Solar, so good: the Vidilanz Xtern-Cam outdoor wireless camera

02 Dec 09

What our experts say...

Just when you thought there was nothing new under the sun – and the sun is more than usually appropriate in this case – along comes the Vidilanz Xtern-Cam.

It’s a really clever idea, but – and of course there had to be a but – it is let down by one fundamental flaw, which should become apparent as we proceed. But first the customary roundup of the key features.

It’s billed as a ‘Standalone External Surveillance Camera’, which sums it up very neatly. Standalone in this context means it requires no external power supply or has any other connections to the outside world.

Its internal rechargeable lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack, it is claimed, can keep it running in the lowest power mode for up to five months.

We didn’t have time or patience to put this to the test but all things considered, it seems reasonable. What’s more, with the optional solar panel on the top of the unit it will run more or less indefinitely provided it gets around nine hours of daylight per day.

However, this wasn’t available on our test sample and we’ll have to take it on trust but again, it sounds quite plausible.

The camera works by recording still images, singly or in sequence on a standard MMC/SD memory card, up to 2Gb capacity.

Recordings are triggered by an IR motion sensor mounted on the front of the unit and are viewed on PC, using supplied Windows software and a card reader module.

The software is also used to configure the camera, by saving a ‘settings’ text file on the card. The camera is armed and disarmed using a key fob type remote and it reports its status by flashing an LED on the front of the unit in various colours and sequences.

There’s a choice of colour or black or white camera modules (640 x 480 pixels) and these can be fitted with 3.3mm wide-angle or 16mm telephoto lenses. The B&W model can also be equipped with an IR ‘flash’ (visible IR with 0 - 5 metre range or invisible IR, effective over 0 – 3 metres).

It is housed in a tough black ABS plastic weatherproof case, which looks a bit like a fat laptop mains supply module. The lower section is removable and held in place by a couple of hex bolts, allowing access to the battery pack and memory card holder.

Inside the case there’s a compartment for the battery and two PCBs attached to the front panel. On the smaller one is mounted the multi-colour status LED and on our sample, vacant pads for the optional IR flash LEDs.

On the second board is the camera and lens module, IR motion detector sensor, IR receiver, memory card holder and all of the associated operating and control electronics.

It’s very compact, the electronics are built to a very high standard indeed and there’s every reason to suppose that it will function reliably for a good long time in a wide range of environmental conditions.

For the record, it comes with a comprehensive hardware fitting kit, mains powered battery charger, key fob remote control, 2Gb memory card, card reader and a setup CD.

Setup and operation

Installation couldn’t be much easier. It comes with a ball and socket type adjustable mounting bracket plus some good advice in the instruction manual about how and where to put it, to make the most effective use of the camera and motion sensor. The next step is to install the PC software and when that’s done, configure the camera.

The camera setup program opens with a simple tabbed display labelled General Settings, Hardware, Image Capture, Pre Trigger, Scheduler, Advanced and Encryption. They’re mostly self-explanatory but we’ll delve into a few of them to highlight some of the more interesting features.

On the General tab there’s an option to sync the camera to the PC clock, or set it independently, the instructions stress that it is important to move the memory card from the PC to the camera as quickly as possible after saving the data to ensure the correct time.

Also on this tab are options to allow data over-write, when the card is full, enable image recording when arming or disarming and provision to set a camera title or text overlay.

The Hardware tab has settings for movement sensitivity and settings for optional, though as far as we could make out, not yet available peripherals that include strobe and siren modules.

On the Image Capture tab there’s a mode switch for Event Triggered or Time Lapse operation (from one image every 5 seconds to once every 23 hrs, 59 minutes 59.9 seconds, though choosing that setting crashed the program every time on our test PC…)

In Event Trigger mode there are settings for image resolution (High/VGA or Medium//QVGA) and reset time after trigger (up to 600 seconds). Pre Trigger options are to set the number of pre-trigger images (1 – 20) and the time between images (1 – 20 seconds).

On the Advanced menu there are switches for enabling Early Trigger, Low Power mode External Relay, Image Sequence Delay. However, with no explanation of what they are for in the printed or PDF instructions on the software CD it’s hard to say if they are of any importance.

Here too are settings for the Status LED, which allows the motion detection LED to be switched off and the unit to operate in ‘Covert’ mode, with no LEDs winking at all. Scheduling allows the camera to be armed and disarmed at preset intervals. Finally, recorded images can be encrypted and password protected to prevent unauthorised viewing.

Once the camera settings have been set the changes are saved to the memory card, which is then inserted into the camera. After the lower cover has been replaced the camera is armed by pressing the red button on the key fob remote.

The LED on the front of the camera flashes red for 5 seconds and after a 30 second delay it is active. Disarming the camera is equally straightforward, this time using the black button on the remote, whereupon the LED flashes green for 5 seconds.

There are some other handy features and the LED flashes orange at 1-second intervals after the disarming command, to show that images have been captured. The remote can also force the camera to capture a single image. To view captured images the card has to be removed and inserted into the PC.

The viewer program opens to show a list of recorded images (JPEG files) and these can be displayed singly – along with time and date stamp and text overlay, by selecting them with the mouse.

Alternatively, they can be shown in sequence at between 1 and 100 images per second. Selected images can be saved to the PC’s hard drive whereupon they can be viewed, processed or printed like any other JPEG file.

Performance

The colour camera version, which we’ve been Bench Testing, gave a generally good account of itself. Picture quality is helped by the fact that said images are displayed in a quarter-screen sized window on the PC monitor and they cannot bear too much in the way of magnification, (using other image editing programs).

Clearly the camera’s non-existent exposure options means it can only operate in favourably-lit conditions but within those constraints it is capable of producing clean, crisp and reasonably detailed images.

Colours in good natural daylight are accurate and well saturated; noise levels are very low, only starting to become significant when light levels fall. It makes no pretensions towards low light operation so we’ll leave that to one side.

The mono version does have some capability in this area, especially when fitted with the optional IR flash module and based on what we’ve seen on the colour version it sounds promising.

Build quality and mechanical stability are both very good and although it would be unfair to treat the relatively thin plastic case it to the full wrath of the SI rubber mallet, it managed to withstand a few serious taps without incident.

Only one problem arose and this was during the latter stages of the Bench Test, when we routinely deleted the files on the memory card. These included essential system files, which rendered the card unusable.

Despite going through the camera re-boot routine several times, with the card in-situ, the files were never re-created. We tried it with another known good card and this time it was successful, so either the supplied card was faulty (though it worked properly with normal file read/write operations on a PC) or there are some unexpected formatting issues.

Either way it would be helpful if there were some more information in the instructions regarding the use of memory cards, other then those supplied by the manufacturer.

Overall assessment

So far so good and everything we’ve managed to check works well, but there is one fairly obvious omission …

For all of its ingenuity, the Xtern-Cam has no facility to alert the user that an event has occurred, so it is of little use in situations requiring real-time alarm or surveillance. So what is its purpose?

If it is used to monitor unoccupied property, for example, it could a long time before images it has captured are viewed.

It could be interrogated on a regular basis – by removing the card or using the remote key fob flash facility – to see if it has captured anything, but this might be better served by a more conventional video surveillance setup.

An application where it would make sense would be a very remote location with no source of power (especially the solar version), no immediate security concerns and a need to record activity on a long-term basis.

Uses might be a farmer wishing to log traffic on a stile, track or footpath, or keep watch on stock movement. Wildlife watchers might find it interesting and the time-lapse facility could come in handy for recording the progress of building work, for instance.

It appears from items on the configuration menu that the designers have contemplated the possibility of external alarm and siren/strobe connections.

If this happens it will open it up to a much wider range of uses and make more sense in the broader security market, but as it stands, what we can say is that for someone, somewhere, it is the answer to a problem.

What the manufacturer says...

Xtern-Cam is a rugged outdoor standalone surveillance camera with inbuilt GPRS modem, digital image recording function, integrated night vision and inbuilt Solar Panel to give extraordinary long battery life.

Features include:

- Standalone outdoor surveillance camera

- Motion activated or time lapse mode

- Compact, lightweight and portable

- Rugged UV resistant weatherproof case (IP65)

- Customised image-capture sequence and image encryption

- Time and date stamped images with programmable text overlay

- Flexible scheduler for independent arming and disarming of camera

- Digital signature including camera ID

It is supplied with following:

- MBS-SA03-01-BW (3.7mm lens) Standalone Camera

- MBS-BP5-01 Very High Capacity Battery (7.5 Ah)

- MBS-SD2G-01 2GB SD Card

- MBS-SSD-01 Setup Software Disk

- MBS-MBB-01 Mounting Bracket

- MBS-BP3-01 Rapid Battery Charger (800mA)

- MBS-PP10/2405-01 110-240V/5 VDC power supply

- MBS-RSD-01 USB SD Reader

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