IHavent been opinionated for some time now so here we go!!!

[cctv_down_under 0]

Thought I might add my thoughts on the products that I have seen in the market (and I have seen many).

 

STANDALONES

 

The best three standalones that I have seen thus far are:

 

1/ Kalatel

2/ Bosch Divar

3/ Dedicated Micros

 

Standalones really took off in the last few years, mainly due to a lot of bad press on PC Sytems and stability, but since XP has been fixed with its many bugs and now that the donkeys have closed their shops, PC's have made a big recovery into the market, from what I can gather the US mainly uses Standalones and so does the UK no coincedence that the DM and Kalatel are both assembled in these places.

 

The New mover and shakers are Nuvico, Nadatel and the yet not well known IFCS the IFCS does 400fps and is only new so watch out for it, my opinion is that Standlaones will keep their share and you will also see an improvement in demand for the ISIS Standalone, however Hybrid machines will be the new realm.

 

PC BASED MACHINES

 

The Best three machines in the market that I have seen are:

 

1/ Dallmeier

2/ Geovision

3/ ISIS

 

The main reason Dallmier is a great machine is that it is a full Linux, and has an outstanding recording quality, I have also seen the Video Inspector Plus from Russia, one hell of a machine with a load of features and you should watch out closely for this little baby as it has some awesome features. I expect Geo to keep it's dominance here, but with everyone building their own machines, the poor Geo will cop some criticism, and that awefull GUI.

 

There are many new and excellent products in the PC market, especially the new Dibos 8 with I.P. camera support, but at this point the dallmier records the best images I have seen, the Geo has the best features I have seen and the ISIS is a good trade off between the two.

 

 

CAMERAS

 

I wanted to do three of these but i think it would be fairer to do a top 10.

 

1/ Bosch's new Day Nighter, simply the best camera I have ever seen without comparison

 

2/ Panasonic SD3 (not released here yet, but this will be a killer camera)

 

3/ Bosch's XF Camera 1/2 Inch, pound for pound the best camera in the market today and simply the most features available.

 

4/ Pelco PTZ Cameras, Simple, easy to use, reliable, good looking and supported, they are simply the best PTZ's I have seen yet.

 

5/ Ikegami 1/2 inch camera, outstanding low light performance, excellent in most lighting conditions and very reliable.

 

6/ Sanyo 520 Line cameras, cheap, practical, high resolution range.

 

7/ Ganz wide dynamic camera, you wont find better performance for price than Ganz, excepting perhaps Bosch.

 

8/ Samsung range of cameras, some are ok some are crud, but bang for buck, good money.

 

9/ Extreeme CCTV range of cameras, one of the best range of cameras used for troubling conditions, some of the best engineering I have ever seen.

 

10/ Sony range of Cameras, some are ok, but many with problems.

 

There are many others, but the ones to watch are Sunkwang, I have heard people reject high end Japanese cameras to buy these instead and at the price they cost, what a bargain, their auto iris dome cameras are sensational, and Baxhual, havent seen this cameras yet but I have heard they are very exceptional.

 

 

COST EFFECTIVE PRODUCTS

 

The winners in cost effective products would be:

 

1/ Nadatel - an awesome 4ch standalone with everything and very cheap

2/ Av tech- awesome little units at a fractional cost (DVR's dont touch their cameras) not as good as the Nadatel but very good indeed and growing fast.

3/ Ganz cameras... awesome quality for the price mind you not all are made in Japan.

 

 

I.P. SOLUTIONS

 

I am not as strong in this area but I will mention the following.

 

1/ The Sony I.P. PTZ, awesome price for what it does, excellent quality and easy to use.

2/ Axis Cameras very easy to use software.

3/ Milestone control software... simply the best I have seen yet, an awesome product indeed.

4/ VCS range from Bosch, MPEG2 encoding at its best and auto recovery from network failure.

 

 

Well there you have it, some really exciting products and a good list for anyone starting out in the business!

[wahloon 0]

I have been a long time fan of geovision, but I have to say now you got to add ivew. just got back from the show and looks pretty impressive.

[rory 0]

Pretty much straight on

 

Some others,

 

PC: Iview Coming up there, Dallmier and Russian Ones, too far to go to get them for us, but id like to take a look at the Dallmeir one now you mention it.

 

Standalones: Nadatel still not easy to get a hold of over here, DM c ant stand their menu programming but their DVIP isnt bad - too costly though.

 

Cameras: GE (Kalatel) has some of the best hidden cameras (they look like real alarm devices as they use real alarm housings), and at least 1 very good Exview Day Night and Exview Standard Camera, which work well with IR (the DN with 1100nm response). Provideo has the best line of Bullet cameras, their HEAT line.

[cctv_down_under 0]

I heva never seen IView, I aheted comart cards so never wanted to look at it, as for Ge cams,i tried several as you know, the failure rate was insane on the so called excellent hidden cameras, I didnt forget GE, they would have been 11th

[rory 0]

Iview's not a comart card as far as I know.

 

Ive got tons of the GE hidden cams out there, as they are soo cheap and look so good, everyone wants them, none have failed yet. Maybe they go bad on the trip over the Atlantic

 

The GE Exview is definately better than the Sanyo though. As you know I use both of them.

[cctv_down_under 0]

will admit, havent tried the ex view, I rememebr you agreeing that you had seen many failures with the PIR cameras from GE yourself, plus SUPPORT also counts in my ratings

[cctv_down_under 0]

whats the link for Iview??

 

anyone heard of multivision

[rory 0]

will admit, havent tried the ex view, I rememebr you agreeing that you had seen many failures with the PIR cameras from GE yourself, plus SUPPORT also counts in my ratings

 

No never had a failure from the PIRs. they are still there. The Vandal Domes failed on me on one job twice, and I dont like their Ultraview its too complicated to set up and the price is too much for the quality if video achieved. Their support is almost non existant for where I live, I cant stay on the phone for hours. The only thing ill use them for now is the Hidden Cameras and, for now, the DVRs until something better comes along for that kind of DVR application. Ill use their Exview cams and PTZs for now also, until I start using the Bosch ..

 

Course we dont sell much of this type of product anymore down here anyway with the present economy so, its mostly cheap bullet cams and cheap DVRs for now ..and PC DVRs for the features and recurring service calls ..

Edited April 7, 2005 by Guest

[rory 0]

www.i-viewusa.com

[bryan1656 0]

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to share that CCTV_Australia! Good on ya!

[qman 0]

Hey DV, is you want a I-VIEW DEMO, let me know, I'm their distributor.

[Ez-Toyz.com 0]

CCTV_Australia,

 

Thanks for the opinions, especially on the Standalone units. We haven't been selling standalones to date, but are looking to add some to our inventory.

 

As for the DVR Cards, I haven't seen the Dallmeier cards yet, but was more impressed with the features and professional look of the Alnet System. Have you used those?

 

Thanks again for the information.

Michael

 

http://www.ez-toyz.com

[qman 0]

Holy s**t, ALNET?

 

The polish b*st*rds?

 

Man o Man, I already explained to people the mess that they caused to me.

[cctv_down_under 0]

I ahve seen teh Alnet, but I found dealing with them very rude, and the treatment they gave hermin, without knowing the full stoy was amatuer to say the least.

 

Dallmeier is not a card it is a full machine

[rory 0]

What yall think about LuxRiot .. I tested it worked good.

[mcs 0]

How bout Ness (everfocus), they arent even mentioend and if so why not?

[cctv_down_under 0]

I personally am not a big fan of Everfocus, but they do seem fairly stable indeed, but they lack a lot of features and after taking one of the 4ch ones apart it looked like very simple design.. I have heard the new "hot Swap" ones are better but way overpriced compared to competition.. as for Milestone.. was the first I saw, never really talked to them, just ahd a play, had a nice feel to it, good design, well layed out and many functions.. but I tned to agree..support counts for everything, especially here in Australia.

 

i might take a closer look at Everfocus again someday, i know a guy that works for Ness and he si a really good straight shooter so may get the low down from them, i bet the product has evolved since I last looked at it!

[cctvron 0]

I can't really argue on the DVR choices. I haven't seen all the ones you have listed, but I must completely disagree with the cameras.

JVC TK-C920U Day/night is by far the best quality pic I have seen. Equivelant if you are looking for a dome the JVC TK-C205U. Both are Day/Night 540 TVL and I've put it up against some good cameras. Price is very competitive. But we are all entitled to our own opinions and may choose which ever camera we want. I'm not just supporting the JVC line because I'm a rep, but because it is good. I have other cameras as well, but you will not here me talk about them much because there are plenty of other cameras with the same quality picture. I know this may sound like an oxymoron, but I'm an honest Rep.

[Squirrelly 0]

Holy s**t, ALNET?

 

The polish b*st*rds?

 

Man o Man, I already explained to people the mess that they caused to me.

 

Yeah anyone that purchases Alnet is stupid. They may have the best system in the world, I am not saying they do, but if there is no support, then being the best is not good enough. There are plenty of examples of the best never gaining market acceptance because of stupid business owners. I would have to say that Alnet owners must be slowly going out of business or they have a huge government contract or do this as a sideline.

[rafal 0]

Hello everyone,

 

I have noticed that you have had problems with dealing with our company, and i would like to apologize, is there anything that i could do to help? i know that you are not the only one, and my associates and i are trying hard to fix our past relations. We are a reliable company that is on par if not better than the competition on the market.

 

Please let me know if there is anything that i can do, or if you have any questions. please do not hesitate to email me, pm me, or call our 866 502 5638 number that is located on our website.

 

Rafal

Edited October 6, 2007 by Guest

[survtech 0]

For features and ease-of-use (but not necessarily for video quality), the NICE/Fast alpha silver (Honeywell Enterprise in the U.S.) DVRs can't be beat although the Dallmeier product is better from a technical viewpoint.

 

Dallmeier's cameras also have some excellent features, though I dislike that they can only run on 12VDC +/- 5% (I blew one up hooking it to a 13.8 volt power supply so voltage is very critical on them - STUPID!).

 

All of Ganz's 3000 and 5000 series fixed domes are excellent values for their price.

 

Arecont's megapixel cameras are superior to Axis in that they can run 30ips at higher resolutions. Ganz's IP cameras are also made by Arecont. Axis cameras are ugly and unweildy and won't fit in many domes. They also are mostly only 640x480 (4CIF) max.

[dean_w 0]

Hiya,

 

well, I've just started working for the main importer of these products to Australia,

still learning at the moment but if anyone needs assistance, please feel free to ask, i'll check here a few times a day!

 

the professional series is very competitive, it's no wonder I had difficulty selling big company name DVR's in my old job!...and for those of you uncertain, they're used in government locations and banks too, not exactly an easy achievement and an indicator that the quality is there!

 

Dean

[Guest]

What products have you used/tested that didnt make it on the list and why?

 

JD

[Rebco 0]

One thing i have to admit about geovision is they made things worse with 8.2 the menus suck worse that anything out there the should of left the menus the way they were. If also they made there playback easier to navigate with a calender that would be great..