Pelco Criticizes Arecont's Multi-Imager

I do not know how much a concern the legal aspect is for Pelco.

In general, manufacturers seem to focus on the (1) the tactfulness of doing so (i.e., it's 'bad form' to say negative things about competitors, even if they are true) and (2) wanting to maintain relationships for future deals (e.g., opportunities with Arecont cameras and Pelco VMS).

As for the 'defamation' risk, I suspect there are straightforward ways to minimize such risk. For example, Pelco takes video from an end user who had Arecont's multi-imager and switched to them. Pelco could easily and factually say "Here's an example of a poorly performing Arecont installation and how we improved it."

The other is, Schneider / Pelco has far deeper pockets than Arecont, especially after Arecont took the $80 million debt financing last year.

But the Pelco's FPS doesn't look much faster then the Arecont

"A well experienced end user will not even consider this info as 100 percent set in stone fact."

No one should consider any info '100 percent set in stone fact.' That's an incredibly high bar.

The value of any marketing is setting expectations / raising concerns. For example, Axis's Zipstream claim: "lower bandwidth and storage requirements by an average 50% or more." Axis benefits from making a specific claim. It would be foolish to accept it '100%' on face value but making a specific claim let's buyers and critics focus on what to evaluate / consider. Then you can do your own testing and see how well it does.

What rings so true of the Arecont criticism here is that many have used those units and experienced even worse than what Pelco is claiming here.

Oh, you're funny.

And here's actual voting - Worst Manufacturer Support 2014

As an end user with just under 20 of the Arecont multi-imager cameras in service, I can agree with some of the criticisms put forth in the Pelco video: stuck IR cut filters, widely varying brightness between imagers, and image alignment issues being the most prevelant for us. Low image rate and high latency are other issues we regularly encounter. We have not seen the flipped image issue.

That said, the Areconts met a need we had when we replaced several legacy analog PTZ cameras that were set on constant tours, and they have served us well in those and other similar applications. The newer line of the SurroundVideo Omni so far (with my one test unit) appears to have overcome the IR cut filter issue. Since the imagers are independently adjustable, the alignment issue isn't really an appropriate point of comparison for that line.

I'll be curious to see how well the Pelco integrates with other VMSs (we use Avigilon). I really dislike having to go to the browser when needing to adjust most camera settings on the Areconts. We tested a Pelco Sarix about a year ago and saw the same lack of full integration with our VMS. (but don't know if it is the VMS, the cameras' hardware/firmware, or some combination of the two that hinder the full integration)

"yet people keep on buying them"

Not too long ago, Arecont was growing 60%+ per year. Now, they are lucky to grow at all.

The big thing that has held them up is the multi-imager line, which until this summer, they had a near monopoly on. Come 2016, when all these competitors are ramped up with multi-imager, it is going to be very hard on Arecont.

"isn't an exact scients to how many frames per second each imager will consistently provide."

And failing to meet the specified fps is an ongoing problem for these units. And forgot about trying to send multiple streams simultaneously from the camera.

Now Arecont is saying they are doubling frame rates but that comes off very low starts - 3pfs, 5fps 'spec'ed', etc.

...their multi imager cameras spit out as many frames per second as they can...

What more could anyone ask? ;)