Product Reviews

With the release of the PVC2300, Linksys dips its toes into business surveillance waters, as this IP camera offers a range of functions that look well suited to the task. A key feature that makes it stand out is support for PoE, so placement is no longer restricted by requirements for a nearby power socket. A power supply is provided, but we found the PVC2300 worked fine when connected to our Lab's HP ProCurve 2626-PWR PoE switch.

The body is nicely finished in brushed aluminium, and the standard F1.7 lens can be swapped out for other CS mount-compatible versions.

Key features we expect to see in a business IP camera are present and correct, as it supports both Motion JPEG and MPEG4, offers a maximum frame rate of 30fps, and has motion-detection capabilities. Audio sockets are provided for external microphone and speaker, and the ten-pin I/O block can be connected to other external sensors and also provides 12V of power for activating devices such as alarms or electronic door locks.

The bundled Setup wizard makes light work of initial installation. You'll soon be gazing at the camera's homepage, which provides a live view along with buttons for taking snapshots, activating devices connected to the I/O block, and manually switching on the lens filter for day or night viewing.

The

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maximum resolution is 640 x 480 pixels, and you'll need to select this if you want decent picture quality. You'll also need to set the focus manually, but once sorted we found the picture was bright and sharp and offered a good colour balance. However, drop down to the Normal setting and quality deteriorates noticeably, and although the digital zoom offers a 4x practical magnification it's of no use at all.

The configuration pages are well designed, making the features easily accessible. The live view can be customised with date and time stamps, and you can add your own overlays to it. The default image size and frame rate can be set from here, and you can choose either MPEG4 or Motion JPEG. Motion-detection features aren't as advanced as those offered by the Axis 211A (web ID: 72933), but you can select up to three windows where you want motion to be picked up and adjust the sensitivity of each one.

Alerts can be tied in with motion detection or any external sensor, while download options include automatically sending images to up to three email addresses, an FTP server and IM apps such as Windows Messenger. The latter requires the location of a Jabber server, and we suggest ignoring the manual's overly complex briefing and going to www.jabber.org for assistance. Apple's Bonjour discovery protocol is also supported: you can activate preset QoS for audio or video, while CoS offers traffic prioritisation and VLAN selection. Using the bundled software, you can monitor up to 16 cameras from one interface and set up schedules to record video from any of them at predefined intervals, then send it to a location of your choice.

The closest competitor in terms of features is Axis' 211A, which is also PoE compliant and offers superior image quality. However, the best price we could find for this model was over £400, making the PVC2300 look extremely good value by comparison.