Trendnet TV-IP301W review

TrendNet's TV-IP301W is a wired and wireless security camera, so you can monitor anywhere in your home or office. As the camera runs its own operating system, you can even use it without having to leave a PC turned on.

TrendNet provides only a basic fixed stand. The camera has mount threads on its top and bottom, so you can ceiling-mount it if necessary. The RS-485 output on the rear means you can control a third-party powered stand through the camera's web interface.

The TV-IP301W also has a set of infrared LEDs that turn on in low light, so the camera can take footage even when it's dark. Unfortunately, power has to be run separately to the LEDs via a splitter cable, which makes the camera look untidy and a bit like a demonstration model. The camera also gets quite warm when it's turned on. Installation is easy using the provided Windows software. Strangely, this application doesn't let you scan for wireless networks to join, prompting you to type in every setting manually, even though the camera's web-based interface does.

If you have just one camera, you can control it using a web browser. The interface is neat, and there's a choice of viewing video footage using ActiveX or Java. However, the Java viewer supports only motion JPEG, not MPEG4 video, which eats up a lot more network bandwidth. We used ActiveX, which produced excellent frame rates and high-quality video at a resolution of 640x480. The TV-IP301W supports two motion-detection windows, on which you can resize and set the sensitivity individually. When motion is detected, the camera can be configured to send an email and upload a frame to a website. It's one of the easiest cameras to configure we've used.

If you want to control multiple cameras, you'll have to install TrendNetfs IPView Pro. For each camera you can monitor the live video feed, set up a recording schedule and configure motion detection and notification. In addition, you can play captured video. We found it to be a surprisingly good application, especially compared to the outdated software used by D-Link's Wireless Internet Camera, which was reviewed in What's New: Networks, Shopper April 2007.

The TV-IP301W is a good-quality security camera that's easy to configure, but it's expensive, especially considering that you don't even get a powered stand with it.