IP camera Software

[thewireguys 3]

What to find out what is in the market that this hot or not...

 

Interested on IP software without any licensing need per IP camera connection... There are way too many offers out in the market, so lets see what is avail at this time and what the member think of each one.

 

What are the pros and the cons and why..

 

Here is one for you. So if the software is free then we as System Integrators make less money or are we supposed to add more labor to make up the difference (then what would be the point of free software?) Because I don't know about you but I am tired of making less and less money

[thewireguys 3]

Heck, if you can buy Iphone for less than $300, why can't we have sub-$100 IP cameras that do not perform even 10% of the tasks of Iphone??? Is it may be that certain companies want to make sure that we do not have access for this type of lower cost hardware or trying to delay introduction of such solutions? You be the judge of this angle...

 

First off Iphones cost more then $300 and they can sell them for $300 because of the RMR generated by the contracts. Also I think they have sold more Iphones then every IP camera manufacture combined.

 

Yes, good response.. here is my come back at you... Apple sold more Iphones is because the major drop in price, combined with more user friendly features and functions at no additional cost and then then demand has gone up (hmmm, now we are talking economics)... where is the demand based on the price of IP cameras today and could you tell me what will happen if such pricing of IP cameras drops to a reasonable level - like pricing of the analog cameras for an example? Are you comparing apples to oranges here or what? If you look back how Iphone started and how crappy it worked and higher costs at the beginning, then you can appreciate its reasonable price and the functionality more today.

 

If you had a sub-$100 camera available, will you entertain your IP solutions that costs you more than $500 per unit? Which will be easier to introduce to your customers? How about if you were able to give them the "free" IP software application, but charge only for installation and support, will that work for you or will it hurt your business?

 

So now I am making less on cameras and free software great.... Whats next do it your self installs

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

 

ExacqVision does not have this fee structure.... please stop saying this because it is not true.

 

They have an OPTIONAL up grade fee.... There is a big difference

 

No fee structure?... Really?.. OK.. fine... how do you then justify a proposal that includes cost per IP connection PLUS additional fees per year based per IP connection to provide "SUPPORT", "UPGRADES", 'PATCHES AND FIXES" to known problems.. or covering "TECHNICAL SUPPORT" in case there is a problem with the software... If you do not want to call them "Yearly Maintenance Fee" or "Yearly Support Fee", then what do you call it?

 

My friend, I know Exacq product much more than you are giving me a credit for... I know few of the engineers and the sales people.. I am not against having anyone to make money in any way they want, but I have the right to disagree with their marketing of how they charge per IP connection or for support required passed the first year...

 

This is not anything different than how American Dynamics handles the similar IP solution, or Bosch or Genetec or many others... so I am not singling out Exacq to be the only one, rather that Exacq is part of the pack that want to charge this way... I and many others have the choice to say no, as we do not want to pay per IP camera connection nor for any additional fees for any other type of support...

 

Welcome to open source mentality!

[thewireguys 3]

 

ExacqVision does not have this fee structure.... please stop saying this because it is not true.

 

They have an OPTIONAL up grade fee.... There is a big difference

 

No fee structure?... Really?.. OK.. fine... how do you then justify a proposal that includes cost per IP connection PLUS additional fees per year based per IP connection to provide "SUPPORT", "UPGRADES", 'PATCHES AND FIXES" to known problems.. or covering "TECHNICAL SUPPORT" in case there is a problem with the software... If you do not want to call them "Yearly Maintenance Fee" or "Yearly Support Fee", then what do you call it?

 

My friend, I know Exacq product much more than you are giving me a credit for... I know few of the engineers and the sales people.. I am not against having anyone to make money in any way they want, but I have the right to disagree with their marketing of how they charge per IP connection or for support required passed the first year...

 

This is not anything different than how American Dynamics handles the similar IP solution, or Bosch or Genetec or many others... so I am not singling out Exacq to be the only one, rather that Exacq is part of the pack that want to charge this way... I and many others have the choice to say no, as we do not want to pay per IP camera connection nor for any additional fees for any other type of support...

 

Welcome to open source mentality!

 

Exacq does not charge for support!!! Their $25 upgrade fee is that "an upgrade fee for new features" There are other company's that will not support you if you do not pay the "Yearly Maintenance Fee" or "Yearly Support Fee" but Exacq is not one of them!!

 

So unless Exacq's Sales Manager and Rep is lying to me your statement is false

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Here is one for you. So if the software is free then we as System Integrators make less money or are we supposed to add more labor to make up the difference (then what would be the point of free software?) Because I don't know about you but I am tired of making less and less money

 

Ok, lets answer this one first... For your information, we also are integrators and we do not just make money on selling cameras or software, but also build complete computer systems, sell cables and accessories across the board. What comes out of the entire formula is the cost of the software and possible less on the IP cameras (sooner than you think).

 

Where do we all make money? Are you familiar how Linux or BSD supporters made and still make money today? It is called support, selling essential components of systems, CDs, documentation, hardware, etc... and selling them to more people than Microsoft cares to find out. Did you know that entire German government signed up with Suse many years ago to convert their entire platform away from Microsoft to Linux?? The process saved the German government billions of dollars in so many years... Did you know that over 80% of the servers in the world use either Linux or BSD?

 

I guess you do not see the huge potential of the number of customers that will be asking for this type of solutions, which interprets to more sales in selling more gadgets, more money in supporting it and tremendous increase in volume of the business... All you have to do is to follow up with what Linux and BSD community had done in so many years and why they still are around and making money.

 

On the other hand, you do not have to do anything but stay with the same pack and watch what happens... The technology will not stand still in favor of selected few companies and their ways of conducting business. It changes daily and effects us all, so why not be part of it rather than going against the tide..

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

[

So now I am making less on cameras and free software great.... Whats next do it your self installs

 

If you only are selling cameras and software, then buddy there is a problem in your business practice.. Are you not selling other gadgets and accessories (too many to mention here)? When was the last time that you were able to charge for consulting, as most integrators do?

 

Actually the self installs of this distribution did come up in our discussions and I think should be part of the entire process... if so then the industry will dictate and not what I (we) think. If self install does become a necessity, then I am sure that will be avail as well.. but that is not a choice for us to make, rather a dictation of the end users in our industry!

 

Again, where do you (we all) make money - support, documentation, selling all the essentials required for the end user to be hooked on this concept, as has happened with Linux and BSD platform and all their free applications available today!

 

The other choice of course is do nothing and wait on the sidelines and see what happens..

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Exacq does not charge for support!!! Their $25 upgrade fee is that "an upgrade fee for new features" There are other company's that will not support you if you do not pay the "Yearly Maintenance Fee" or "Yearly Support Fee" but Exacq is not one of them!!

 

So unless Exacq's Sales Manager and Rep is lying to me your statement is false

 

OK.. call it "Upgrade Fee" for new features and that is $25.00 per IP connection right? If so, then what do you call this again? Anything "FEE" calls for more cost, regardless what you call it. Call and talk to your Rep or call them directly and they will not give you a straight answer.

 

Seems to me that you are taking this very personal and I do not understand it. Exacq is not the only company doing this, but many others.

 

Do you want to hear the worst yet? Few of our existing manufacturers called us and asked if this concept really a fact and if we are working on something that this whole thread is about (I guess they have members in this forum - great!). The answer was and still is YES and guess what they stated.. that they can and possibly will reduce their supply of equipment to us and support on such equipment. OR even worse - that they will increase our pricing higher than normal to possibly reduce our exposure selling their products... I guess this type of concept really hit some of the companies where it hurts the most - their ability to charge much more than necessary. Well my friend, how will you respond to this type of threats from your manufacturers? Will you back off and go along with their wishes or will you continue your venture?

 

By the way, some of the same manufacturers actually dropped some of their pricing since our discussion few weeks ago... what do you think of that? Who actually benefited from this anyway? If we are getting the same product cheaper, then the benefit goes to the end users...

[thewireguys 3]

[

So now I am making less on cameras and free software great.... Whats next do it your self installs

 

If you only are selling cameras and software, then buddy there is a problem in your business practice.. Are you not selling other gadgets and accessories (too many to mention here)? When was the last time that you were able to charge for consulting, as most integrators do?

 

Actually the self installs of this distribution did come up in our discussions and I think should be part of the entire process... if so then the industry will dictate and not what I (we) think. If self install does become a necessity, then I am sure that will be avail as well.. but that is not a choice for us to make, rather a dictation of the end users in our industry!

 

Again, where do you (we all) make money - support, documentation, selling all the essentials required for the end user to be hooked on this concept, as has happened with Linux and BSD platform and all their free applications available today!

 

The other choice of course is do nothing and wait on the sidelines and see what happens..

 

 

So what is the difference to the end user if they pay $500 per camera + $150 per license + Labor and a optional $25 upgrade fee + labor

 

100 Per camera and free software + Labor now (now more money to make up of the lost revenue) + manuals (more money) + documentation plus as you said a "support fee"

 

sounds the same to me

 

I am not taking this personal I am just trying to figure out how the end user benefits from this.

 

Trust me I know there are penty of other NVR VMS providers out there and I don't agree with most of there pricing. I picked Exacq because I think they are fair unlike Milestone and Onssi.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Guest

[rory 0]

hey guys .. i dont want support at all .. for anything .. never have never will .. i just want the cheapest thing i can get my hands on that works the best if it breaks i will throw it in the garbage and buy another.

[thewireguys 3]

 

By the way, some of the same manufacturers actually dropped some of their pricing since our discussion few weeks ago... what do you think of that? Who actually benefited from this anyway? If we are getting the same product cheaper, then the benefit goes to the end users...

 

care to share?

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

So what is the difference to the end user if they pay $500 per camera + $150 per license + Labor and a optional $25 upgrade fee + labor

 

100 Per camera and free software + Labor now (now more money to make up of the lost revenue) + manuals (more money) + documentation plus as you said a "support fee"

 

Lets do your calculations for the moment for 4 camera package - $2,000 for the IP cameras (most of which are not supporting H.264), $600 for the IP software license, $100 for Upgrade fee, plus plus plus - approximately $3,000 not including computer hardware and storage requirements... Of course, most of this pricing is wholesale and we have to charge higher than these numbers to make any money.

 

Now, lets do the same with 64 camera package - $32K for cameras, $9,600 for IP licenses, $1,600 for upgrade fees and without labor and computer hardware/storage, you are looking at approximately $$43K+

 

Lets take a look at the same for software that will be available for anyone who cares to use it...

 

4 camera package - software costs - nothing, upgrade costs - nothing, IP camera costs (based on confirmed pricing from various new comers in the market - $250 per camera and total cost $1,000 plus not including labor plus computer hardware/storage - I think simple math stats the facts here don't you think? Ok, fine, we probably will ask for $10 for documentation and $10 for CD that contains the software... We may ask no more than $20 on phone technical support for the entire year, however the forums out there will be better guide without making a single payment.

 

64 camera package costs - software costs - nothing, upgrade costs - nothing, IP camera costs - $16K+ without computer hardware, storage or labor... In this case, the same cost for the documentation and the same for CD cost that contains the same software... If customers want on the site support, then there may be a tiered pricing customized what customer wants and not a "fixed price per IP connection. This angle has not been addressed yet, but I am sure we will not do anything different than what Linux and BSD service houses do... per call charge or per year charge whichever fits the customer's needs. Is this math make any sense for any potential user that have simple common sense?

 

sounds the same to me

 

No it does not... I think simple math above shows clearly that your take is incorrect and please do not take it a wrong way... as you may not be familiar with this concept that Linux and BSD community thrived for many years and with least amount of costs to the end users. Once you fully comprehend the entire concept and understand why this is and will be taking place, I am sure you will be fully onboard... but for now, it is a point of argument and I appreciate your comments.

 

I am not taking this personal I am just trying to figure out how the end user benefits from this.

 

You should take nothing personal in any argument... Your opinion is as important as the next member's opinion regardless what you or other believe. Reality will come to its full circle once this new application becomes available sooner than you think. Your and most of the member's immediate response will be that it is not as good as what you use today, since you know only Exacq and other know different software packages. However, with the initial cut and future upgrades and releases, you will see too many similarities with what you currently use and then at no cost to you... and what you decide and how you want to sell it is entirely up to you without any restrictions... Wouldn't that be a great thing to give you, the integrator a choice to access to a lot more customers and sell more on gadgets in and around this new platform? I think it does and will produce huge benefits not only for us, the integrators, but even more importantly, the end users who deserve better!

 

Trust me I know there are penty of other NVR VMS providers out there and I don't agree with most of there pricing. I picked Exacq because I think they are fair unlike Milestone and Onssi.

 

I looked at Exacq, Milestone, ONSSI, Genetec, Bosch, American Dynamics and few other known brand that thrive on this "charge per IP connection" bill method. I have no preference, as all are operating in the same pack with the same intent... and with total disregard on the industry's real needs... except their own. Some are higher and some lower (do you know how much Genetec charges per IP connection and their yearly fees that will choke you if you even find out?). Every company puts something different on the table, but in the nutshell, they are all the same... What makes the big difference among them are how long they have been doing this (in case of Genetec, they call themselves the "leader"), how well is their solution "accepted" by the industry and how much more can they charge before customer's realize that they have been had...

 

And the worst of this entire process is that none of them agree on any industry standard nor are willing to sit down across each other to agree on anything that could be called as industry standard. Does this sound familiar that we have been facing for a long time? At least in my over 30+ years of experience, I have not seen any solution in our industry that could be construed as "industry standard" and I do not anticipate that the present situation may offer anything close. Rather, everyone have their own solutions, their own products with total disregard what we, the industry, really needs.

+

Please find my answers next to your questions and please take it as its full value not just an opinion...

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

care to share?

 

Well, I can tell you, but then I may have to ....

 

Watch what happens after this ASIS show being held in Southern California... many announcements in eliminating many products, adhereance to H.264 platform, reduction of pricing in many cases in the IP side of the solutions, etc... I will not mentioned names here nor will encourage any exposure for such an effort.. What I suggest is watch and observe and you will see the results sooner than later.

 

Look at this from a different point of view - the angle which manufacturers have to think and lineup their positions... When such solution becomes available, what will happen to most? I am not suggesting that they all will leave the industry by no means, rather they have to now pick and choose very specific vertical markets that may not care to "save" money - that includes military, the government and other major companies. If we were to account the percentage of such group, it accounts to no more than 10% of the overall potential users in this market. I care for the rest of the 90% of the market users.

 

Hey bud, it is your and everyone else's choice to join or stay with what you currently use. Nobody is or will be forcing their will on you or others. Rather an opportunity to give much more cost effective solutions to general public abroad accounting to 90% of the market and make money in volume of business without capitalizing on each deal with exorbitant prices available today. We and most of the open source community chooses not to follow that pack of selected few, rather open market, open source and solutions that are available to anyone who cares to use it. At the end you may choose not to use this solution and that is your own decision and there is nothing wrong with it. I will not try to persuade you or anyone else to follow this path. Just be open minded without any interference from anyone else and be your own judge and jury... If you feel this is not for you, then that is perfectly fine with us.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

hey guys .. i dont want support at all .. for anything .. never have never will .. i just want the cheapest thing i can get my hands on that works the best if it breaks i will throw it in the garbage and buy another.

 

Rory, you promissed me $5.00 IP camera... where is it...

 

Do you personally think that this may be a solution that you may consider? If so, why? As you state above, you do not need any support and never cared for it and want the cheapest thing you can get your hand on... well, will free software be any cheaper than what you may be looking for?

 

How about if your refine your software development skills and get better on C++, Perl, Java and few other languages and be able to come up with your own distro? Who says that you can not do that? You can call it whatever you want as long as such distro becomes available in the open source...

 

Rory, I always respect your comments and opinions. Do you think this concept holds any water from your own perspective? If so, then what will be your own take once this becomes available (and not if this will happen or not).

 

How about if you have access to much cheaper IP cameras that are coming into the market and with correct volume, it could easily hit sub-$100 price range... I know that you will call this a through away option if it fails, but for must potential users, this could be the surveillance solution that they all were looking for.

 

I will understand if you choose not to work with it or to support it. Heck it is your choice anyway. But consider the potential benefits and ability to contribute on ideas (as we expect most of the users can provide) and implement them one at a time...

[thewireguys 3]

care to share?

 

Well, I can tell you, but then I may have to ....

 

Watch what happens after this ASIS show being held in Southern California... many announcements in eliminating many products, adhereance to H.264 platform, reduction of pricing in many cases in the IP side of the solutions, etc... I will not mentioned names here nor will encourage any exposure for such an effort.. What I suggest is watch and observe and you will see the results sooner than later.

 

Look at this from a different point of view - the angle which manufacturers have to think and lineup their positions... When such solution becomes available, what will happen to most? I am not suggesting that they all will leave the industry by no means, rather they have to now pick and choose very specific vertical markets that may not care to "save" money - that includes military, the government and other major companies. If we were to account the percentage of such group, it accounts to no more than 10% of the overall potential users in this market. I care for the rest of the 90% of the market users.

 

Hey bud, it is your and everyone else's choice to join or stay with what you currently use. Nobody is or will be forcing their will on you or others. Rather an opportunity to give much more cost effective solutions to general public abroad accounting to 90% of the market and make money in volume of business without capitalizing on each deal with exorbitant prices available today. We and most of the open source community chooses not to follow that pack of selected few, rather open market, open source and solutions that are available to anyone who cares to use it. At the end you may choose not to use this solution and that is your own decision and there is nothing wrong with it. I will not try to persuade you or anyone else to follow this path. Just be open minded without any interference from anyone else and be your own judge and jury... If you feel this is not for you, then that is perfectly fine with us.

 

Thats what we have PM's for

[dopalgangr 1]

hey guys .. i dont want support at all .. for anything .. never have never will .. i just want the cheapest thing i can get my hands on that works the best if it breaks i will throw it in the garbage and buy another.

 

I have to agree to an extent, I want the best value for my money though. If I buy something that normally costs $300 for $100 and it breaks I'm still out a $100 bucks

 

I have to say I really like this idea, however what if this were to get big and really cause the manufactures to do the opposite? Instead of falling in line they pull back and become more proprietary than ever? Look at Sony for example. Not only are a lot of their digital cameras using the more expensive memory stick pro (although some did/do use SD) but there pricing is very stable across the board. All the manufactures have to do is change the way the camera sends its information, either by encrypting it or making proprietary codecs, or whatever. And force you to use their software in order to use their cameras or other large companies that they have banded with. In the end if you are now stuck with a free piece of software that will only work with no name or sub-par cameras, then they still win. Could this go this way? What are your thoughts?

[thewireguys 3]

hey guys .. i dont want support at all .. for anything .. never have never will .. i just want the cheapest thing i can get my hands on that works the best if it breaks i will throw it in the garbage and buy another.

 

I have to agree to an extent, I want the best value for my money though. If I buy something that normally costs $300 for $100 and it breaks I'm still out a $100 bucks

 

I have to say I really like this idea, however what if this were to get big and really cause the manufactures to do the opposite? Instead of falling in line they pull back and become more proprietary than ever? Look at Sony for example. Not only are a lot of their digital cameras using the more expensive memory stick pro (although some did/do use SD) but there pricing is very stable across the board. All the manufactures have to do is change the way the camera sends its information, either by encrypting it or making proprietary codecs, or whatever. And force you to use their software in order to use their cameras or other large companies that they have banded with. In the end if you are now stuck with a free piece of software that will only work with no name or sub-par cameras, then they still win. Could this go this way? What are your thoughts?

 

All the camera manufactures have to do is stop releasing there SDKs

[hardwired 0]

I'm not sure that anyone here enjoys paying the prices we do for NVR software (I use Milestone, along with Exacq, and I'm definitely not happy with Milestone's pricing!), but to some extent, we have commited ourselves to that structure, and have worked on conveying that value presented by the NVR software to our customers.

 

The investment in time learning these platforms is a tangible part of our expenses that we then amortize over multiple customers. With an open source platform, free also means that there is no recovery in the investment there, unless we can get more on another part of the job, or additional maintenance sales (which, I'll admit, is feasible.. If the total cost per cam goes down, sell them a few more cameras..Plausible tradeoff on a job)

 

A concerning aspect of an open source solution is that there is no (visible) driving motivation to improve, support, upgrade, or otherwise make the product an ongoing viable solution, compared to a market driven product that has to keep swimming to survive, and provide ongoing technical support (part of the costs that the NVR S/W companies have to absorb).

 

I've seen a couple of open source projects implode under their own weight, shrugged off by the few designers that really understood the platform fully after beating their heads against the wall for years, with no benefits to them (constant demands for features, support, drivers, internal contention between programmers, etc.)

 

In short, convince us why this will be a (reasonably) long enough term solution to outweigh the investment in time associated with using your solution, dealing with problems that may arise in an install that may take a significant amount of time to resolve, potentially having to learn a lot more about programming than we might like, possibly leaving a job unfinished, while waiting for payment from our customers.

 

Retail NVR solutions offer us at least some leverage. If it doesn't work, we will not pay for it. Where is the motivation to support an angry integrator with a half-finished job in the open source model?

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

I have to agree to an extent, I want the best value for my money though. If I buy something that normally costs $300 for $100 and it breaks I'm still out a $100 bucks

 

I have to say I really like this idea, however what if this were to get big and really cause the manufactures to do the opposite? Instead of falling in line they pull back and become more proprietary than ever? Look at Sony for example. Not only are a lot of their digital cameras using the more expensive memory stick pro (although some did/do use SD) but there pricing is very stable across the board. All the manufactures have to do is change the way the camera sends its information, either by encrypting it or making proprietary codecs, or whatever. And force you to use their software in order to use their cameras or other large companies that they have banded with. In the end if you are now stuck with a free piece of software that will only work with no name or sub-par cameras, then they still win. Could this go this way? What are your thoughts?

 

Excellent observations... Of course, there is always a possibility that one of the majors, including Sony who makes IP cameras, do this and make things difficult.. The main question is what will they get out it if their sales are dropping right now and will continue to drop. Same could happen with Panasonic and Bosch and "could" is the main operative word.

 

I personally do not think so. The majors have much more to loose and giving a chance to many offshore companies to fill the spot.

 

Follow the trend what happened with analog cameras market. If other smaller companies did not get involved, we would not had a decent pricing coming from the major manufacturers. Each major manufacturer had to redesign and refine their lineup to kind of be different from others, but kept them in check...

 

Imagine this - what would have happened if Linux or BSD were not around and Microsoft was the only OS provider? Do you think we could have advanced as much now without such a major competition? We want to create this competition and push all the majors to innovate and make everything more accessible to everyone, otherwise there will be major shift in purchasing habits of the end user going after much lower cost and in our case "no charge for software" options.

 

I will share this thought with you - major manufacturers do not like competition, but if they are facing possible extinction, they will have to do the right thing for the sake of being around - that includes better priced IP gear (not only IP cameras, but better prices POE switches, storage devices, etc), but even more importantly, better priced software offerings.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

All the camera manufactures have to do is stop releasing there SDKs

 

And what is their advantage doing so? Is it to restrict their sales and limit their exposure to much larger sectors of our industry? Or do you think that their marketing is geared up to loose market share and that is why they will not release SDKs? Or better yet, does this make any real sense to you from business stand point?

 

If you are one of such manufacturers, I can see (hey from your writing it already shows) that you are mad and upset. So lets say your are Exacq (which you stated to like very much) and you are facing possible competition that has a totally different price method (in this case no cost).. what will you do? Will you retaliate to smear the effort of the open source, will you pull back your SDK, will you restrict your software not being compatible with most except selected few cameras, will you devote your time and money to squash the open source using your hard earned marketing dollars, or what?

 

From my angle, you will do nothing, rather hope that this is nothing more than a hoax and an effort that will fade away. You will not do any of the above, as you will be cutting your own throat in the market nor will you make any comments (marketing disaster). You will attempt to challenge every possible angle or features that such solution could offer and make it your own mini-war against it in hope that such community will loose. Many companies tried this in the past and continue today, but they all came to one simple conclusion - if you can not win against them, why not join them.

 

What is wrong with joining the community anyway? An individual company never has enough resources to come up with the best and most versatile solutions unless your are IBM, INTEL and others. What is wrong with ability to tap on a very large resource available to you and others that solves problems pennies to the dollar and does much better job than any individual company? Once you fully understand engineering dollars and understand that it is very restrictive, then you will appreciate how open source helps the entire industry, regardless which sector it applies.

 

Nothing Exacq or others (please do not think that I am isolating Exacq alone) have in their lineup that could not be done better or cheaper. They and others are and will be missing the boat going forward as long as they stay with their ancient ways of conducting business. Many companies in the past came and disappeared in at least 30+ years that I have been in this industry and I wander why? Such companies had very limited vision on what they could do and how they did it and the end result was that either they packed their bags and left or were sold for pennies to a dollar (in most cases such companies were bought to be taken out of the industry).

 

Again my friend, you are taking this whole entire idea a wrong way and it is your own angle and I will respect that. You do not have to agree or disagree or do anything for that matter. Your opinion is as important as any other member, regardless if you personally agree with any concept or not. The only angle that I will ask you to explore is to think out of the box and look at our industry structure from outside. Once you really understand it, then you will have your own observations and ideas how to improve many areas that require serious attention... I know I did and I am pursuing the IP software sector and I personally think that we all have much more to gain than what software manufacturers wants us to believe.

[rory 0]

Rory, you promissed me $5.00 IP camera... where is it...

 

Do you personally think that this may be a solution that you may consider? If so, why? As you state above, you do not need any support and never cared for it and want the cheapest thing you can get your hand on... well, will free software be any cheaper than what you may be looking for?

 

How about if your refine your software development skills and get better on C++, Perl, Java and few other languages and be able to come up with your own distro? Who says that you can not do that? You can call it whatever you want as long as such distro becomes available in the open source...

 

Rory, I always respect your comments and opinions. Do you think this concept holds any water from your own perspective? If so, then what will be your own take once this becomes available (and not if this will happen or not).

 

How about if you have access to much cheaper IP cameras that are coming into the market and with correct volume, it could easily hit sub-$100 price range... I know that you will call this a through away option if it fails, but for must potential users, this could be the surveillance solution that they all were looking for.

 

I will understand if you choose not to work with it or to support it. Heck it is your choice anyway. But consider the potential benefits and ability to contribute on ideas (as we expect most of the users can provide) and implement them one at a time...

 

Dont know man, im broke and in the middle of careers right now .. will see how things go.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Here are some of the answer to your legitimate questions and again, thank you for taking your time to address them.... This is probably one of the best questions/observations I have seen thus far

 

I'm not sure that anyone here enjoys paying the prices we do for NVR software (I use Milestone, along with Exacq, and I'm definitely not happy with Milestone's pricing!), but to some extent, we have commited ourselves to that structure, and have worked on conveying that value presented by the NVR software to our customers.

 

We ourselves work with various of these companies now and even in the past and I understand your assessment. Why change anything when you already spent the money to learn and to support these platforms?.. and that does make a perfect sense only if you have no other choice in place...

 

Choices are what I'd like to see for much broader spectrum of users and not based on their ability to pay for software. Each of the companies and others as well have their own "charging" mechanism that works for them and allows very little room for us, the integrators. Instead of being part of the overall process, we become the engine to just sell and whatever support they give is what we have - cost, more cost across the board.

 

The investment in time learning these platforms is a tangible part of our expenses that we then amortize over multiple customers.

 

Very true on your observations... and that accounts not only for the software, also the knowledge necessary for hardware and all the accessories being part of such solution... No arguments here, as it is the common practice that we all face today regardless which technology we choose to support...

 

With an open source platform, free also means that there is no recovery in the investment there, unless we can get more on another part of the job, or additional maintenance sales (which, I'll admit, is feasible.. If the total cost per cam goes down, sell them a few more cameras..Plausible tradeoff on a job)

 

Very well said.. and I can see that you are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel -

 

What you are referring to is how many companies, some are very large billion plus dollars companies, have and still are making money on a simple platform called Linux or BSD.. Someone could always ask (and that is what most of the member thus far been asking) is how to make money on something that is free and available for anyone who cares to use it.. As you stated yourself, such concept for medium or large company use will require knowledge, documentation, installation dollars, hardware dollars, computer parts/software (operating systems knowledge mainly), consulting, on-call contracts, service call contracts, contracts involve many aspects of the entire package (excluding the IP software) and much much more...

 

If someone intends to just sell IP camera equipment only without involving in anything else, then this solution is not a "money maker" and is for only end users who can do this all by themselves... However, medium range of the software being able to support as much as 64 IP cameras or better yet, the high end of the same software being able to support up to 1,024 IP cameras do pose an excellent opportunity for anyone who is capable to pass the mental blackout on how to make money using this option...

 

A concerning aspect of an open source solution is that there is no (visible) driving motivation to improve, support, upgrade, or otherwise make the product an ongoing viable solution, compared to a market driven product that has to keep swimming to survive, and provide ongoing technical support (part of the costs that the NVR S/W companies have to absorb).

 

This is the "gray" area that most do not see... In order to understand driving motivation, support and to make it market driven solution, someone has to believe in it to the point where such person or a company is allocating funds to materialize a better solution that is available in the market now.

 

Lets look at what happened with Linux and BSD markets, which produced tremendous traction in development of newer solutions that otherwise will not be available today if we were stuck with Microsoft or Apple...

 

Based on our last research, there are over 20,000+ applications available for both of these platforms.. well, which one to use and not to use.. great choices to test and adhere on whatever you like and not imposed by limited mindset of a large company. Some of such application became so popular that they are integral part of the open source, regardless which distro you follow... Too many to mention here, but you get the drift.

 

Lets look at this distribution, which is not a new idea... Actually the source code has been around for quite a very long time and has roughly 12,000 + followers. At its basic format, it is not a user friendly application, requires code to be cleaned and compiled with the latest distros out there... and that is the easy part.. it requires yet another major task involving simple and easy to use GUI and all the basic functions that we all are accustomed to use daily. The most energy will be placed into the newer features and functions that are very popular or desirable by many, but at the very steep cost from existing manufacturers... Guess what, we are implementing these same features and functions to be part of this application as being part of the standard. More will follow over time, as the product matures.

 

I've seen a couple of open source projects implode under their own weight, shrugged off by the few designers that really understood the platform fully after beating their heads against the wall for years, with no benefits to them (constant demands for features, support, drivers, internal contention between programmers, etc.)

 

Another good observation and we are not repeating the same mistakes here.. Our research clearly shows that once such platform is ready to go, we already have few hundred existing customer sites that are willing to try this solution and replace their existing platform that cost them tremendous amount of money per year. If nothing else, these customers can keep us busy with their requirements that will improve the product more and more and as such changes become available, it will be published for general use by others. Of course, any comments or requirement by others always will be addressed and looked at..

 

We firmly belive in open source and have made it our passion to stick with them for a long haul. We made and still make money with their solutions in place allowing our customer to minimize their exposure to closed end or proprietary solutions that are very limited. Look at it from a different angle - if the existing companies do not charge more and more for their software, they have no chance to survive in a long term, whereas if such solution is available for free and gets a decent traction, then not only we make money on selling what are mentioned above, but now selling more computer components, etc... and this is what most of existing software only manufacturers lack... I personally think that at one point of time they will leave the industry or concentrate only in very specific vertical industries or better yet, reduce their cost structure in order to survive.

 

In short, convince us why this will be a (reasonably) long enough term solution to outweigh the investment in time associated with using your solution, dealing with problems that may arise in an install that may take a significant amount of time to resolve, potentially having to learn a lot more about programming than we might like, possibly leaving a job unfinished, while waiting for payment from our customers.

 

No convincing is required... It will be your choice if you and others want to use it or not. The rule of thumb is that it should work on any computer hardware or server or storage. If it does not, then let us know the specifics (if so you desire) and we can provide a fairly simple solution. Please understand that this solution will not be or should not be construed as a "fix all" for everyone. It either works or does not work and if it works, it is ready to rock and roll... Over time you can get more updates, fixes or new features and functions (at no cost to you, the integrator), but if you choose to charge the customer for your time and labor, you can... if so your customer care for it...

 

We do not want to convince anyone nor intent to persuade anybody to do anything that they choose not to... rather look at it as a potential solution coming to your direction that has much better chance to create much larger traction than any other IP CCTV Software in its existence... I say a chance, because it is a chance. At the end you as an example may not want to use it and may not want to recommend. Heck, you could be one that goes against it and come up with your angle why it is not a good system... However, any negative info about such a solution is always positive info for us - to improve and perfect a platform that will eventually work for everyone one way or another...

 

Retail NVR solutions offer us at least some leverage. If it doesn't work, we will not pay for it. Where is the motivation to support an angry integrator with a half-finished job in the open source model?

 

Before integrator starts his or her involvement, they must posses various knowledge on basics of computer technology.. If such integrator does not have the basics, we nor anyone else can help.

 

We are planning to provide training courses for anyone who cares to attend and even have online training courses available at one point of time. You can download it, install in your own hardware and play with it and if you like it, great... and if not, we only hope that you can come back and give us good kick in the a...s and state why... so that we can have the opportunity to fix it and make such platform better...

 

By the way, do you know the difference between H.264 and X.264??

[ipvideosolutions 0]

Check out Aimetis.com

[hardwired 0]

Here are some of the answer to your legitimate questions and again, thank you for taking your time to address them.... This is probably one of the best questions/observations I have seen thus far

 

Thanks. I'm not here to throw anyone under the bus. I do think this is a viable solution, but there are things to be addressed.....

 

Choices are what I'd like to see for much broader spectrum of users and not based on their ability to pay for software. Each of the companies and others as well have their own "charging" mechanism that works for them and allows very little room for us, the integrators. Instead of being part of the overall process, we become the engine to just sell and whatever support they give is what we have - cost, more cost across the board.

 

Indeed, the margin that they offer against MSRP does not fit our business model well...

 

 

What you are referring to is how many companies, some are very large billion plus dollars companies, have and still are making money on a simple platform called Linux or BSD..

 

And who (usually) have proprietary, for fee, applications running on that platform...And a staff of trained IT professionals to make whatever changes that are necessary, immediately...

 

However, medium range of the software being able to support as much as 64 IP cameras or better yet, the high end of the same software being able to support up to 1,024 IP cameras do pose an excellent opportunity for anyone who is capable to pass the mental blackout on how to make money using this option...

 

Let's do a poll here of how many contributors here have done a 64+ IP camera system, I think it is a short list at this point (although things will change, I'm sure)

 

A concerning aspect of an open source solution is that there is no (visible) driving motivation to improve, support, upgrade, or otherwise make the product an ongoing viable solution, compared to a market driven product that has to keep swimming to survive, and provide ongoing technical support (part of the costs that the NVR S/W companies have to absorb).

 

This is the "gray" area that most do not see... In order to understand driving motivation, support and to make it market driven solution, someone has to believe in it to the point where such person or a company is allocating funds to materialize a better solution that is available in the market now.

 

Altruism is great, but everyone has to eat at the end of the day. What is going to keep you (and others) going with this?

 

Lets look at this distribution, which is not a new idea... Actually the source code has been around for quite a very long time and has roughly 12,000 + followers. At its basic format, it is not a user friendly application, requires code to be cleaned and compiled with the latest distros out there... and that is the easy part.. it requires yet another major task involving simple and easy to use GUI and all the basic functions that we all are accustomed to use daily. The most energy will be placed into the newer features and functions that are very popular or desirable by many, but at the very steep cost from existing manufacturers... Guess what, we are implementing these same features and functions to be part of this application as being part of the standard. More will follow over time, as the product matures.

 

How do you think these features will be easier for you to implement than the way the existing NVR manufacturers have to develop them?

 

We firmly belive in open source and have made it our passion to stick with them for a long haul. We made and still make money with their solutions in place allowing our customer to minimize their exposure to closed end or proprietary solutions that are very limited. Look at it from a different angle - if the existing companies do not charge more and more for their software, they have no chance to survive in a long term, whereas if such solution is available for free and gets a decent traction, then not only we make money on selling what are mentioned above, but now selling more computer components, etc... and this is what most of existing software only manufacturers lack... I personally think that at one point of time they will leave the industry or concentrate only in very specific vertical industries or better yet, reduce their cost structure in order to survive.

 

We do not want to convince anyone nor intent to persuade anybody to do anything that they choose not to... rather look at it as a potential solution coming to your direction that has much better chance to create much larger traction than any other IP CCTV Software in its existence... I say a chance, because it is a chance. At the end you as an example may not want to use it and may not want to recommend. Heck, you could be one that goes against it and come up with your angle why it is not a good system... However, any negative info about such a solution is always positive info for us - to improve and perfect a platform that will eventually work for everyone one way or another...

 

Yes, this approach requires a significant change in the mindset of integrators that will use it.

 

The typical sale (for us at least) requires a lot of time selling the camera system itself, and the questions of maintenance and service contracts come later, if at all.

 

Before integrator starts his or her involvement, they must posses various knowledge on basics of computer technology.. If such integrator does not have the basics, we nor anyone else can help.

 

You are making a few assumptions there. A lot of support issues and costs arise for manufacturers because the integrators do not have that knowledge.

 

Several platforms (Speco, etc) are attempting to cater to those users with UP&P, self-addressing, firewall tunneling applications for just those reasons.

 

IP video is in itself a significant challenge for many integrators, without requiring them to have advanced networking / computer knowledge.

 

We are planning to provide training courses for anyone who cares to attend and even have online training courses available at one point of time. You can download it, install in your own hardware and play with it and if you like it, great... and if not, we only hope that you can come back and give us good kick in the a...s and state why... so that we can have the opportunity to fix it and make such platform better...

 

That's great... but most manufacturer trainings I've attended get bogged down at basic IP addressing schemes, let alone what level of competence may be required for your solution.

 

By the way, do you know the difference between H.264 and X.264??

 

Yes, I do, I tested using the X.264 codec with VLC to downsample/ re-encode a stream for low bandwidth viewing.... And therein lies a point, if the basic user needs to know how to set macroblock sizing and other quantization options just to be able to use your product, you are going to be in trouble.

 

As I'm writing this, I'm working at creating new .ant antenna radiation pattern profiles for use in designing a 19 mile N-Rate (MCS2, 10 Mhz notch, 2.4 Ghz) link over rough terrain using Radio Mobile, a great freeware program for modeling the quality of RF links over terrain and obstructions... Radio Mobile is an exceptionally powerful program, but has a fairly steep learning curve to implement properly (for me, at least)

 

Everyone here associated with IP video always has more learning to do, myself included.

 

I look forward to the challenge, but the best place to do it is not standing in front of a customer, stuttering about why his system doesn't work.... Help us look good, and you will look good, too.

 

BTW, if you need a beta tester...... I'm up for it.

 

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

hardwired, excellent points and looks like more debates help to bring the pros and cons of this application... and dependent from which angle you look at it.

 

Adaptation to X.264 is the essential part of not only for this application, but being part of the entire open source.. We run extensive tests with this open source protocol and the results are excellent..

 

There are many challenges that we face before the release of this first cut of the software, but our will takes the precedence and we intend to release it...

 

I also know that there will be people who will like it and others will not and our intentions never been to find "fix all" solution. Rather have a platform available for anyone who cares to use it without any strings attached. Of course, if there are complains and requirements that may not be part of the first cut, that I call it our opportunity to make this product better going forward.

 

Again, thank you for taking your time to response.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Here is the latest results on this software...

 

It operates on four different operating systems - in BSD, Linux, Windows and now MAC...

 

What is very interesting is that since we adhered to java protocol, it makes it so much easier to transport this entire solution from one operating system to another.. We knew that MAC OS was a derivative of BSD, but we did not know how easy it was to adapt to MAC environment...

 

Picture quality is somehow better in MAC environment.. I am sure there are many variances that we have not addressed yet, but it was a good run to find out that such software can and will work even with MAC systems.

 

Video analytics will also be available in this new distro - the part that we are implementing right now is to determine how viable it may be for 16 channel users... combined with its ability to operate with POS systems that will store transactions/video combination with very in-depth analysis capability, we figured that we can marry both the video analytics with POS integration to provide even more exceptions as targets.

 

One of the special requests we had from a customer if we can identify sweet hearting transactions without having security agent present and that to be an exception that can be viewed later. Looks like with more in-depth video analysis and integration to POS transaction monitoring solution already in place, it stands a very good chance to make it in one of the final cuts... more tests are needed in an actual sites, but thus far it looks great!

 

We have yet another challenge... trying to name this solution.. any thoughts?