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Hands On: D-Link IP Camera/WHS Solution

By on December 12, 2009 in Add-ins & Apps, Hardware, Network Cameras, Networking Reviews, News, Reviews, Software

Putting it all together

We have installed the WHS add-in.  We have found a suitable location and installed 4 cameras.  It is now time to see what we can do with all this hardware and software.  Up to this point, everything has gone quite well.  Having to refer to the manual was not required.  Until now.

First, there is the installation CD’s that come with the IP cameras.  The proceeding pictures were made from the setup program for a DCS-1130.  The included manual on the CD provides information on how to access, configure and use a particular IP camera from inside a home network or remotely.

That is all well and good, but there is a different set of instructions that I downloaded with the WHS software.  This manual provides instructions on how to access the WHS version of D-ViewCam, which is what we, as WHS users, are interested in.

At this point, things quickly went South, off course, or down the tubes.  In other words, not well.  First, it took me a few times reading the access instructions to figure out what was written.

Open your IE browser, and enter the following URL: http://<IP address>/dvc where <IP address> is the IP address of the D-ViewCam Windows Home Server Edition. (Example: http://60.144.11.11/dvc/).

These instructions would have made more sense if it read “local IP address of your Windows Home Server.”, not “IP address of the D-ViewCam Windows Home Server Edition.”

That was a rather minor problem.

My first encounter with the D-ViewCam software was through a RDC from my Windows 7 x64 workstation to my WHS.  I originally had one camera installed at that point and I wanted to see how one IP camera worked before I started using four of these things!  I fired up a RDC, opened IE and opened the D-ViewCam program

cam5 300x225 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution cam6 300x225 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution

I logged in

cam7 300x152 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution

and went through some initial setup screens:

cam8 300x232 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution cam9 300x232 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution

cam10 300x232 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution cam111 300x232 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution

cam12 300x232 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution cam13 300x232 Hands On: D Link IP Camera/WHS Solution

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About Jim Clark

Hello. I’m from the heartland of the U.S. Lots of corn and beans, although Iowa is a lot more than just farmland. It also has a few computer enthusiasts (no, not me!). I’ve been around PCs since I got my 1st PC XT aloooong time ago. WGS is one of the first sites I found centered around WHS. And the best. Every once in awhile, I do get away from the KB and enjoy time with and my wife and our 4 kids. And I do have a day job.
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  • ernest

    Yeah, I didnt have much luck with the WHS software either. the online (mydlink.com) interface does seem to work okay though, as does going direct IP. but w/o the WHS integration, not worth it in my opinion, there are better cameras/software out there

  • billscarnage

    @ernest, what are some of your other suggestions for cameras/software. For the camera I'd really like one with decent night vision.
    TIA

  • http://www.dcdvreviews.com/ dking

    Ha~ The Camera is very nice

  • Ascario

    Nice read! Did you by chance test the audio quality/audibility? Where considering using a few of these cameras to record simulated patient consultations at uni. Since these recordings are for both research and evaluation purposes, sound needs to be of good enough quality.
    Cheers

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jim_Clark Jim_Clark

      I did not do very much with audio (adjustment-wise). Using the default settings, I was able to easily hear real-time conversations, with a normal 1-2 lag time. On the one positioned behind my computer monitor, it was picking up a signficant amount of what seemed like background noise. It was sitting atop a speaker, which meant I was might have been hearing a bit of a feedback loop?

  • Ascario

    Thanks for the helpful reply Jim! At least this clears things up a bit. None of the ip cam reviews I've read discussed sound, let alone sound quality. Since we have a Home Server at our disposal in our office (mainly as a local backup and workspace server), it would be nice if we could use it with these cams.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jim_Clark Jim_Clark

      It will work OK with using a direct IP address. You will have to configure it to save to your WHS.

      Or the WHS software may work just fine using one camera. But no more…

  • scoob101

    I think your being a little harsh Jim to call this alpha software simply because some of your machines dont meet the the hardware requirements for video playback. From your article, the software appears feature complete, and you didn`t mention any serious bugs, so how can you call it an Alpha? Did D-link not mention minimum requirements in the documentation?

    Viewing video over RDP (i.e via the WHS console) is never going to be a good solution, so going down the IE path to view the cams directly on the client seems the only sensible way forward.

    As far as I can see, the only benefit to using a WHS with this type of setup is to have an always-on machine to save your captured video onto, and host remote connections from the internet. Anything else and your best off with a direct connection to the client.

    Were there any other camera features which the WHS helped with??

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jim_Clark Jim_Clark

      D-ViewCam is part of the WHS software. The single window version is inherent to the camera itself and is not part of the WHS software.

      Per the manual: Min. display mem. requirement is 32MB. A 10 year GPU should suffice. There is no mention of "seperate" GPU required.

      Every machine (except 1) I tried this on had a MB/CPU/GPU less than 3 years old. I stand by my statement. I am not being harsh, simply being realistic. The SW does not work. If I said it worked and you purchased the HW for use with this SW; it did not work; would you not be somewhat upset with me?

      • scoob101

        Did you try accessing the D-ViewCam software from a wired ethernet client? Im wondering if the poor latency/bandwidth of a wireless connection to the WHS console had a part to play in the poor performance.

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jim_Clark Jim_Clark

          It could be possible, however, one the better working machines (the old Dell) was wireless. My normal workstation, and my self-built WHS are both wired.

          I really wish that was the problem! :(

  • Aaron

    I have a similar D-Link ethernet webcam that I use with third party monitoring software called ZoneMinder. Although the camera itself does a great job, I have to say that the packaged webcam software from D-Link is some of the worst quality software I've ever used. I find it laughable that D-Link can include "world class quality" as one of their core values!

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jim_Clark Jim_Clark

      Yep, the camera seamed to work fine, although I will be the first to admit I do not have much to base a comparison on.

      If the SW had performed better, I would have been rather inclined to work harder to find the limits of the camera capabilites.

  • Feets

    If you have 4xCamera's recording to your WHS surely the CPU is going to get slammed? Off the shelf WHS are (currently) low power CPUs, ideal for always on but not for video encoding. Interested to hear how D-Link have solved this.

  • rpiboy

    Is the software absolutely limited to the Cameras listed in D-Link's documentation? Or would it be possible for the software to connect to some of D-Link's Small Biz cameras? Also, is it possible to for the WHS software to connect to a remote camera, ie through the internet, or will it only recognize LAN cameras? If you don't know, is it possible for you to follow-up with your D-Link contact?

    Thanks!