
trusted site, with the security level set to the lowest possible setting before
the unsigned ActiveX control will install.
From Internet Explorer, the camera is completely customisable. As well as
defining the quality of the video you want to stream (so you can reduce quality
and save bandwidth or vice versa), you can also do things such as turn off the
front LED or upload photos to an ftp server. Motion detection can also be set up
to trigger recording.
Knowledge of your domain name service (dns) settings is required to stream
video outside of a home network, including streaming 3GPP video to 3G mobile
phones. Unless you're on a fixed-rate data tariff, streaming live video to your
mobile can be very expensive.
A Cmos sensor provides a 640x480 resolution video stream at 30 frames per
second (fps) and the resulting picture quality was good.
Bundled Windows software allows for further tweaking. It is complex, with a
baffling array of windows provided so that up to 16 different Tritium Ipcams can
be monitored at the same time.
The camera's build quality is good, however the inclusion of a manual focus
feature is a double-edged sword if you're viewing the camera from a remote
location, there's no way of adjusting it if the image is blurred. Careful
attention to the focus is therefore required during setup.
There are no help files, software or firmware updates on Amission's website a worrying sign as to the amount of
support on offer.
Ultimately, 171 is a quite a high price to pay for a wireless IP camera such
as this. Picture quality is good, but it is very difficult to set up.
Security engineers will appreciate the scalability to monitor up to 16
cameras, but most home users will be better off with cheaper, easier-to-use
alternatives
HIGH-end Video Server Module board W1860
