Geovision Price Index

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

Someone needs to start a website, or add a section to this site, that lists the current best prices and locations to purchase Geovision cards from.

 

It could do for Geovision card pricing what Pricewatch.com does for PC pricing. The lowest prices could be more easily found, and the retailers could be rated so as consumers, we would know which online retailers to stay away from and where we can get the best price on Geovision cards.

 

Does anyone know if something like this has been started already or not? If not, I wonder how hard it would be to set up?

[Thomas 0]

It would be a violation of forum rules. Please note that prices under MSRP would be deleted.

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

It would be a violation of forum rules. Please note that prices under MSRP would be deleted.

 

If that is truly the case, then how does this forum help the consumer to the fullest extent? It appears to me it does not.

 

As a consumer, I want to know where I can get the best price on Geovision cards, just like I can get the best price on PC parts from Pricewatch.com.

 

So, you are telling me, I would need to start my own forum, with the consumer in mind, in order for the consumer to make a 100% informed purchasing decision on Geovision products, correct?

 

This would be a forum set up the same way as PriceWatch.com.

 

Let me know if I'm missing anything here, but it seems to me that this forum is not in the best interests of the average consumer, instead, it has the dealers interests at the forefront.

 

Is there a site that puts the average consumer first, and not the dealers?

 

Thanks

[Thomas 0]

No, it's a balancing act. There are three groups that are represented here:

 

1. End users

2. Dealers

3. Manufacturers.

 

The MSRP policy is a balancing act between all three groups. If below MSRP is posted then it makes it tough for dealers to make a living. What incentive does that leave the dealers here to be helpful? I've spoken with dealers to which this has happened to. Thier feeling was that "You aren't helping me make money on equipment and now you want my labor/advice for free too?"

 

At the same time consumers don't want to be ripped off. So some pricing has to be posted.

 

Manufacturers set prices so that they and their channels can make money. The MSRP is part of that. In the end the MSRP is a balanced price. If you get it less then that, great you got a deal. If you paid 2x it then you got ripped off. But that's the theory, here is the pratice. Geovision has a piracy problem. If we set up an index of "geovision" prices, the pirated cards would skew it. Rory and I don't have time to check. We are both unpaid volunteers. Our time is limited. Ask the Dealers how far I can get behind for dealer section access.

 

(I'm going to throw out a warning now. Keep this discussion civil. I mean this for both dealers and end users. I can see this becoming a flame war quickly.)

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

No, it's a balancing act. There are three groups that are represented here:

 

1. End users

2. Dealers

3. Manufacturers.

 

The MSRP policy is a balancing act between all three groups. If below MSRP is posted then it makes it tough for dealers to make a living. What incentive does that leave the dealers here to be helpful?

 

 

I can understand this point of view. It makes sense. If I am a dealer, I definitely do not want the consumers to see the lowest prices on the net so that I can make the most profit.

 

And, as a consumer, the helpful technical insight gained from this site is very important to me.

 

But, at the same time, as a consumer, I want to be able to find the best price and be able to post that price to other consumers so that they get the very best deal possible on their Geovision card purchase.

 

This is very much the same way I recommend PriceWatch.com or NewEgg.com to anyone considering building their own PC's for home use.

 

I want to be able to do the same thing for the consumers on this forum, and I want other consumers to be able to point me to the lowest cost solution for my Geovision card \ part needs. If I can not do this, then that tells me this forum can not help me as much as a similar forum could that doesn't have the MSRP policy in place. (i.e. a technical forum comprised mostly of tech users who also love Geovision products).

 

The reason for this is simple, tech users would discuss the various Geovision products out of respect \ admiration for the product, and they would be helpful in the forum for that reason alone, and they would not be motivated at all by profit.

 

Tech users would share the knowledge and not expect too much in return, except possibly the ego trip, etc. that comes in having mastered the product and sharing that knowledge with others.

 

As for the piracy issue. It sounds like a watchdog group needs to be set up, or at least a list of sites that have been known to sell the pirated cards so that consumers won't get ripped off by them. The companies that are selling pirated Geovision cards need to be held accountable. Once all the companies on the list are held accountable, my guess is that they will start to dwindle or cease to exist. This is good for Geovision, the dealers, and the consumers.

 

I just want to be able to find the best price on a Geovision card and not have it be shrouded in secrecy like it is now.

[rory 0]

Well i know where your coming from, who doesnt want to save the most money .. but heres the thing, cheaper isnt always better .. someone making 1-5% off a card is less likely to give you any kind of support unless you are buying in bulk, such as a dealer purchase. You also want a Geo Distributor who can cover warranties, stocks it, and can assist in the updates. If you look at geo's web site, they have a list of distributors, also, one of our banner advertisers is a listed distributor.

 

AS for pirated cards, its Anykeeper, Kodicom, and GeoVision .. Kodicom doesnt even sell cards to end users anyway so that much is covered ..

 

Anykeeper is cheaper so its hard to spot the difference ..

 

Geo .. the pirated cards are typically half the price, lower resolution, and older software. The CDs that the software comes on for them are almost always just a blank CD with a bunch of folders that leaves the user wondering ... its a 50-50 chance you get the drivers working, let alone the software .. and in the end, what you get is not GeoVision ... but it looks like it .. its not the same quality or performance.

 

Now if you really want cheap, then look at Digiflower, or Anykeeper .. bottom line is an end user should not be purchasing a Geo Card at the same price a Reseller does. Without Resellers of Geo, Geo would go out of business and end users would be stuck with other cards .. which some are very good (Thomas' for example) ...

 

anyway, what was the question again ..

[Thomas 0]

It's not shrouded in secrecy, it's just that this forum doesn't deal with it. If you want the lowest price then google will help you find it. As far as certain vendors, if you ask here people have experance with them. You can post pictures from thier site to check legitamacy. We're not standing in your way, we just have legitmate reasons to not post price.

 

You bring up pricewatch.com. I would never, ever send anyone there. There are tons of rip off artists on it. And while you can get a good price that may be a few dollars cheaper, you run much greater risks of getting ripped off.

 

But imagine the problem if we did allow posts with lower pricing. How long would it be before those sites flooded this place with posts about pricing? Rory, I and Larry are three differant people. And we all represent the differant groups here. Larry is an end user. Rory is an installer, I work for a manufacter but we're all unpaid people to moderate on our free time. We don't have time to check the IP of every post. The signal to noise ratio here is good. And this site is extremely rare in that it mixes installers, end users and manufacturers in one place. It's not just rare in this industry but any industry. I feel it's worth you haveing do your own leg work for pricing.

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

You bring up pricewatch.com. I would never, ever send anyone there. There are tons of rip off artists on it. And while you can get a good price that may be a few dollars cheaper, you run much greater risks of getting ripped off.

 

I guess I'm confused why you wouldn't send anyone to Pricewatch.com as a guide. It has a ratings system. You just look up the rating of the reseller and if it has less than 5 stars, or has many bad reviews of the reseller, you go down a few until you find a 5 star rating with as near to 100% good reviews as you can find (as well as a good price point of course). This usually entails not picking the very first few hits on Pricewatch.com, as the top few hits usually need to be weeded out first, just as they do with Google. So many times when looking for information with Google, I have to scroll down a few hits or so.

 

 

 

I feel it's worth you having do your own leg work for pricing.

 

 

 

The legwork is what sites like PriceWatch.com try to eliminate, or cut out substantially.

 

Imagine how hard it would be to find a PC parts retailer without Pricewatch.com? It would be a pain.

 

That is what it is like now for consumers when it comes to Geovision cards. If there was some sort of ratings system for all the companies that carry Geovision products, consumers could use that as a tool the same way they use Pricewatch.com as a tool for finding the best price\ratings of the PC parts sellers.

 

Not too mention, with Geovision's piracy problem, a small list of known pirate card carrying companies would be beneficial as well but I do understand the time involved in creating these types of lists.

 

I mean, how big is this piracy problem? If there was a nice top 20 pirate carrying card company sites listed here, it would be a great start so we could know which sites we should avoid.

 

And if we can do that, why can't we do a top 20 list of sites who have great prices on legitimate Geovision cards with great support? This might be a helpful link to have. I know I would use it. It would also encourage competition between the dealers to get on the top of the list so they make the most sales. The more they sell, the more they could lower their prices.

[Thomas 0]

Given that Pricewatch has no way to monitor the transactions, and given that the feedback can be faked the number of stars a retailer has on there has no meaning for me. Too many fly-by-night companies. I know people who ment to purchace OEM copies of Windows and ended up with fakes via companies posted on Pricewatch.

 

But with security systems, you should do more leg work. This is a system that protects your home/business/loved ones and it needs to be something you can trust. I don't care very much if my gaming machine goes down. I have spares for all of the parts and I won't have much downtime. I would care if my DVR went out. Add to it the cameras and you are talking about a rather complex system with multiple failure points.

 

Putting together a camera system isn't something you just do without research. It's like buying random parts for a PC without doing research. You might get something that works. But if you don't know what PCI, PCI-E, PCI-X, and AGP mean it could make buying a graphics card painful. It's why places like Best Buy exist.

 

As far as trying to keep a list of pirated card sites...it would be outdated before I posted it. Places like that change on a regular basis. And it's not just Geovision. Avermedia and Kodicom have simular issues. It's simply too much information for a small team of volunteers to keep up with. We're not talking about a group of ten people doing this. We're talking about literally thousands of groups. I've seen industry estimates that half of the cards on E-bay alone are fakes. The industry estimates are that there are over 15,000 dealers world wide trading in pirated cards and software. Security equipment is a six billion dollar industry. The pirated market is closer to two hundred million dollars. That's alot of $100 cards.

 

Given that they have the backing of China, (where the cards are made) who chooses not to enforce certain treaties they have signed, you won't be able to shut down the flow of cards. We're talking about part of a larger global problem.

 

When you say that the list will keep pricing down, you assume a that you are dealing with a comodity item. Given the amount of after support required for some customers, there is a tech support back end that has to go with it.

 

You seem to think this list would be a trival thing. But do a Google search for Geovision dealer. I get 43,000 hits or so. Changing searches around should get you closer to 60,000 or so. And that's just Geovision. Avermedia has a problem with piracy, kodicom has a problem with piracy....the list goes on. This isn't a tiny list.

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

 

But with security systems, you should do more leg work.

 

The industry estimates are that there are over 15,000 dealers world wide trading in pirated cards and software. Security equipment is a six billion dollar industry. The pirated market is closer to two hundred million dollars. That's alot of $100 cards.

 

 

I agree about doing more legwork but to a point. With the 15,000 dealers you mention having pirated cards, if I want to research which ones to stay away from, a nice tool would help, otherwise a person could be searching for a very, very long time and wasting more time than they should be. Time that could be used setting up \ tweaking their systems for optimal performance, etc.

 

It's time consuming enough just determining which card to go with, let alone having to determine which of those 15,000 dealers might be selling you a pirated card.

 

I think the users should be able to post prices to get a better understanding of what's available, and a better understanding of what factors to look at so we can determine if a website is carrying pirated goods or not.

 

For instance, I found what I think seems to be a good price on a GV-800-8 right here:

 

[edit by mod - no need to actually post the link, remember we have approved advertisers that sell these items, thanks]

 

Now. I should be able to analyze this site with users on this forum to determine if it is a pirated card or not.

 

I should be able to say that this card is going for $547.95 on this site but it seems a bit low. How can I determine if it is a pirated card or not?

 

I called the website and the person answering the phone told me the card comes with Ver 8.0 of the software and that the card is a v 3.31 hardware revision.

 

Now, how can I determine if the card is legitimate or not (without spending hours on this quest)?

 

There was one other person on this site who posted about the company, but as far as I can tell, the link led to hearsay, or worse yet, a dealer who could want non-dealer users to think the site carries pirated goods so it would be one less site to compete with the dealers on this forum. Do you see how this site doesn't allow a non-dealer to make as informed of a decision as possible because of the posting rule?

 

The Dealers have a Dealer Only section and maybe there should be a section for only Non-Dealers as well but I don't know how it could be setup to lock out the Dealers as they could just impersonate a non-dealer anyway.

 

Anyway, all this piracy is a bit ridiculous. It almost makes me not want to care if I buy a pirated card or not since there is no group looking out for me and my best interests, why should I care if I get a pirated card or not?

 

It sounds like if I did happen to get one, so what, I'd be out less time and money then I would if I researched for days, and days, and days, and days, just to attempt to stay away from a pirated card.

 

If it takes me days and days and weeks and weeks to do the research, hell, I could buy 2 or 3 pirated cards and even if I got screwed over on them, I'd still have come out ahead because I would have saved the weeks of research time which adds up to be way more than the cards themselves.

 

Time is money, and we shouldn't have to waste it on so much research. Hell, I can go to just about any groups of websites and within 1 week know which $30,000 vehicle I want to purchase (very important decision by the way as it comes down to personal safety as well).

 

But if I want to buy a $600 video card, I shouldn't have to put in the same amount of time as I would for a $30,000 vehicle. (and yes one could argue that a $600 card could protect that very same $30,000 vehicle but I don't even want to go there. (A $250 insurance deductable could protect it as well.)

 

Anyway, this is really getting on my nerves. It shouldn't be this time consuming to find the lowest price \ best website to order from. Why is this industry plagued so bad with piracy? It's almost as if it is rotten to the core. I'm disgusted.

[rory 0]

Bottom Line is end users should hire a Professional who has already spent time and money to investigate and learn the industry.

 

Remember all Dealers and installers on this forum have to eat also, and this is what they (most of them) do for a living. If all end users are off doing their business, there is no industry for them, and then there is no need for them to come here and help end users, and then the forum and forums like this will never exist - exept on yahop and google ..

 

As to finding out if it is legite, simply email the manufacturer/developer, they respond ASAP.

[Thomas 0]

1. There is no way to vaildate a users data. I have no way of checking if it's a reseller saying "he's great, best price, etc" and just posting it from his home PC. As such, all user posts about that are suspect. Such astroturfing has been tried in the past and will be tried into the future. Please keep in mind that the moderators are not paid, nor employees of the forum. We do this on our own time.

 

2. This is the industry equivlent of netural ground. Three groups with three differant agenda's are here. As such there is a balancing act. What you want would destroy the rare atmosphere here. It's pretty rare to find a forum where end users, resellers/var/retailers, and manufacturers co-exist. All three groups make trade offs about entering this place. If you don't like that policy, keep in mind that I've had dealers want no pricing, not even MSRP allowed in here. I've had manfacturers complain about user reviews they didn't like. You can't have what you want all the time. Please keep in mind that we have three moderators and each one represents one of those groups.

 

3. If you want to ask if anyone has any experance with spefic dealers then feel to ask. You can post the pics from thier sites without posting pricing.

 

4. MSRP's exist for a reason. If it's way too below MSRP then stay away.

 

5. If you're just looking for someone to sell you the card then ask. There are a few people on this board who are geovision resellers and can have others here vouch for them. You will probley pay MSRP or a little below it.

 

Time is money, and we shouldn't have to waste it on so much research. Hell, I can go to just about any groups of websites and within 1 week know which $30,000 vehicle I want to purchase (very important decision by the way as it comes down to personal safety as well).

 

You've settled on Geovision. Great. The only reason that you seem to be wasting weeks on this is an obsession with getting the absolutely lowest price.

 

Anyway, this is really getting on my nerves. It shouldn't be this time consuming to find the lowest price \ best website to order from. Why is this industry plagued so bad with piracy? It's almost as if it is rotten to the core. I'm disgusted.

 

Generally it's not. Geovision has a problem, and kodicom has one as well. But at the same time what you propose also adds a ton of work for us. It's generally a fast way to piss people off if you demand that they do alot more work so you don't have to. I'm sorry if that bothers you but oh well. If you want to put together a site in which you track down every price and handle it...then feel free.

 

I'm sorry if I sound fustrated but your posts have pretty much been coming off as "i have to do some effort and you people should do it for me because i don't know how and I don't want to learn and you should waste hours so I can save $0.02" and frankly most of us have stuff to do.

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

Bottom Line is end users should hire a Professional who has already spent time and money to investigate and learn the industry.

 

 

I guess I would have to disagree with this, coming from an IT point of view.

 

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I enjoy learning other technologies by getting my hands dirty and digging into them. I enjoy tweaking every setting possible to gain the most performance from any given peice of hardware or software, and my Geovision card is a 50/50 mix of wanting to see what is going on while I am away from my property, etc. , and wanting to learn about and tweak the awesome piece of hardware which is the Geovision DVR card \ software suite.

 

I'm not going to hire a professional to do that because it would take away all of the fun of learning the ins and outs of this awesome piece of hardware.

 

I think there just might not be enough people on the forum yet who enjoy hardware as much as I do. When there are more people like this here, perhaps we will be able to invoke a few tools to help people get the best price \ performance that can be had from the GV series of cards.

 

Currently, with the forum rules in place, this is not possible. No big deal I guess, but I can tell you that it is frustrating. I like to squeeze every performance dollar from a system and part of doing that involves getting the lowest price possible on my equipment, whether it's a new video card \ processor, or a nice fun piece of hardware like the GeoVision card.

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

I'm sorry if I sound frustrated but your posts have pretty much been coming off as "i have to do some effort and you people should do it for me because i don't know how and I don't want to learn and you should waste hours so I can save $0.02" and frankly most of us have stuff to do.

 

This couldn't be any farther from the truth. I want to spend the time with the hardware, not taking weeks figuring out exactly where I am going to get the hardware from (due to the piracy problem).

 

I also want to help non-dealer users make quick purchasing decisions on a great product (GeoVision), but it seems difficult with the forum rules so I won't bother trying. I'll just have to abide by the rules and like it I guess. I understand that a site dedicated to end users (very few dealers) is probably not going to happen anytime soon because I don't have the time to put into it either (setting up the forum, etc.), so I'll just have to remain silent on my views. Kind of the opposite of freedom of speech.

 

Just kidding. I just wish the site was a little more geared towards the end user, unfortunately it's geared a little bit more for the dealers. No big deal I guess, as the info on this site is still top notch, so I don't mind the scale being tipped slightly.

Edited June 16, 2006 by Guest

[rory 0]

But there is alot more than using a DVR card and a PC, it goes back to the basics of CCTV, alot of DVR card users forget, or dont know anything about that .. Id even go as far as saying alot of so called CCTV pros (and even manufacturers) dont know that these days .. Basically if you really want to learn the industry, buy a Mux and a Timelapse VCR, a couple Box cameras without all the OSD stuff, and a CCTV CRT monitor .. and go wild with it .. remember quality should be as clear as a movie

 

Also, coming from an IT world you should know the value of getting paid for what you know .. ? The average user wont know the total ins and out of Windows or networks .. for a basic example ..

[rory 0]

Just kidding. I just wish the site was a little more geared towards the end user, unfortunately it's geared a little bit more for the dealers. No big deal I guess, as the info on this site is still top notch, so I don't mind the scale being tipped slightly.

 

Actually, if anything the site is more geared to end users, us in the industry actually loose money coming here to help .. we do it for the love of it ..

 

But like i said before, if you want to know if something is Pirate or not, email the manufacturer, in this case Geo. They also have a list of Distributors on their site, and also the forum has a banner ad with a legite distributor.

 

I mean anyone can out up a website, that is simple .. buying anything online is always a risk, and should require some investigation buy the purchaser .. otherwise hire a pro that knows already .. thats what they get paid for .. everyone has to eat. Course can you even trust brick and morter companies these days .. LOL

Edited June 16, 2006 by Guest

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

buy a Mux and a Timelapse VCR, a couple Box cameras without all the OSD stuff, and a CCTV CRT monitor .. and go wild with it .. remember quality should be as clear as a movie

 

Thing is, I have the GV card in one of my servers that I also occasionally use for testing other services, plus I like the idea of digital video and a VCR is too 80's for me. I'm more into fun stuff like this:

 

http://ts-market.com/products/?action=showGrp&grpId=85

 

 

Also, coming from an IT world you should know the value of getting paid for what you know .. ? The average user wont know the total ins and out of Windows or networks .. for a basic example ..

 

Agreed, but in that very same industry, there are no forum rules that prevent me from finding the best deal on a piece of hardware, like the rules here do. No biggie though, I'm used to it now.

[Thomas 0]

The DVR side is pretty easy. Even setting up and tuning the features is pretty trival. The hard part is the camera end. Selecting the right camera with the right features for you needs is the hard part. I've met plenty of good IT people who built nice DVRs that ended up being junk because they didn't focus the camera or placed it in such a way that the camera is useless. It's like getting an Oracle box designed and tweaked and then hiring a guy who can barely put together excel formulas to be your DBA.

 

And the urge to tinker is fine and you'll find alot of the CCTV guys here share that urge. Several of the dealers I work with eagerly look forward to some pretty rough betas. But they also know that you don't deploy that beta on a customer's site.

 

I'm sure every dealer here can tell you horror stories of jobs gone wrong. I remember one from here in which someone wired a silent alarm wrong. Instead of being silent it triggered a noise and spooked the robber. He shoots the woman at the counter. A simple wiring mistake and someone dies. It's an extreme example but I can tell you dozens of stories where someone put in a system and didn't get the cameras right and ended up with no usable video.

 

You can tweak the Geovision software all you want but very little of what you do has an effect on the most important benchmark of all. Video quality.

[Thomas 0]

Agreed, but in that very same industry, there are no forum rules that prevent me from finding the best deal on a piece of hardware, like the rules here do. No biggie though, I'm used to it now.

 

But there are also very few sites that have manufacturers reps, vars and end users in the same site. This is a rare situation and as such it's has differant rules. And keep in mind that all three groups have things they want but don't get. That set of rules is why the signal to noise ratio is so high.

[rory 0]

Ok, but at least try a mux, a PC card and a PC Monitor cant touch the quality of a mux with a CRT monitor .. unless you do something like this ..

 

 

As for the Voice Recorder, whats it gotta do with Geo .. LOL

 

Rules are in place for a reason, Dealers would leave the forum and it would just be another Yahoo or Google .. I wont get into the whole pricing thing again as thats been done already many times.

 

As for the IT thing, thats a much larger industry than the CCTV industry .. so no comparison .. in fact the CCTV Industry is non existent right now in the Bahamas . .. im back in alarms for now ..

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

It's like getting an Oracle box designed and tweaked and then hiring a guy who can barely put together excel formulas to be your DBA.

 

Yep. I have the same problem with lazy SQL admins not compacting their databases like they should, or MS Exchange admins who never do offline defrags for some reason.

[rory 0]

oh yeah DVRs and Cameras are 2 totally different things, you can spend 10 minutes setting up a DVR if you know the system, while a professional camera properly set up can take 1-3 hours (or more) on average .. most people dont know a portable LCD monitor is useless for focusing a camera, and was never designed for that purpose.

Edited June 16, 2006 by Guest

[LittleScoobyMaster 0]

As for the Voice Recorder, whats it gotta do with Geo .. LOL

 

Nothing. It's just another piece of hardware that I admire as much as I do the GV DVR cards. Must be the inner spy inside of me.

[Thomas 0]

It's like getting an Oracle box designed and tweaked and then hiring a guy who can barely put together excel formulas to be your DBA.

 

Yep. I have the same problem with lazy SQL admins not compacting their databases like they should, or MS Exchange admins who never do offline defrags for some reason.

 

And I'm sure you've run into guys that have done Access databases and feel that it qualifies them to discuss the merits of PostgreSQL vs MS SQL vs MySQL vs Oracle.

[rory 0]

It's like getting an Oracle box designed and tweaked and then hiring a guy who can barely put together excel formulas to be your DBA.

 

Yep. I have the same problem with lazy SQL admins not compacting their databases like they should, or MS Exchange admins who never do offline defrags for some reason.

 

And I'm sure you've run into guys that have done Access databases and feel that it qualifies them to discuss the merits of PostgreSQL vs MS SQL vs MySQL vs Oracle.

 

hey all i use is Access

 

the others dont concern me though . .if i need to use SQL server I will learn it ..