Hardware Bistro

Product: WL-1200CAM
Manufacturer: AirLive
Supplied by: AirLive
Price: 172USD/RM599
Launch Date: NA

 

Home security products are getting popular since pass few years ago which may due to its cheaper price, greater support, features and etc. Today we will have a quick look on one of the AirLive IP cameras; WL-1200CAM. AirLive WL-1200CAM wireless-G dual stream IP camera which supports MPEG4, 2-way audio as well as view through mobile phone.

 

Company Profile

The manufacturer of AirLive products, OvisLink Corp. was founded in 1993 in Taiwan by a group of industrial experts who set out to provide the best combination of quality, service, technology and value in the industry. Today, OvisLink Corp. is an international corporation, total networking solution provider with over 200 products and with hundreds of distributors around the world.

AirLive is a brand providing Innovation, Solutions, Reliability and Technology. AirLive's R&D department continuously focuses its efforts on developing the right products including AirLive WISP and Outdoor solutions, AirLive SMB and Security solutions and AirLive Small Office and Home products.

 

Features

- Wireless-G Dual Stream IP Camera
- Wireless-G MPEG-4 IP Camera
- Supports Motion-Detection Recording
- Support 2 Ways Audio
- Motion Recording Activity To PC or Nas
- View Through Web Browser Or Mobile Phone
- Support for UPnP which makes seamless device connection and easy installation
- Full Feature 54Mbps Wireless Camera
- Plug-n-play installation
- 802.11g now allows the camera to operate at 30FPS (QVGA) speed
- Up to 640x480(10fps) resolution
- Recording images to a hard drive
- Viewing up to 4 cameras on one screen, snapshots and many others
- Send users an email notification; attach up to 3 images in the email
- Supports TCP/IP networking, SMTP e-mail, HTTP and other Internet related protocols
- Powerful Camera Viewer application software for image capturing and video recording
- Support both ActiveX control and Java applet for Internet Explorer
- Scheduled or always recording mode

 

Specifications

 

Package & Contents

 

AirLive WL-1200CAM comes with a well packed packaging box which is rich of information regarding its features, product specification as well as some nice diagrams for better and easy understanding. However the inner packaging of this product is a bit simple and it could be further improved in order to protect the components inside better; at least some foams to replace the paper cardboard.

 

Besides the IP camera of AirLive WL-1200CAM, this device also comes with user's manual, software & driver CD, power adapter, network cable and some mounting equipments. The bundled user's manual is a quick reference Multilanguage's booklet and the full English complete user's guide can be found at the CD. Internet Camera Admin and IP Camera Viewer are included in the software CD but the latest version of them can be downloaded at AirLive website.

 

An external power adapter is a required for this device as due to space constraint, it is not convenience to integrate the module PSU inside the IP camera. The power adapter is a 100-240V auto switching adapter with 12DC and 1A outputs. We like such single device adapter rather than those adapters where the power cord is separated. Since AirLive WL-1200CAM supports WAN and LAN, a short LAN cable is provided as well.

 

Here are the stand and some mounting accessories of AirLive WL-1200CAM. The stand is required no matter whether the IP camera is wall mounted or just placed on top of some flat surface. The IP camera stand is well designed and very flexible as the AirLive WL-1200CAM can be adjusted to different viewing angles; 360° horizontally and 90° vertically.

 

A Closer Look - AirLive WL-1200CAM

 

WL-1200CAM is one of the AirLive entry IP cameras as some of the AirLive high end IP cameras are equipped with more advanced technologies, features such as night vision, infrared, auto light sensor and so on. AirLive WL-1200CAM is a quite moderate IP camera although night vision is missing here as it is a dual stream IP camera featuring with MPEG-4 and motion JPEG compression. Besides that mobile phone viewing and 2-way audio capabilities are supported as well.

 

AirLive WL-1200CAM is a wireless-G device so the maximum wireless transfer speed will be 54Mbps which should be quite enough for home and enterprise usages; hopefully a wireless-n version will be released soon since wireless-n has fastest speed. Basically 802.11g of AirLive WL-1200CAM allows the camera to operate at 30FPS in QVGA mode and up to 640x480 with 10fps; however most of the midrange to higher end IP camera supports 640x480 with 30fps. There are three LED indicators beside the 1.3M CMOS sensor (Micron MI-320 with manual focus F=2.8mm); LAN, WLAN and Power. The whole enclosure of AirLive WL-1200CAM is circulated with ventilation vents to prevent overheating issue which may shorten the device's life span.

 

Here is the back view of AirLive WL-1200CAM; top connector is for antenna, middle connector is for stand and MAC/serial info is written as well. At the bottom of the AirLive WL-1200CAM, there are total four connectors; reset, power, LAN and speaker. Reset key is used to reset the device to manufacturing default, 12VDC for power input, LAN for networking cable and SPK is for 2-way audio where the build-in mic is located just below the SPK jack. 

 

As AirLive WL-1200CAM is a wireless-G device so an antenna is provided and if only LAN is used then this antenna can be ignored but for home usage, wireless connection will be easier to be implemented unless all the necessary cables (power, LAN) are well prepared. For your information, AirLive WL-1200CAM is equipped with 4MB flash & 32MB SDRAM memories which are pretty standard for an entry IP camera. The overall dimension of AirLive WL-1200CAM is 113 x 80 x 43 mm excluding the stand and antenna; neither too big nor too small.

AirLive WL-1200CAM comes with window-based and web-based monitoring utilities where the IP camera can be accessed via intranet or internet. Other nice feature of AirLive WL-1200CAM like motion-detection recording which can be saved to PC or NAS (ideal for long hour or 24/7 monitoring). Besides that AirLive WL-1200CAM also supports TCP/IP networking, SMTP e-mail, HTTP and etc which are quite important especially for small business setup.

As we mentioned before AirLive WL-1200CAM supports 2-way audio and let us talk a little more on this to clarify it especially for those are not familiar with IP camera. Basically 2-way audio allows two parties communicating where user can remotely talk to someone at the camera site of course a speaker needs to be connected at camera site (microphone is built in) and user can hear the voice via the camera. This is an interesting feature for an IP camera as it is not only providing viewing but also interactive for better communicating; good for home and small office usage.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

Installation for AirLive WL-1200CAM isn't that complicated since it is a quite simple device. First of all AirLive WL-1200CAM needs to be physically setup with the stand and other necessary mounting accessories. If wireless connectivity is chosen for AirLive WL-1200CAM then of course the antenna needs to be connected as well.

 

Once everything is setup correctly then it is time to power on the AirLive WL-1200CAM. The LED indicators will light accordingly and either LAN or WLAN LED indicator will be lighted at the same time to indicate its active connectivity (the detail is shown with the table below). All these LED indicators can be turned off through Ovislink Admin.

Test Bed:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
Heatsink: Noctua NH-U9B
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR2 6400/8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: OEM Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB
PSU: In Win Commander 750W
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: DVD RW HLDS
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

 

Software Setup

 

Let us proceed with software setup for AirLive WL-1200CAM and basically there are two software are required; Ovislink Admin 3.0.4 and Ovislink Viewer 3.0.0.8. Ovislink Admin is used to detect and setup the connected IP camera while Ovislink Viewer is used for viewing the video. Once the AirLive WL-1200CAM is detected, Ovislink Viewer will display the information accordingly; either through LAN or WLAN connectivity.

 

The default password for accessing Ovislink Admin is "airlive" and there are quite number of setting can be adjusted/setup once this software is accessed. The default IP of AirLive WL-1200CAM is 192.168.2.3 so the connected PC must be set manually to related IP address; 192.168.2.XXX. Once the AirLive WL-1200CAM is detected then the IP address can be changed manually for daily usage.

 

Those settings are IP/network (IP, subnet, gateway, DNS), wireless (SSID scanning, profile), email (configure e-mail alert when motion is detected), PPPoE (building point to point protocol over ethernet), FTP (sending captured file via FTP), data/time (regional settings), resolution (either 160x120, 320x240 or 640x480), advance (UPnP, DDnS), users (maximum four users can be created), tools (reset, firmware update) and about.

 

Besides the Ovislink Admin, the settings of AirLive WL-1200CAM can be setup through web browser as well. Enter the IP address of AirLive WL-1200CAM in any web browser then it will prompt user to install the Active X control in order to work in this web-based mode. Once everything is setup then the settings and viewing of AirLive WL-1200CAM can be accessed. Most of the setting of AirLive WL-1200CAM is quite similar with Ovislink Admin but there are something additional on this web-based mode such as motion detection, mute audio, audio & video and system logging as well.

 

After all the setting, it's time to talk about its performance. As we mentioned before AirLive WL-1200CAM can be viewed through either Ovislink Viewer or web-based browser. Both of them work well for us and we suggest Ovislink Viewer for long hour of usage; 24/7 while web-based mode for short period of usage or maybe through intranet viewing. Ovislink Viewer can support up to four IP cameras and this information is shown on the dashboard (blue means connected, red means recording, yellow means not connected and pink means paused or unable to connect). The length of the color bar shows the frame rate of the connected IP camera; longer means higher frame rate while shorten means lower frame rate.

Besides that we also tested on live recording, scheduled recording, 2-way audio communication and so on. All of them are working as per designed and we are really like some of these features which are really helpful. However we still hope to see some improvement on the version of AirLive WL-1200CAM such as the fps during VGA 640 x 480 resolution; increase from 15fps till 30fps. FYI, there are latest version of Ovislink Viewer and Ovislink Admin which can be downloaded through AirLive website, however we have some problem to use these latest utilities AirLive WL-1200CAM else it will be much better as it comes with greater and better GUI.

 

Conclusion

With higher living requirement nowadays and for better security purpose, IP camera is one of the hot selling products lately especially cheaper and more mature networking devices. AirLive WL-1200CAM is an entry IP camera which provides basic IP camera functions and some additional unique features which makes it to be more attractive. If you are looking for a decent and budget IP camera then AirLive WL-1200CAM should be able to fulfill your basic IP camera requirements; perfect for home and small office usage. AirLive WL-1200CAM costs around 170USD which is not cheap but we can't really say that it is expensive because IP camera is not a cheap device in the first place but we strongly believe that IP camera price will fall in the next few years when its technologies are more mature and same for its popularity.

 

Pros:

+ Wireless-G & LAN supported
+ 2-way audio communication
+ Supports window & web-based modes
+ Motion-detection recording
+ Decent performance for home & small office usage
+ Comes with stand and complete set of mounting accessories

 

Cons:

- Lower fps during VGA 640 x 480 resolution
- Not cheap

 

Thanks to AirLive for providing this sample for us to review.

Only registered users may post a comment.

Administrator	5.0 / 5	Fri 5 Feb 10
hi, can i have your email address? Thanks

Oatis	2.0 / 5	Fri 15 Jan 10
I also purchase this model but couldn't figure how this can be viewed through mobile phone. There is no information given in User Guide on how that can be done. It would be great if you can reply and explain on mobile phone viewing...