ACTi ACM & TCM 3511 convoluted design

[3RDIGLBL 0]

There has got to be a better setting for these TCM-3511 cameras. Even when there is plenty of light the shutter seems to slow. There is lots of motion blur.

 

Today I had to review video with the customer who was trying to find an incident and it was frustrating because they did buy megapixel cameras that provide a beautiful static picture but generate unusable video when being recorded.

 

The only times these cameras seem to work well is when it is really bright. Even a brightly lit hallway is not enough to prevent the motion bluring. I just don't get it.

 

I know they have thresh holds for day and night switching and you can define the shutter speed for each. Has anyone in this community used these cameras either the TCM or ACM series in a school or in hallways etc successfully? These hallways are not dim there is plenty of light, I either do not understand the mechanics of the shutter, AGC, the thresh holds or whatever but they gotta be able to be setup better than I got. If the cameras were this bad I can't imagine they would be selling.

 

If anyone has been happy then can you please PM me what setting you have had luck with because the amount of time I spent so far don't make sense so maybe I'm going about it wrong.

 

I have the latest firmware and the defaults are loaded. Of course max shutter is set to 1/5 and we know that is crazy slow and is the cause of this bluring.

 

Thanks

[Korgoth Of Barbaria 0]

yea, i got that part. i thought i saw a nighttime shot of the tcm-3511, but it was the tcm-7811. it looks amazing. check this out:

 

 

 

I'm refreshing this thread because recently I was testing this TCM-7811 cam.

hat YouTube video is 100% pure marketing, You can get clear night shot but with MASSIVE blur (shutter 1/1 or 1/5), also there is a glare from IR leds because the rubber seal is not close to dome.

 

I send my results to ACTi, I hope they will send some patch or something. That cam was our big hope for best night vision cam

 

EDIT

Finally we just make it work. Its just like almost every ACTi cam. You have to spend some time with it to configure it. If you do it right, You will get rly nice image

Edited March 21, 2011 by Guest

[3RDIGLBL 0]

yea, i got that part. i thought i saw a nighttime shot of the tcm-3511, but it was the tcm-7811. it looks amazing. check this out:

 

 

 

I send my results to ACTi, I hope they will send some patch or something. That cam was our big hope for best night vision cam

 

Good luck with that. The camera will be eol soon. I didn't think it was that bad, I've seen worse and rightfully so considering the msrp on that badboy!

 

You didn't mention what you were trying to capture because it simply may be the wrong camera for the job. I disabled the ir's on my camera because the area to be cover had street lights and the ir's were useless anyhow so I can't comment on the glaring.

[Korgoth Of Barbaria 0]

Good luck with that. The camera will be eol soon. I didn't think it was that bad, I've seen worse and rightfully so considering the msrp on that badboy!

 

You didn't mention what you were trying to capture because it simply may be the wrong camera for the job. I disabled the ir's on my camera because the area to be cover had street lights and the ir's were useless anyhow so I can't comment on the glaring.

 

Hah, we just make it work after that time my friend just found the good configuration for it and its rly not that bad and thaks for that "turn off iris" it helped us 2

Still its not like in the Youtube movie, but rly good.

 

Well You can get rly good image on ACTi cameras, but they are not "toys", you just have to spend some time on configuration. Just like You said, "right camera for the right job".

 

I don't think it will be eol, We just got newest ACTi MSRP pricelist and its still there without any note.

[miker 0]

I also have 3 of the 3511's. The pictures are decent enough, but there are two problems I've had with them.

 

1. The same as above where we've had troubles installing them nicely and then putting the dome cover back on screws with the lens positioning.

 

2. Every now and then when the lights come on, the cameras remain in IR mode. The picture is still there, but remains in black and white. Not a big deal, but a pain in the ass as it requires a reboot of the camera and you lose a couple of minutes of recording. When I spoke to acti about this, they said it is likely because the sensor is partially blocked and we should rectify it by changing the dome cover positioning. The problem with that goes back to issue 1.