D-Link DCS-910 Surveillance Camera - Budget Ethernet Camera Review

The DCS-910 has a myriad of uses as it’s able to both take still images and record from the browser directly to the hard drive. Weighing in at only 0.5 lbs with a size of 2.8 x 4.3 x 1.5 inches the camera is fairly unobtrusive and can be easily mounted anywhere. The streaming video is in the MJPEG format, and can be viewed using any compatible digital media player. Still images are in JPEG format and easily viewed by most photo viewing software or a browser. As well as being viewed in real-time, video can be scheduled for specific recording times and uploaded to an FTP server or sent by email. Saved images on the FTP server have no time/date stamp attached, so the only way to tell specifically when an image was taken is by the date of the image file itself. There’s no sound capability so usefulness may be restricted. There have also been problems reported from users on disconnects from the ftp servers for no apparent reason. Remote viewing from any java enabled browser is a plus, and with the ability to password protect the camera, the possibilities of unauthorized viewing should be minimal.

The DCS-910 comes with D-ViewCam 2.0, a piece of software that enables the viewing of up to 32 camera feeds. The D-ViewCam software is clunky at best. It does the job of allowing users to monitor the camera but little else. The ability to monitor up to 32 cameras is a nice addition, but the software itself is non-standard, full-screen only, and tends to cause OS troubles when minimizing. D-ViewCam is also Microsoft Windows only, working with Windows 2000 Professional SP4, Windows XP SP2, and Windows Vista. Mac Users are out of luck on the free software and largely ignored by D-Link as the product installation CD Wizard is not Macintosh compatible either.

The D-Link DCS-910 10/100 Fast Ethernet Network Camera is a useful low-cost network camera. For small business and home use it gets the job done. While there’s no night vision capacity, it does fairly well in low-light areas. For general monitoring use it’s a good camera, though due to the lack of sound capability it’s inappropriate as a baby monitor. The free PC only software is a big disappointment, and reported problems with the automatic ftp features means that 3rd party software will have to be purchased in order to put the camera to full use, bringing the low cost of the camera up a bit. Mac users are generally ignored by the product, both in the software and in the manual provided. The $94.99 price tag has been known to dip as low as $68 in places, but even at that price the cons may still outweigh the pros of good picture, quick connectivity, and ease of access. For real-time monitoring the DCS-910 is a good choice for the price, it’s only when the camera is needed for automatic operations where the cheap price points to a lack of quality. It does the minimum an Ethernet camera can do, but there are several better options out there for under $100.