How A Samsung Salesguy Tests Cameras

Ok guys, i need to jump in here. A few weeks ago, i attended a sales class hosted by Samsung in which i saw a demo play out the same. One technically sound person in the room called the salesman on the tactic and challenged him. At the end of the day, deception in our industry will not serve any of us well. We should not make excuses for sales tactics that negatively impact the ability to build trusting relationships.

I feel as though I can spot a bad demo a mile away! I have been in this industry as an integrator for the majority of my life and I have always believed it was the integrators job to dispell or confirm the claims of manufacturers and sales reps. It is almost a daily battle to provide good solid information to clients on real world perfomance of cameras from all manufacturers. They don't all want to hear it and they don't always heed the advise, but I think we need to inform.

While I am new here to IPVM and I am still feeling the site out, I think IPVM is another way that I can provide solid info to my clients when they are trying to decide what IP solution is best for them and their application.

Awful and brash tactics? Don't know about that, but I'd like to see the newest Samsung cameras (WiseNet3) be the subject of an IPVM elevation so we subscribers can learn more about their true low-light performance.

We currently use many WiseNet2 Samsung cameras here at The Museum Of Flight and they meet our expectations and the Samsung company has been responsive to our needs.

While everything you say is true, I think the photo illustrating this post is a little over the top.

Trying to raise the average level of education in this industry is a constant struggle, and for the best source of industry knowledge to mock an ignorant post like this doesn't help anyone. Educate, don't humilate.

What is the best way for the customer to figure which camera is the best? What is the best way to get to this answer in the field. I am the subject of the original post in this thread.

When I proclaim to do these tests (turn out the lights) my camera is basically a default setting. Pretty much the only setting I change on the Wisenet III camera is to change settings>> night mode to color so our low light SSLE technology works best. Depending on where I am I may also turn on the WDR.

As an IT person background my goal is to leep the bandwidth at what we advertise at 2.5/Mbps. I do not game the camera and then ask to be tested against others that is cheating. However yes I make challenges in unscientific conditions but what other tests can we rely on in the field?

Lately it is the customer turning on and off the light to see how it works, plus other "live view" tests with the camera onsite.

When in planned shootouts with other manufacturers at a customer site we are all given a set amount of time to set up our cameras. Typically this can be 45 minutes and all are told to provide our best picture.

The customers consultant or others would run tests on all the manufaturers cameras side by side and all under the same conditions. I would prefer not to give details on the types of tests conducted at this times. I have to respect the privacy we have been asked to maintain from these various shootouts. If needed I would share these tests with John in email so he can comment. Theres nothing secret in the tests however they would be recognizable by others to establish the when where and why possibly.

This seems to be the most fair as everyone started on equal ground. At the end of the testing we did receive best image quality, however on one test or shootout I did not like the fact we bumped the camera up to 5Mbps. As more of an IT guy than video guy I would have preferred the possible tradeoff of lowering my bandwidth and still provide a very good image quality. These are all low light scenarios shootout indoors and outdoors so the whole process can last 2-3 hours minimum.

Having worked for 2 National Integrators in the past in which 1 is very respected, The best camera is not always being picked for the customer. Most of the time it was good quality cameras like American Dynamics and Honeywell, then of course you have the specification projects and typically that would be an Axis. But to me camera choices did not appear to be about best these are excellent quality products, however it was mostly copying and pasting from project to project.

So what is the best way? in the field shootouts such as above are obviously time consuming and expensive.

This next scenario the customer has one manufacturer at a time present to them. In this scenarios it is the customer turning out the lights during our demonstration, they did this to weed out cameras, for their real onsite quality testing. Meaning if they looked at 10 manufacturers, after the "light test" 5 of the manufacturers would send their cameras to the customer testing team where they do all of their own side by side comparisons with test very similiar to what you see here on IPVM. They are doing it themselves without the manufacturer. This also seems like a fair way to do it.

One of the reasons I like the light test and I do not game my camera as mentioned above is though unscientific it appears to be accepted practice. However this emboldened me this "light test" why? the reaction from the customer and when they wrote the specs for the cameras they wanted to test and it appeared they came from our data sheet this seemed to be the best way to test in the field. I received their unscientific reaction at 2.5Mbps this is my goal in the IP world, I do take for granted the camera image is going to take care of it self and it does.

What other recommendations can one use to showcase their camera in the field? I think we can all learn from that discussion.

I am only sharing examples of what I have experienced not trying to be sales orientated in this would really like to see suggestions on how we can all make the best choices in the field.

So, let's say I'm looking for a camera that has the capability to adjust to lights being turned off on a tradeshow floor, and I live in a nation that outlaws the modifiaction of shutter speeds. Wouldn't this be a perfectly viable testing method?

Oh wait, that's just silly.

Carry on.

While not agreeing with his mythology and for sure it is not as scientific as the IPVM tests, I have to admire him for his explanation in the post above. His job is to show his cameras in the best light possible, to probably not overly technical potential customers at a trade counter.

If we all could understand how good a camera was from reading the specification then John and his team would not have to perform these elaborate tests / shootouts. IPVM could just run a course on how to know which camera is best from the spec. How many of the experts here would have figured from the specifications that Sony would have performed so poorly in IPVM’s recent shootout?

We also have the performance Vs price trade off to factor in and this is usually a personal decision for the customer. They all want the best of everything until they are asked to pay for it, then the trade off’s begin.

John I do understand your reasoning for slating the guy, the “sin” of promoting his product on IPVM. He is in sales and has to work with the resources, time and customer attention span he has available to him in the field.

Hurry up test his camera and let us know if it’s any good. I want to try it out for his bravery in posting the reply above in such a hostile environment!

I am sure that subscribers appreciate that IPVM is a really relevant and insightful resource. Could it be possible that Samsung was taking a page from "Dont get fooled by these trick demos"?