Curious why there is no ACTI specific section

[rufunky]

I'm Curious why there is no ACTI specific section. Are they not looked at as one of the higher quality manufacturers? I have 7 of there cameras and am pretty impressed with all of them.

 

[atom]

I'm Curious why there is no ACTI specific section. Are they not looked at as one of the higher quality manufacturers? I have 7 of there cameras and am pretty impressed with all of them.

It's probably more to do with the volume of posts on the topic rather than a statement on the perceived quality.

 

[fenderman]

There are several users here like @Razer who have had a poor experience with acti..Their image quality is nothing special and their high resolution 10mp cameras are a complete useless joke. They are way overpriced.

 

[wcrowder]

There are several users here like @Razer who have had a poor experience with acti..Their image quality is nothing special and their high resolution 10mp cameras are a complete useless joke. They are way overpriced.

That reminds me of Pelco... Pelco Sarix are junk... Reboot all of the time, limited options.

 

[Q™]

My ACTi E33 SUQS.

 

[Razer]

I'm sitting here at home with 7 ACTi e32 cameras, one ACTi KCM-5611 and two Hikvision cameras, one 3mp and on 4mp. The Hiks are KILLING the ACTi cameras in performance and then I can buy 6 of them for what the one 5611 camera cost.

I have many of them up and running but at this point I love it when they die as that means I can put in a Hik that will give me better reliability, better images, and better motion detection. I have a e31 that has to be rebooted daily right now, I just sent out a Hik to replace it and the ACTi will go in the trash (recycle bin) when it gets back to me as they are not worth my time to fix or send back under warranty. Just swap and move on. Hemispheric cameras, man those are rough too. I have man ACTi 3911 cams and they are just flat out not reliable at all and you can grill food on the back of them. Get two and make a George Foreman grill with them!

I know quite a bit about them and have had several hundred. I'm replacing them all when I have any excuse to now. Vivotek was a better brand than the ACTi cameras for a similar price. Hik or Dahua are a better choice nowadays.

 

[klasipca]

Interesting, how can they stay in business at these prices and how bad their quality when budget Hiks are "killing them"

 

[zmx]

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[Razer]

Interesting, how can they stay in business at these prices and how bad their quality when budget Hiks are "killing them"

I'm not sure honestly. Being totally serious here too.

In my case, and I would assume some others were/are like me, I did not take the Hiks very seriously when I first ran into them as I assumed they were just home use cheapo cameras. I just figured that I was getting a better camera with ACTi, Axis and Vivotek who I was using as the price meant better quality. I was wrong. I have had 10x better reliability out of the Hiks for multiple reasons. Less surge damage, less water leakage, no focus creep like ACTi has horribly, I even talked to a couple other long term installers and they too said you could sneeze and kill an ACTi camera. One guy said they installed 40 at a school and he was pretty sure they had replaced every single camera in a few years.

Lots of companies manage to sell super expensive cameras and stay around, look at these for example:

http://www.a1securitycameras.com/arecont-vision/

I was recently at a security conference and they were presenting and I attended to see what they had. $2000 cameras that run at 3.5 FPS max! They have some neat stuff I suppose but I can absolutely stomp those prices with Hik and they admit it. They want sales guys to show them why this is better than Hik, as "that is the cheap not reliable solution" for a customer. They say you need less due to the high MP (also kind of not true, overview sure but you are not getting faces with those cameras) but when I can purchase 15 3mp Hiks for one of those how do they stay around? I'll take 15 camera coverage over one all day every day.

Arecont Vision will fly you and your potential customer out to see the facility if needed, all on their dime, all kinds of things to help close a sale. That is not free and you can tell in the camera prices! The margin on them is astounding in some cases. For some people these cameras may be a great solution but I have to imagine this is getting to be a harder and harder sale with the new blood coming in. I could kind of tell that in the conference really.

I then went to the Hikvision conference and I bet 70% of the room had not ever used one or seen one work in person. Most people were very, very skeptical of the brand as they were "cheap Chinese" cameras (this view was pushed by all other camera manufacturers, kind of sneering at those who would sell those cameras) and these were all installers for the most part. It was very interesting to see people who were unfamiliar with the brand learn a little about them.

I honestly forget the numbers Hik mentioned but it was something like 300% year over year growth this year and has been over 150% growth for like 4 years in a row? Whatever the specific numbers the growth was staggering and I'm quite sure Axis, ACTi and others are not seeing numbers like that! The only legitimate complaint guys that had installed them really had was support was hard to come by, hold times were super long and it is due to them growing shipments faster than the company backend. They were supposed to be opening a new Canadian support call center and said they were having trouble staffing the quality people they needed so it was going slower than they wanted.

I say who needs support? That's what these forums are for!

 

[bp2008]

I bought two E77 (10 MP domes) back when they were new and man was that a mistake. So many problems.

Lets see... first problem is that the "10mp" sensors are no better than Hikvision's 3MP sensors. They push out a 10 MP image but it is so blocky and pixelated that it looks just terrible at native resolution.

The maximum encoding bit rate is just 6 Mbps. It should be 12+

The text overlay (timestamp) does not scale up with image size so it is microscopic at 10 MP resolution. Combined with the low maximum bit rate, this text is usually blurred so badly you can't read it.

One of the two I bought has a lens with terrible focus on anything further than a few feet away. I sent it back for repair and they replaced the lens and it still did not focus any better. (these are fixed-focus cams)

The WDR flat out does not work. It does nothing.

The IR is very very weak.

Even with a lot of supplementary IR, the image is excessively noisy at night if you don't use the noise reduction feature. If you do use the noise reduction feature, then fine details are blurred during the day.

When I updated the firmware, it screwed up the automatic white balance algorithm.

I'm sure I could go on, but that is most of the problems I had with them. At least they stay online.

 

[Q™]

...I'm sure I could go on, but that is most of the problems I had with them. At least they stay online.

Roger that...which is why I simply say..."My ACTi E33 SUQS."

 

[alastairstevenson]

I think that answers the original question, from objective experience as opposed to subjective statements.

In some ways it's a pity that what is genuinely excellent technology and manufacturing capability doesn't have serious competition from traditional regions.
HiSilicon have some very smart engineers and have done amazingly well, as have Hikvision.
And the electronics manufacturing companies have clearly learned a lot from their customers and are putting it into practice themselves.

 

[rufunky]

Wow, I guess I forgot to subscribe to this when I posted it. Thanks for all the feedback, I'll be honest I have nothing but Costco type low res CCTV style units to compare the ACTI ones to so of course they blow those away. I was under the assumption that ACTI was more of a commercial grade camera and was going to recommend them to a customer of mine but now i'm not sure that's a good idea!

Who would you recommend for commercial use? For example multiple low income housing developments to monitor parking lots, hallways and offices? I really like the ACTI NVR3 software as well as as there analytic software and all the features the ACTI cameras have. Do Hikvision or other quality brand cameras support the same features "Face Detection, Motion Detection, Tamper, People Counting, Line crossing, Enter area, Exit area, Appear in area, Missing object, Unattended object, Crowd detection, Forbidden direction, Vehicle Counting, Heat Map, License Plate Recognition, Speed Detection" ?

 

[Kawboy12R]

Google Hikvision Smart IPC and LPR. Hiks do at least many of those things in-camera. I`ve never used the Hik software and have never owned an ACTi camera (I saw the horrible night video quality) so I can`t compare software features.

 

[rufunky]

Thanks, I just checked them out. Seems they have a good amount of the same options (with different names). I'm curious though. What causes some cameras to be better at low light than others of the same size lens? I figure these manufacturers are using the same quality internals. Is it the firmware that is lacking??

 

[klasipca]

Besides lens, sensor type/size.

 

[rufunky]

Hemispheric cameras, man those are rough too. I have man ACTi 3911 cams and they are just flat out not reliable at all and you can grill food on the back of them. Get two and make a George Foreman grill with them!

I have the ACTi i51 Hemispheric camera and you aren't kidding! It was so hot, I seriously thought something was wrong with it when I picked it up off the test bench before I mounted it. That is probably the camera I am least impressed with out of the 4 I have mounted in my office. ( i51 B85 B95 I96 )

My least favorite at first was the B85 but after the last firmware update it's like a different camera. It has a perfect B&W picture in complete dark room and blows away the other 3 in PQ.

 

[rufunky]

Besides lens, sensor type/size.

I take it most Manufacturers don't provide the specs of the lens, sensor type and size?

 

[alastairstevenson]

What causes some cameras to be better at low light than others of the same size lens? I figure these manufacturers are using the same quality internals.

The sensors are the key to overall video performance of a security camera, just as in DSLR cameras.
There are plenty of sensor manufacturers competing with each other and continually improving the technology and pricing, it's been steady progress for a few years as the market builds.
For security cameras, which sell for a small fraction of a good DSLR, there is the trade-off between the sensor performance and capabilities and the cost.
Physically larger sensors are able to capture lower light levels for a given level of noise, but are more costly to manufacture.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Lens quality, lens speed (f1.0 vs f1.8 for example) and sensor sensitivity are 3 other factors.