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.
I followed your early posts to get camera set-up on LAN, but can’t access through the internet. I followed steps above, but got message can’t connect to the server. What can I do next?
I’m assuming you can access the cam on your LAN? If so try this: go to viewmyip.com this will return your wan ip. In your browser enter this ip. What do you get?
entered the wan ip into browser and it opened my router setup utility.
That indicates you didn’t setup port forwarding properly on your router. Double check that step and restart your router
I went to maintenance tab and the status screen, retrieved the ip and port number, then entered those numbers in router screen for port forwarding. I get the same message that can’t connect to server. I entered my wan ip and still get my router admin utility. Which step am I missing?
When you connect to your camera from your home network, do you enter the port number or just the ip? Did you modify the default port of the camera?
Just the camera’s ip on the home network. When I go to the maintenance tab the port # is still 80 so I assume it hasn’t been modified.
Kevin, in your router admin, enter your external port as 5050 instead of 80.
Now enter your ip from viewmyip and 5050 like so xx.xx.xx.xx:5050
Thank you soooo much!
Glad it worked!
What would prevent access to the viewnetcam.com website of my camera from a remote computer, outside of my home network? I can see it using my Blackberry and other computers but one other computer will not let me access the website to login to the camera.
Internet tools problem? McAfee blocking access to the page?
Thanks,
Joe
Try ping from that computer. Is it able to reach the address?
how do i change the port number on the camera? I can’t find it. everything works to view my camera from internet, but I don’t want it on port 80, i want a custom port somewhere around 50000.
Thanks
In the admin page, goto setup..ipv4 and select either static or dhcp and there you can set a custom port.
Alternatively, you could leave the camera setup alone and do a port forwarding on a custom port in your router setting. (see my post http://www.society9.com/how-to-access-your-panasonic-bl-c131a-from-the-internet/comment-page-1/#comment-1435 )Either approach will work.
How can i get viewnetcam to access the custom port. everything i working, i can view the camera from www via .viewnetcam.com:, but I do not want to have to type in : on the end of the web address… is there a way to not have to do that witout defaulting to port 80
Hi there — I can’t seem to access the cam from the internet. I checked viewmyip.com and when I pasted this IP into the browser, it returned to the netcam main page so I guess the forwarding is correct. But when I try to access the netcam from the internet using the personalized Viewnetcam website, it cannot connect. What do you think is the problem?
Thanks!
I also can’t access my camera from the internet. The maintenance screen says everything is OK but it still fails. When I try accessing my ip address that I get from viewmyip.com it fails. I have a linksys WRT54GS with the port forwarding setup correctly. The only thing I can think of is that I also have a VOIP modem connected. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.
Finally got it working. Sent an email to Tech Support and they advised me to setup both my VOIP gateway and router to forward a port other than port 80. Set it up for port 5050 and it works great.
I get the user name and password popup when I access my camera from the internet, but it will not take any user name and password. I have also set the camera to Guest User so it should not be asking for a user and password at all to get at least to the “Top” page of the camera software.
Any suggestions?
You probably bought this used? The login screen is from the previous user’s credentials. Reset your camera and repeat the setup process — you will be prompted to setup an admin password.
I bought the camera new. I can access the camera fine with the username and password through the lan. I cannot when on the internet using viewnetcam.com.
When do you think you will be able to share the tutorial on how to set the camera to upload recorded videos to an ftp server ?
My issue is that I purchased an ip camera (Sharx VIPCella) and it seems there is not direct way to record a video directly to a NAS ( running an ftp server) without using a computer.
Thanks in advance.
These articles on the camera are very helpful. Have you already written about how to record video from them? If not, could you? Thanks!
set up a viewnetcamera website a couple, weeks. Everything worked great. I have recently moved to a new location with a new router. I got the camera all set up and working, but when I try and go through the directions of setting up a viewnetcamera url it just freezes on the page that says opening viewnet registration… What should I do?
Thanks for the instructions above…works perfectly for the first camera. But I can’t seem to get the second camera to work over the internet. It works fine at home on the LAN. Any thoughts? Maybe I need to use a different port than 80? Thanks again for everyone’s help and comments.
In order to have several cameras connected in the same LAN and you become able to access all cameras trough the internet, you need:
- setup different ports for each camera. Example:
camera 1: port 5050
camera 2: port 5060
camera 3: port 5070
If you want to connect to camera 1, you need to:
- open your browser (Iexplore, Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox, etc)
– open http://youraddresshere:5050
and so on.
You can even create a simple webpage with the 3 cameras so you access to http://mypersonalwebpages/cameras and select from here any of the 3 cameras.
Regards,
Greetings, I think I have everything setup correctly, however, I cannot view my cam from Blackberry Tour… any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Hey there… I can’t find my user manual / CD that came with it and I’m trying to access the camera directly from the LAN. I’ve reset the camera, looked up the IP in my routers DNS table, and plugged in the IP, but it’s prompting me for a username and password. Is there a default set for the camera, or does the CD software somehow need to first access the camera?
I can login to cam fine using the WAN IP but when I use viewnetcam it wont take my password. I pinged myname.viewnetcam and it matches my WAN IP. Any ideas?
Update: I figured out that the IP I was hitting was my IP phone, so never mind on accessing it. I finally found the CD, so that solved it all. A few notes: the IP address of the camera does not appear in my router’s DCHP client table (at all), although I do have the router pinned down to dish out only a few IP’s in a specific range. The camera seems to always pull a x.x.x.253 IP address, which it has successfully done via my router (despite the minimal IP addresses I have it set up for and the previously mentioned range). I don’t know how this is possible (maybe Linksys knows?).
Rolf: I just checked mine and can log-in fine w/ viewnetcam. Have you tried viewnetcam locally (on the same network)… and/or checked the guest login settings. MAYBE the camera is seeing the viewnetcam inbound traffic differently, although that doesn’t seem possible since the viewnetcam should simply redirect your path to the camera (same as typing the IP). The camera MIGHT not be registering properly w/ viewnetcam too… check your settings: Maintenance tab-> Viewnetcam.com area: you should have an “Enabled (2)” under Status.
Hola! disculpa… me gustaria me ayudaras con la parte de la configuracion para poder acceder a la camara de forma inalambrica…
La misma ya funciona con red, pero no con la parte inalambrica.
Tengo una consulta!, luego que termino de configurar, segun el manual, debo desconectar el cable de red y reiniciar„, pero es que si desconecto el cable de red entonces pierdo pierdo la conexion, por eso no entiendo o estoy confundido, debo reiniciar con el cable de red conectado?
Hola. Debes desconectar la camara de la red y de la corriente. Cambiar el switch que tiene abajo a la opcion de Wireless y luego ponerle corriente.
En cuanto la camara encienda, comenzará a buscar el access point y el foquito delantero se pondrá verde.
si tienes dudas escribeme un email directo.
Hi, just wanted to say thanks for this entry and the one about general setup of the camera using a web browser, for us Mac folk. Made it a snap to set up my camera tonight, without any hassle whatsoever. Thanks again!
I am having problems with viewing through internet. Where do you find the router admin page on my computer? I have Window XP.
Can anyone help me?
thanks
Hi,
I am having a problem with accessing the camera from the internet. Where do I find the router admin page? I have a computer with Windows XP. Can someone help me?
thanks
Rob
In order to view your camera from the internet, you need to setup port forwarding in your router.
You need to access your router from your computer in order to setup the above.
Please follow the instructions below in your computer in order to connect to your router (assuming you don’t know the IP address of your router/gateway)
- click on Start menu
– in the RUN command, write down the word “cmd“
– hit enter
– a command prompt will appear
– write down the command: “ipconfig” and hit enter
– you will see some info like ip, mask and gateway
– you need to access the gateway address in order to access to your router. I.e: if your gateway is 192.168.1.254, then:
a– open internet explorer, firefox or your regular browser
b– enter the following address: http://192.168.1.254 (here you need to double check you are using your gateway address)
c– the router web admin screen will appear. enter user and password (if you don’t know, check the manufacturer manuals, or the manufcturer website). test with admin / pass (sometimes works)
once you get access to your router admin page, locate the firewall or the section where you can forward ports and forward the port 80 (or desired port) to your camera.
enjoy the quality of panasonic!
Alex,
Thank you very much for your help. I got that port forwarding done and I am able to access the camera through internet!
Thanks again.
Nice to hear. Congratulations!.
Remember you can access your panasonic camera from html capable mobile phones. For example, you can view and control your camera from a blackberry, Ipaq, etc.
Hi All,
So I am using a DIR-615 DLINK router. I am stuck on the port forwarding… I set it to 80 and input the IP. But, it asks for a name. It gives me a list of applications to pick from.… Nothing on the list looks familiar. Thoughts? Ideas?
Much thanks!
J
Hi All,
So I am using a DIR-615 DLINK router. I am stuck on the port forwarding… I set it to 80 and input the IP. But, it asks for a name. It gives me a list of applications to pick from.… Nothing on the list looks familiar. Thoughts? Ideas?
Much thanks
J
Hey,
Thanks so much for this post, it has helped tremendously. We can now access the camera from our viewnetcam account, but it seems to work only on secured web access (e.g. our home, my parent’s home). We cannot access the camera from work on a public internet access. Any thoughts on why this is happening? Thanks.
Jimbo:
because you are using the port 80, in the list you can select WEB server… your camera will be acting as a web server… Let me know if works..
Regards,
alex:
Thanks for the info, I’m still doing something wrong though. The list gives me names of games, etc. also, to the left I can input my own name. but still when I try to access http://name.viewnetcam.com it gives me nothing. I think I am missing something somewhere…
alex:
Thanks for the info, I’m still doing something wrong though. The list gives me names of games, etc. also, to the left I can input my own name. but still when I try to access http://name.viewnetcam.com it gives me nothing. I think I am missing something somewhere
… Also when I look @ my Number Of Wireless Clients: one of them shows a 0.0.0.0 IP address. Which has the MAC addy of my camera… Not good?
… Also when I look @ my Number Of Wireless Clients: one of them shows a 0.0.0.0 IP address. Which has the MAC addy of my camera… Not good? Im sure
Please let’s go to troubleshoot your camera settings and port forwarding setup.
You need to make sure what is the ip of the camera and the port.
Please turn on your camera, turn on your pc and access your camera from your web browser locally putting the following address: http://ipaddress where IPaddress is the network ip of your camera. Please write down the ip address. Make sure you are using port 80 (you know you are using port 80 if your address don’t have at the end a “:” following by a number.
If you see your camera, your camera is properly configured and available locally. Now let’s see how to setup port forwarding in order to view your camera from external locations in internet:
In your router (DIR-615), go to Advanced and select the PORT Forwarding option.
You will see a list of 24 rules to configure.
Use the following info on the rule you need to create:
Name: Camera
IP Address: ip address of your camera
Application Name
Ports to open: TCP 80, UDP 80
Clic on Save settings
Restart the router so the changes takes in effect
In “Application name” and “Computer Name” fields, you can leave it unchanged
In regards to the wireless setup, i recommends to go one thing at a time. First you need to be able to view your camera locally, not from internet, via network cable or wireless. One step at a time. Please let me know your progress with my previous post.
Alex,
Locally, I can see and use the camera, wirelessly.
On the router, I did have to add UDP setting to 80. It was blank. I had all filled out except that. I saved and restarted router. Still cannot get to camera via WWW. I set up camera like it said at the top of this board.
What else am I missing?
Thanks a bunch!!!
Ok.
So your camera is working great in the local network. The issue appears to be related with any of this two stuff now:
1– viewnetcam setup
or
2– port forwarding
First you need to test if port forwarding is ok. Follow this simple steps:
1– turn on a PC located in your network
2– enter into http://www.whatismyip.com . A webpage will open showing your external, public, dinamic IP address. write down this address (i.e: 174.15.15.15
3– locate another computer (out of your network) and enter to your external ip (i.e: http://174.15.15.15). You need to see your camera. With this test you are trying to test if you can reach your camera from the internet. You are not using the viewnetcam dns dinamic feature but connecting directly to the camera and you are testing your port forwarding.
Please let me know the results
pd: you need to test the step 3 from a computer outside of your network. you can test this step from your internal network but 90% of the time don’t work. Most routers needs to forward a port from another public IP
Still no luck. Maybe I’m not doing something right.
Now, I do notice my IP for the camera is different than what most people are posting. Mine is 192.168.0.253 can that be a problem?
Also, I have read that I need to modify the info in the DSL setup.
What do you (or anyone else reading) think? Thanks again!
192.168.0.253 is the ip of your camera???
what is the ip of your computer?
please let me know the ip of your router too…
Ip address are unique in your local network. Every single network device (router, AP, computer, camera, printer, laptop, etc) must have a unique ip address from the same segment. If your camera have 192.168.0.253, then your pc must have 192.168.0.x and your router must have 192.168.0.x (normally the router have in the last octet the number 1 or 254, is an standard network design).
So all ip address must “start” with 192.168.0 … only the last 4 number changes… please confirm.
Camera — 192.168.0.253
Computer — 192.168.0.199
Router — 192.168.0.1 (I think)
I did everything like u said but when i go to the website usabooks.viewnetcam.com it keeps asking me for username and password. I tried the same one i use for LAN access but it doesnt work. Any idea?
DAT:
if when you connect trough viewnetcam.com you receive a windows asking for user and password, then the port forwarding is ok and you are “reaching” the web server inside the camera.
if your user / password do not work, please create a 2nd login in the camera and try again… is very weird the user/pass locally do not work remotely… don’t have sense…
JimBo:
IP addresses appears ok in your network. For better setup, please configure your camera to use a manual ip address, seems like if you are using a dhcp address.
Yes Alex I am using DHCP, I’ll try manual…
Do I need to make any other changes? enable/disable anything?
thanks!!!
Do I need to make any other changes? enable/disable anything?
thanks
Do I need to make any other changes? enable/disable anything?
thanks
!