Subscriber Discussion

Unsolved For More Than A Year: Exacq Vision And Sony PTZ Camera Saturation Issue

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Luis Carmona
Jan 30, 2015
Geutebruck USA • IPVMU Certified

Has anyone else had an issue with Exacq software resetting the saturation level of Sony PTZ cameras, specifically the EP520 in this case, down to 1% on the VMS, or -3 on the camera?

We've now been fighting this issue for almost a year and a half. After many phone calls to different techs at Exacq support and Sony support, we finally got a technician at Exacq that I thought had it finally figured out: instead of setting saturation on the VMS to 16% where we originally wanted it, if we set it to something above 18%, after a few moments, it would reset itself down to 18% and stayed there. We figured that maybe setting it in the VMS at 16%, it was hitting in the middle of two level settings on the camera side, which I think goes from -7 to +7, so after a while it would go down to the next level in saturation on the camera.

Several months later, it started happening again. After a couple more phone calls, we finally figured out if you set the saturation level you want on the camera side and left the setting on the VMS side alone, the setting would stick on the camera side, even though on the VMS side it would go back down to 1%. If you messed around with the slider bar on the VMS side, it would bring the camera down from -2 to -3 saturation after a server or camera reboot.

Through the whole thing, Exacq says they’ve never seen this happen before with their software and those cameras. (5 Sony EP520's onsite all doing the same thing.) I've really become dubious of any claims by manufacturers over the years whenever they say “they've never seen that before”, because apparently we always have the most unique problems in the world no one else has ever seen or heard of!

That aside, has anyone else tried this combination VMS and camera and seen or not seen this issue? And how often do you get told, “We’ve never seen that problem before.”

(2)
JH
John Honovich
Jan 30, 2015
IPVM

“We’ve never seen that problem before.”

We get that a lot, though, in fairness, we tend to test things that are fairly new, increasing that probability.

Also, in this case, I bet there's not a ton of people using that combination and that those having the same issue may just be ignoring it.

It is an interesting example of the complexity or VMS / camera integration. I forwarded to Exacq in case anyone else there might have anything to add.

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Luis Carmona
Jan 30, 2015
Geutebruck USA • IPVMU Certified

I'm sure they have a caller ID block on us by now.

No, seriously, they've been pretty good trying to work with us. Was just a very strange issue, but with hte popularity of Sony and Exacq, I couldn't see us being the only ones.

U
Undisclosed #1
Jan 30, 2015
IPVMU Certified

After many phone calls to different techs at Exacq support and Sony support...we finally figured out...

Sometimes the Integrator is more motivated to solve the problem becasue they are closer to the "pain". Especially when dealing with a multi-vendor problem that neither one "has seen before". The vendors assume since they haven't seen it themselves that it's the other ones fault.

Way to keep at it, Luis!

SP
Sean Patton
Feb 02, 2015

I'd say about 80% of the calls I make are "havent seen that before" calls. Thankfully I only make about 4 tech support calls per year to Genetec that arent "hey, I need this firmware/hotfix/patch".

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Luis Carmona
May 15, 2015
Geutebruck USA • IPVMU Certified

So problem started cropping up again. We updated Exacq and Sony to the latest version software/firmware on each side. When we loaded the Exacq software the Saturation settings immediately went from 1% to 16%. My guy who did it says he didn't see anything in the Release Notes of this issue being specifically addressed in the new version. Maybe they did, maybe not. We'll see what happens.

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