How to access your Panasonic BL-C131A from the internet
This is the coolest part of owning a BL-C131A! You could be in the other end of the world and yet get a live stream from your net cam! You can even pan and tilt the camera remotely! You can even do this with a Blackberry or an iPhone (or any phone that supports html).
I initially resisted writing a howto for this, but looking at the number of queries, one might be in order! I have to admit, the documentation from Panasonic is extremely confusing! If you are not a network guy, you could get confused. Ip4, Ip6, UPnP..!
So let’s get started! I’m assuming at this point you already have the camera setup and working from your local area network (home). If not, check out my previous post.
- Goto Setup..UPnP and disable UPnP. I know this is not what Panasonic recommends. But trust me, enabling UPnP is not wise. There is a reason this is disabled in all routers by default.
- Goto Setup..DynamicDNS, select Viewnetcam.com
- Select the Internet tab and disable Auto Port Forwarding and set ‘Allow Access from the Internet (IPv6) to No. Again, this might seem counter intuitive, but IPv6 is not used widely yet. Select ‘Register with Viewnetcam.com’ and register. Pick an easy to remember domain name and register with viewnetcam.com. Remember the password and url. It will be of the format: <the name you selected>.viewnetam.com. You will need this url to access your camera remotely.
- Now, open your router’s admin page. Of course unless you are using Tomato, your screen will look a lot different than what’s shown here, but all routers will have an option for port forwarding. Look for it and enter TCP for the protocol, 80 for Port and your camera’s IP address. Description can be anything or blank. Save. Some routers might require a restart. In the screenshot below ignore the lines above the last line. Those are specific to my setup and not relevant to this post.
- Now open Firefox and goto the url you setup at viewnetcam.com. You should be able to see live images from your camera! This will work from anywhere where there is internet connection. Try the pan and tilt, it is very cool!
- If you have an iPhone or Blackberry, use this url instead: http://<your>viewnetcom.com/mobile
The above url is a specialized mobile version. You can pan and tilt on your iPhone or Blackberry.
That’s all folks! Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll be happy to help.
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117 Comments
Nope, you don’t need to disable anything. Please try the following setup:
1– setup the camera with manual ip (ip 192.168.0.200)
2– in your router, setup forwarding (web server port 80) to 192.168.0.200
3– test access to your camera locally http://192.168.0.200
4– access http://www.whatismyip.com/ to check your public ip address
5– go to another pc in another network or ask a friend to access http://yourpublicip (where yourpublicip is the ip you see in http://www.whatismyip.com/
this must work. let me know the progress.
This isn’t exactly streaming, I’m just getting static images and have to refresh my blackberry browser constantly. Is this what you get as well?
I don’t see streaming either…
Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much for posting this.
I played around with this camera for 2 hours until I found your website. I reset my router and my camera. Followed your instructions step by step and 10 minutes later, it’s working.
I sort of have the camera working now wirelessly but I need to know how to set up for internet viewing with airport extreme. How do you do port forwarding? Thanks.
Put the camera to work over the internet is very easy. When your camera is working locally, you only need to setup port forwarding in your router.
You need to connect to your router and setup port forwarding. Most routers are configured via the browser. So you need to open Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari or any browser you use, and put the address there.
In order to know the router address, go to your computer (Windows) and open a DOS windows (cmd.exe). Run ipconfig and you will see your ip address, mask and gateway. The gateway address is the router address (i.e: 192.168.1.1). Go back to your browser and use this address (i.e: http://192.168.1.1).
The web managment webpage from your router will open. Most routers request a user and password (you must have this info with you). If you never changed the default user and password from your router in the past, just locate the default user/password in the router manual or the manufacturer website.
Once you login properly to the admin page in your router, you need to locate the section where to configure port forwarding. You only need to forward port 80 for the camera ip address.
For example:
pc ip address: 192.168.1.15
router ip address: 192.168.1.1
camera ip address: 192.168.1.200
public (internet) ip address: 200.33.147.45
You need to setup in your router a port forwarding to 192.168.1.200
Tip: remember to setup in your camera the netviewcam settings. This can allow you to check your video cam fee from any internet computer or phone with internet no matter if your public ip changes.
Public IPs are provided by the ISP (Internet Provider) and normally changes everytime your router is restarted, every certain time or when the ISP need it for lot of reasons. With viewnetcam, this don’t matter.
Let me know if you need additional help!
Thanks for your answer. However I am using a fairly late version of airport extreme and the router does not have a port mapping or port forwarding tab. I’ve looked everywhere. On the advanced tab in airport utility i have no port mapping tab. I have that on an earlier version of airport on a different machine but not this one. I do have a IPv6 tab but in reading all you your notes and posts it sounds as though we don’t go there. I know I sound like an idiot but I don’t do this sort of thing often and really don’t know what I am doing! Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. I did try to access my router through the internet and it didn’t work, but that was on an older machine with an older version of airport. Thanks. Victoria
The below link show you how to setup port forwarding in airport extreme. The webpage have screenshots as well:
http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Apple/AirPortExtreme/HTTP.htm
These screen shots are for a previous airport version and machine. My airport extreme does not have a port mapping tab anywhere or anything having to do with port forwarding. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about this and think that perhaps my problem is that I use AT&T uverse for my internet connection. It’s their modem/router which brings in the service, but I don’t use it for my home network set up– I use the airport. In some post I read it seems that perhaps the airport and the 2Wire Gateway are interfering with each other. I’m going to talk to both Apple and AT&T and see if there is something I can do. If you have any ideas about that I’d be interested. Thanks.
I see lot of routers in my life and all of them have port routing. Perhaps you are right, yours do not have port routing, but maybe the options appears in different choices like NAT, routing, etc.
Please let me know THE EXACT model of your router, anything you see on the labels, so I can investigate if definitely, you do not have port mappings.
I think another solution is to use a regular router like 3com, linksys or buffalo. Check with your ISP as well. Normally all providers have different models available.
regards
Thanks Alex. I got everything working by eliminating the airport router that I was using and using just the 2Wire Gateway that AT&T uverse installed. All is well. However, I would like to set up the cam to send me an email when the motion detector is tripped and so far I’ve failed in this. I talked to Panasonic and they told me that I need to check if Mac Mail allows image transfer. Do you know? I use mobile me as my email. Also I’m to check the incoming and outgoing mail servers-I have those correctly placed in the cam set up. Then they said to check the port number. I looked in mail preferences in the advanced tab and the port number listed is 993 although the webcam set up said it would usually be 25. I’m confused. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Alex,
I am trying to follow your steps and think everything is set as it should be, but I am still unable to access the cam via the internet. I’m using a netgear rangemax router. The IP address of the camera starts with a 10.x.x.xxx vs. the 192 that you are showing in the example.
Any help would be appreciated.
10.x.x.x is a private address, like 192.168.x.x.… perhaps your router use a clase A private address (very weird).
Are you configuring the ip address of your camera in manual mode or is in automatic?
Are you using the default DHCP settings in your router?
Your camera works well locally?
Hi Alex,
Sorry it has been while. I configured the camera automatically and manually in my attempts to get it working. I am using the default router settings. The camera works well locally. I can connect and control it with no problems.
I do have a small router that splits the network at the cable modem and from there, the network cable runs to the wireless router, to which the camera is connected.
Is good to know you was able to configure your camera and works locally. Please give me this information:
router ip address
router subnetmask
router external ip address (go to http://www.whatismyip.com)
camera ip address
camera subnet
camera gateway
router ip address: 10.0.0.8
router subnetmask: 255.255.255.0
router external ip address (go to http://www.whatismyip.com):
68.55.65.40
camera ip address: 10.0.0.253
camera subnet: 255.255.255.0
camera gateway: 10.0.0.1
Kit:
According to the tcp/ip configuration information you shared with me, the camera gateway is incorrect.
The camera gateway must have the router address. Ip address and subnet for your camera is ok (10.0.0.253 and mask 255.255.255.0) but the gateway address in the camera must point to 10.0.0.8 (the router address).
Remember: the gateway function is to provide a router to and from internet. if the gateway address is not properly setup in the camera, the camera is only accesible in the local network.
Two items needs to be properly setup in the camera / router in order to have access from the internet:
1– the camera must have a configured gateway address.
2– the port used in the camera must be mapped in the router. By default, the camera use port 80, so the port 80 or http service must be mapped in the router to the camera.
let me know if you have any doubt.
OK. I set the gateway in the camera to 10.0.0.8.
How do I find out if port 80 or http service is mapped in the router to the camera?
Kit.
go to http://portforward.com and locate your router. you can see there how to map the http service (or web service, or port 80… is the same).…
normally, you need to access your router using your computer and web browser, entering the address: http://10.0.0.8
a user and password is normally requested here (you need to enter the user and password of your router. If you still have the default user and password, check your manual).
once you logged in into the router, follow the instructions you will see in portforward.com to map the port 80 or web service (http).
when this is done, you can access your camera from the internet. please, notice you need to test from another internet,not from the internet where the camera is located.
for example, if you have your camera in home, you need to test the mapping from your office.
let me know if you have issues or doubts.
Thank by your pots wass really helpful
Alex — I am using a Mac and a Cisco Valet. I have successfully hooked up the camera several times but after a power outtage, I tried to reconfigure and it just won’t work this time. It keeps flashing orange (2 sec intervals) and from what can tell, I am powerless to do any further steps until I get a solid green. Our wifi is working and I have changed no settings (e.g. UPnP) from the previous times the camera has worked. Any advice you could offer would be much appreciated.
Hi Sabrina.
I have several months without using the camera but looks in the manual whats the flasing orange led means. Perhaps means you are on private mode but the camera is working as expected.
do you know the ip address of your camera?
your camera have a manual IP address or is automatic configured?
do you try to ping your camera from your computer?
Ok I figured it out so I wanted to make sure to pass on what worked for me to remedy the flashing orange light (2 sec intervals) in case it helps others:
1. unplug the AC power cord from the camera
2. unplug the LAN cable for camera from the wireless router (instead of from the camera)
3. hit the factory reset button underneath the camera with a pen
4. then plug in the LAN cable again and finally the AC power cord to the camera
5. after a few minutes, I finally got the amazing solid green light
sabrina.
the flashing orange led perhaps means your camera was in private mode, not an error. I believe you just reset the camera.
remember if you perform a hard reset, you need to setup viewnetcam again
By private mode, do you mean when you hit the button on top and the camera eye rolls up to “sleep”? If so, that’s not what happened. If not, what’s another way to disable private mode other than what I did? Our view netcam site and 192. site would not load so that was not an option.
This happens to me every night we have to disconnect the camera and want to reconnect it again later, and I imagine this happens to others too.
RE: setting up view netcam again — I was able to keep my same account, it just changed digits at the end of my private address (e.g. instead of :50001, it became :50002).
Hi Sabrina.
Is ok, your reset is fine. I’m just not sure what the flashing orange mean. I need to re-read the manual for that, perhaps you cammera just need that, a reset. This camera have huge ammount of software inside to provide this great ammount of features so is pretty normal if from time to time, a reset is required in some devices.
Is good to know that now after the reset, the viewnetcam setting is still there. I believe Panasonic must have a hard reset option and all settings are erased with this option. Hard reset is not like a normal reset (i think)… is similar to ipod devices…
thanks for your sharing. I am from Hong Kong, sorry for my poor English.
I have followed your instruction and I can browse the live image from cam with any device thru my home’s wifi by enter the registered address in viewnetcam.com.
However, my viewnetcam address cannot be assessed when I use other internet connection (e.g. starbucks, my office, my fd’s home, or even just try at some web proxy sites in my home)
Do you think what mistake I might make during the setup?
PS: my config is mac OS X 10.5.8, airport extreme.
RE port mapping, I have set up the service “personal web sharing”, Public TCP Port: 80, Private IP address is entered, Private TCP Port: 80.
Thank you very much
If I understand, you can view your cammera locally but not from internet?
sorry for my late.
exactly.
i still not yet figure out if the problem is my ISP blocking the port (in fact I try my best to shift different ports, but all failed).
i even tried lending a win-based PC to config with the panasonic CD, still only access locally…
thanks alexis.
I don’t believe is your ISP blocking the port. ISP normally do not block port 80, they regulary block ports for emule, limewire and other software/music download software only.
I encourage to work only with port 80 during the troubleshooting.
If your camera is working locally, try to double check the port forwarding in your router or use DMZ.
Remember you CANNOT test internet access to your camera from your internal network, you need to use another network to test this.
I have followed all of the good information on this chain, but still cannot access my Panasonic BB-HCM371 camera from the web.
My linksys wireless router log shows NO incoming packets whatsoever. Is it possible that my ISP is blocking port 80?
I guess I’ll try telneting to my PC’s IP from work, using different ports, to see if anything makes it through.
Matt.
You must forward port 80 in your router to the panasonic camera.
ISP never blocks port 80 because is the default http port.
let us know if works.
Alex -
I think I have that set up. Camera’s local IP/port is 10.10.10.149, 50000. My Linksys router’s page looks like what I have included. Trying to access .viewnetcam.com:50000 always results in a server timeout.
Thank you for your time!
— Matt
Hmm… can’t paste the screen capture… on my Applications and Gaming tab, Single Port Forwarding, I have Local Port: 80, Remote Port: 80, Protocol: Both, IP: 10.10.10.149, Enabled.
Should I have the Remote Port set to 50000?
You need to troubleshoot your problem.
You need to check in the following order:
- access the camera locally
– access the camera from the internet, using the public ip address
– access the camera from the internet, using the viewnetcam address
check your public ip address in whatismyip.com before trying to connect from viewnetcam
Alex -
From my home PC, I can access the camera using its internal network address — i.e., 10.10.10.149:50000
I will try (again) from work today to access it; I have the external IP address of (I suppose) my router — I went from my computer to the website and recorded the address.
I have also done a nslookup of my_domainname.viewnetcam.com, and confirmed that it is the same as what the whatismyip website gave me.
I have verified that my account at viewnetcam.com is still active.
Thanks,
— Matt
Is a fact your camera is using port 50.000. I’m ok with this.
From your home, open your web-browser in your computer and go to http://www.whatismyip.com. This will show you the real public ip address, this is the ip you can reach from the internet. For example: 200.35.35.16
From your work: open your browser and open http://200.35.35.16:50000
The camera web interface must appear. If appear, you are done, only viewnetcam settings needs to be reviewed.
If not, you need to:
check port forwarding in your router. We will see this later if needed.
Regards,
Alex -
I did the above, and from work, typing in the IP Address:50000, I received:
Network Error (tcp_error)
A communication error occurred: “Operation timed out”
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.
So, what’s next? For the router setting (at least the one I think is the right one), that Port Forwarding info is on my July 24th post.
Again, thank you for your assistance!
— Matt
Matt.
Port 50,000 is used for some malware in 2005. Can you please change the working http port in your camera to port 80?
With this change, you can open the camera web interface from any local computer in your home by open http://thecameraipaddresshere without using “:port”.
After that, go to your router and forward http port 80 or web service to the local ip address of the camera and try again from work.
When your camera is working behind port 80 from internet, you can start playing with different ports. For now we need to focus on port forwarding like I explain above.
keep me informed.
Alex -
Camera port changed to 80; router is set to forward, can still connect from home. Will try from work today.
— Matt
I just brought a Panasonic camera. My cmaera is not wireless. I have connected the camera to my macbook laptop. I have the camera working perfectly, however; when I try to set up my viewnetcam, it gives me the message“setup sucessful” Please wait while Viewnetcam account is created”. Then nothing happens. What could be my problem. My macbook is connected to airport, and my airport is connect to comcast router.
You must connect your camera to the router, no to your laptop. The camera must have a direct internet connection trough the router so viewnetcam can be setup.
Alex -
Eureka! With the camera set to port 80, I can access it via an external network. Now, I can start playing with the settings of image capture, retention, etc.
Thank you very much for your help — is there anything else you want me to check?
— Matt
Good news. Port 50.000 you use previously is not good, can be blocked in your router or even at the ISP. Keep port 80 for your camera, is better.
Now setup viewnetcam when you are back in home. Is nice to access your camera even when your public ip address changes. viewnetcam is a dinamic dns service (free for panasonic camera owners) so you will access your camera in an easy way (i.e: http://ridenour.vienetcam.com
Things you need to know:
1– you can install the panasonic software in a home or office pc and setup the remote port there. with this, you can record 24/7 in hard drive
2– you can access the camera from your mobile phone as well. just use the same address and end it with /mobile
regards and very good work!
How do you record images/video? Do you need to put an SD card in?
This panasonic camera do not have SD storage to record video. You need to have a computer (can be a remote one) with the Panasonic software installed.
The panasonic software allow you to save photos or video from up to 16 cameras in several different modes. You can record to internal hard drive, external hard drive, usb memory sticks or any other mass storage.
Just notice if you record video at high quality from several cameras at the same time, you need a fast record medium.
Recorded material can be reviewed with the software itself.
going around in circles. I think I’ve followed the instructions.…however now when I type in my viewnetcam address I go right back to my router…it asks me to log in and when I do of course I’m at the setup page for router. What am I missing?
Thank you,
Frank
September 21, 2011
Frank.
You need to check the viewnetcam address with a computer located outside of the network. If you are using a computer located in the same network as your camera, sometimes you will receive the web address of the router instead.
If from a computer or laptop outside of your network you receive the same behavior, you need to setup port forwarding in your router.
Please check if your camera is using port 80 and forward this port to the camera ip address in your router.
if you have any doubt, let me know.
Hi Alex,
I had my two cameras configured before I went on vacation, and everything worked fine for a couple weeks (it’s a long vacation). Since then, I’ve had the cameras go down repeatedly, and I’ve been able to make contact with my viewnetcam.com link again by clearing my browser’s cache. Now, though, I can no longer make contact at all. I have a pet sitter who can reset my router for me, or fiddle with the cams themselves, but I can’t really have her doing work on my computer.
Does my situation make sense to you? Any ideas on how to make contact with my cams again?
Thanks, Ed
Edc:
Are your cameras using automatic IP configuration (DHCP) or this cameras was manually configured in the past?
Do you have the wireless or wired versions?
How are you providing power to the cameras? are you using a UPS device?
Edc:
Are your cameras using automatic IP configuration (DHCP) or this cameras was manually configured in the past?
Do you have the wireless or wired versions?
Frank.
You need to check the viewnetcam address with a computer located outside of the network. If you are using a computer located in the same network as your camera, sometimes you will receive the web address of the router instead.
If from a computer or laptop outside of your network you receive the same behavior, you need to setup port forwarding in your router.
Please check if your camera is using port 80 and forward this port to the camera ip address in your router.
if you have any doubt, let me know.
Alex — thank you for your reply.
I have one each of the wired and the wireless cams, and both of them work through the same router, a Essentials G made by Belkin. They have, if I recall correctly, manually configured IP addresses; the wired cam is on the port 5000, the wireless on 3869, at tech support’s direction.
Right before I left, I talked to Panasonic to make the connection as bulletproof as possible, but the connection has failed. (It has failed, naturally, every time I go on vacation, but otherwise I love the product. I’m just not technically savvy in this area.)
Edc —
This cameras are designed to work 24/7 for years and never fail. You may be facing a couple of issues:
- issues with your internet provider
– power issues (I recommend to connect this cameras to a UPS)
– issues with viewnetcamsetup or port forward.
The first thing you need to check is you need to confirm and write down ip address of each camera and the ports in use.
Try to connect to the camera locally and check if you have video.
check your public ip address (www.whatismyip.com)from a computer located in the same network
from a computer located outside of your network, try to access your camera by using: http://publicipaddress:port1 and http:publicipaddress:port2
where port1 is port configured for camera 1 and port2 is port configured for camera 2
perhaps will be a good idea to focus first on the wired camera and solve the issue and then focus on the wifi camera.
where public ip address is the ip
Whatever else can be said of them, these cameras very definitely do not work “24/7 without fail.” I’ve spent many hours configuring them precisely according to Panasonic support advice, and they invariably go down when I’m depending on them — and always to Panasonic’s utter mystification.
I very much appreciate your advice. As far as I can determine from your tips and from talks with Panasonic and my router maker, I’ve done as much as I can remotely. I also had a petsitter reset the router, and unplug and plug in both cams (the status lights are green on both) — all at tech support’s suggestion and all without result.
(If I could try the other options, which require connecting to the camera locally, I would have no need for the cameras in the first place.)
I setup about 50 of this cameras and do not have any complain son far. Lot of factors affects the performance and stability of the cameras. The web server inside the camera is one of the best ones out there, out-perform even more expesive cameras like AXIS and other recognized brands.
This camera is definitely High-end.
If you need to call Panasonic Tech support too often and have issues, please update your firmware, request a refund or locate professional tech service.
Resseting the router by a friend of you do not indicates you are making a professional job in the troubleshooting guide. The local access of the camera is just for troubleshooting purposes.
In 90% of situations, the problem is in the router or the ISP itself. Normally this cameras are very flexible and trouble free.
Regards!
I’m finally setting my camera back up after it’s been sitting in a box for a couple of months after a move.
Anyway, my question is that I can’t seem to stream from the ‘guest’ account. When I log in as admistrator, the viewnetcam page streams the camera just fine with mpeg-4. When I view the page as a guest, I only get a refresh rate of 3 seconds. I swore that I had this working in the past, but can’t seem to find any settings to allow streaming on the web for guests. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Josh