Bench test 2: The real deal

What our experts say …

Matsushita, which owns the Panasonic brand, is by nature a conservative company, and it has wisely decided to wait for the technology to mature before entering the mainstream digital video surveillance recorder market. It is therefore unsurprising that with very few exceptions, the WJ-HD220 hard disk DVR looks, feels and performs like a fully-formed product that has been around for years.

The HD220 slots easily into the role of a stand-alone video recorder, albeit a remarkably well specified one, with the potential to record continuously for 8640 hours, or a few days shy of a year, but that is merely the starting point.

Panasonic has endowed the HD220 with a full compliment of digital video processing bells and whistles, including eight full duplex video recording channels and one audio channel, allowing simultaneous recording, playback and live display on a local monitor or over a network.

It has simple to use search facilities, with multiple replay speeds in both directions. There are a full range of single and multi-screen display options on the monitor output and a sophisticated motion detection system that is linked to the alarm facility for pre and post-activation recording.

Other notable features are electronic zoom, scheduled recording, multi-language capability, email notification plus support for PTZ control – and we’ve still only scratched the surface.

But before we move on to the guided tour of the panels, a quick mention of one very obvious omission – the lack of any means to upload recorded data to a PC or an external recording device, other than an analogue VCR.

Digital video recorders have been steadily shrinking in size, from the first generation PC tower behemoths to more recent models, which are mostly no larger than a conventional time-lapse VCR. However, since the HD220 is based on proprietary circuitry, Panasonic has chosen to house it in a standard slim-line rack-mountable case just 4.5cm deep, with plenty of room inside for an optional second hard disk drive alongside the standard 120Gb HDD.

The front panel is a model of simplicity, with a central bank of eight illuminated camera selector buttons. To the left is a set of five buttons for controlling spot or monitor display, camera sequencing, on-screen display, control lock and reset. There’s also a set of indicators for the alarm, timer, remote operation, suspend and power on modes.

To the right of the camera selectors there’s a button for multi-screen selection and zoom, and next to that are the DVR equivalent of a video recorder’s transport keys, with controls for stop, play, picture search, record and time/date search functions.

A multi-function rotary control or ‘jog’ dial also provides rapid access to picture search functions, alarm operations and menu control. A small hinged flap on the far right opens to reveal a pair of phono sockets for supplementary audio and video outputs. These sockets get scant mention in the manual, but it would appear to be a crude attempt to provide the recorder with a means to export recorded images to an analogue VCR.

Rear panel socketry is neatly laid out, with two phono sockets for audio input and output on the extreme left, two rows of eight BNC sockets for camera inputs and loop throughs (automatically terminated to 75 ohms in the absence of an output), plus two more BNC sockets for the spot and multi-screen monitors.

A pair of D-sub sockets handle alarm and remote access connections and RS232 serial communications to a PC, for control and uploading firmware updates. A six-way DIP switch is used for mode setup and functions like disk formatting.

Next to that is an RS-465 socket for 10/100 Ethernet LAN connections, and there’s a second data port for linking the unit to external devices, which uses Panasonic PSD (Panasonic Security Data) protocols. On the far right is the exhaust vent for the main cooling fan (there are two more inside), an earth terminal, the main on-off switch, and the power cord.

Inside the case there are just two PCBs, a motherboard and the power supply. The primary hard disk drive and a vacant bay for the optional second drive are situated close to the front. Major components are easily accessible and the standard of construction is excellent.

Setup and Operation
It’s more or less ready to run straight out of the box, and once the cameras and monitor(s) have been connected, the only preliminaries are to set the time and date, at which point it is ready to begin recording.

Nevertheless, there is plenty of scope for customising the unit to suit a very wide range of applications and installations, and the starting point is the main menu, which is accessed by holding down the Stop button for longer than two seconds.

The menu displays 10 options, each leading to a set of sub-menus, selected using a pair of transport keys, which double up as cursor up/down buttons. Changes to selected settings within a menu are made by turning the multi-function dial; pressing the dial knob stores the setting. It’s not especially easy to use, but as we shall see later on, there is an easier way.At the top of the menu tree is the Timer setup, The options are ‘Internal’ or ‘External’; selecting Internal and pressing the jog dial displays a Timer Recording menu, with the option to program up to four start and stop recording times or ‘events’ for each day of the week.

Recording Mode Setup is next, and this is used to set the recording mode (four ‘quality’ settings, with or without audio), and duration, which is directly linked to frame rate.

Further down the list there is a similar set of adjustments for alarm recording mode, plus pre and post-alarm recording times, alarm recording priority, and alarm trigger action and camera recording, which are dealt with on two sub-menus.

The third item on the main menu is for external recording mode setup, and once again there is a set of quality and duration settings.

The Display Setup menu includes the time and date adjustment, positioning the various on-screen display elements, a switch for a status display, HDD capacity warning setup, an option to embed or display time and date, a switch for the SMART (self analysis and reporting technology) hard disk diagnostic facility, and a sub-menu for setting camera titles and position.

System Setup covers password setting, sounds, and alarms for disk end and disk full action (stop or overwrite). Play Priority decides how playback control is assigned to local or network users, Time Adjust provides an external timing signal for calibrating remote devices, and Auto Erasing sets a time for redundant data to be deleted from the disk.

A system setup item called Resolution performs a system-wide change to the recording format, to suit different types of camera input. The final option is HDD Safety Mode. This switches off the hard drive motors to allow the unit to be safely moved whilst leaving the unit powered up.

The Alarm Setup menu covers things like video loss and alarm sounds, monitor mode and video motion detection setup. The latter supports multiple detection areas, with three sensitivity levels on a 12 x 24 grid. Cells on the grid are activated using a moving cursor.

Communications Setup includes sub menus for configuring the unit’s serial port and detailed network settings. Below that is the Switcher Setup page for selecting the multi and spot monitor display formats, spot monitor camera sequence, dwell times and ‘Secret View’.

This last item blanks out the display on the spot monitor when the multi-screen monitor in the control room is switched to a single camera view, to observe activity in the vicinity of the monitor, for example.

System Information displays HDD hour meters, a button to reset the machine to factory defaults, the software/firmware version number and the System Log, which records significant events like disk writing errors, HDD capacity warnings, video loss and so on.

Finally, the Language menu selects the on-screen display and menu language, which for the record is available in English, French, German. Italian, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.

Network operation is one of the HD220’s greatest strengths, and a weakness. Once connected to a network, access to the DVR is through any standard web browser by typing in the unit’s IP address. After any password formalities a ‘web’ page opens, showing the view from camera one by default, alongside a simple tabbed control panel.

The Main Panel view shows a set of eight camera selector buttons, three icons for selecting multi screen displays, and a row of menu buttons marked Live Sequence, Alarm Reset, Time and Date Search, Camera Control View and Setup Menu. The last one provides access to most of the configuration settings available on the unit’s own menus, plus extra menus for FTP Client and email notification setup, which require a keyboard input.

Clicking the Alarm list tab brings up a log of the most recent alarm events; double-clicking an entry displays the start of each recorded sequence in either single or multi camera view. Other parts of the list can be accessed by clicking the Alarm List Search button and entering a date and start time.

On the plus side, setting up the HD220 via a network connection on a PC is a good deal easier than using the machine’s on-screen displays. Unfortunately, there are a few wrinkles to be ironed out when it is used to display camera images.

The most irritating one is automatic page refresh, which happens two or three times a second, to update the video image. On Internet Explorer this creates a continual and very annoying clicking sound. It’s only slightly less annoying on other browsers – on Mozilla Firefox for example, the clicking sound is replaced by a flashing title bar, which is almost as distracting.

Stability is another problem and several times, without warning and for no good reason that we could discover, the browser locked up or caused Windows to crash. The Alarm List Search facility also seemed to have a mind of its own, sometimes working and at other times stubbornly refusing access to recordings earlier than those shown on the list. The problems were not confined to a single PC or operating system (we tried it on Windows 98SE and XP systems with the same result), which points to the problem being centred on the DVR’s networking software and web page coding.

Performance
The HD220 uses standard JPEG compression, and picture quality at the Fine and Super Fine settings is excellent and in practice limited only by the performance of the connected cameras. Images reveal plenty of fine detail, contrast and colour fidelity are both good, and picture noise levels are very low.

The electronic zoom works well with a tolerable reduction in resolution, but controlling the ‘pan/tilt’ action is somewhat awkward, as it requires the use of both buttons and the jog dial to move the image. Audio quality is good too, though being confined to a single channel may limit its usefulness in some applications.

Network operation is let down only by the apparently flaky software. Otherwise, when it works it works extremely well, with only a small reduction in image quality and reduced frame rate, depending on network speed and bandwidth. Incidentally, Panasonic might like to investigate the possibility of streaming recorded audio over the network connection as well.

What the manufacturer says ...

The Panasonic WJ-HD220 provides the solution to create a safe and secure environment within a number of establishments, from small installations

to large companies with a number of sites.

All vital recording components and features are condensed into this one

single unit, allowing for a highly reliable surveillance recording device for a wide range of applications.

The WJ-HD220 offers ‘high image quality’ and ‘disk saving’ recording. This superior image quality provides minimal degradation no matter how many times you record and play back. In addition, the WJ-HD220 offers four selectable JPEG compression recording modes. Greater image storage capabilities results in longer recording duration times, whilst also providing faster network transmission speeds.

The advanced benefits of this hard disk storage system mean that it retrieves the exact scenes you want to see instantly by searching directly on the time and date,

or utilising the list search of alarms. This satisfies all the users’ requirements by equipping them with a practical, reliable, cost saving system.

Up to eight cameras can be connected, ensuring that diverse and demanding surveillance requirements can be catered for. You can also control up to four Panasonic Mini Domes by connecting directly to channels 1 to 4 and utilising

the WV-CU360J system controller.

The WJ-HD220 can also display in both spot and multi-screen thanks to the two monitor outputs. High efficiency is ensured through the various surveillance features provided. These include: motion sensors detecting movement in the area under surveillance, which switch the recording into real-time, automatically displaying

the scene; simultaneous recording that continues during playback; live monitoring; and network operations.

The user friendly set-up of the

WJ-HD220 allows for simple installation. The functional design of the set up menu makes it easy to use, enabling quick set

up for any operation.