Pelco Criticizes Arecont's Multi-Imager
By John Honovich, Published Jul 10, 2015, 12:00am EDTRead this IPVM report for free.
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Comments (46)
Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
I like the word from our end users, lets do a side by side shoot out. Things go truly wierd then. Real life venues and real life applications.
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Undisclosed #2
Not totally accurate. What I can gather from both the flip and filter reports is that while the cut-filters will stick on any number of imagers, the 180 flip occurs on all imagers or none . So your mixed-orientation image above wouldn't be expected from the result of those two defects.
Perhaps the most jarring, yet technically feasible image would be this:
:)
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Jeremy Ellis
This is a great Friday article. I will be laughing all weekend. Those two images should be both sides of a business card. That would surely get your customers thinking.
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Undisclosed Integrator #3
The accurate comparison part of the article is hilarious!
I wonder if Pelco is not being more aggressive because of concerns about potential litigation. I am far from qualified as a lawyer, so I don't know if there is a risk of that occuring. I would say Pelco could put up a pretty strong defense against any defamation litigation for this particular product.
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Jason Spielfogel
Wait, let me see if I understand this. We're being criticized for being too polite?
Great article John, and the comments were similarly entertaining (and educational).
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Ryan Hulse
I have to say that the blending of images on the Pelco camera is not significantly better. Literally as the narrator says the phrase "no duplication" at 1:41, a person is duplicated moving between sensors in the middle of the scene.
I do like the ability to interact with the the overall panorama as a single stream.
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Chris Dearing
I wonder what Arecont camera that is exactly?
The fps looks to be at least 2, not a lot though more than you typically get in the real-world out of Arecont multi-imagers.
I'm jealous.
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Jason Spielfogel
Max framerate for the Optera is 12.5 fps @ 12 megapixels.
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Undisclosed #2
Interesting that Pelco claims the problem with the Arecont image is one of white balance, not mentioning anything about stuck IR cut filters.
Which is weird because, it most likely is due to both the imagers on the left having their filters stuck open. Because
Making it a white balance issue seems weaker. One might think that the Arecont could be fixed with some adjustments, which it can't, assuming it's the cut filters.
Jason, any thoughts?
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Undisclosed End User #4
A well experienced end user will not even consider this info as 100 percent set in stone fact. Proper side by side testing would have to be done. Testing both low light and true WDR scenes, as well as some standard network monitoring for bandwidth performance and a look at any video archiving issues as well. As an end user this is the kind of testing we do before committing to any purchases.
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Undisclosed Manufacturer #5
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Irina Manea
Talking about low quality marketing. It is very easy to take an old model of Arecont, screw up a few settings, reduce the framerate, exposure, ore even tamper with the camera itself and than bring your best camera, configure the best settings for a perticular scene and there you go.
John,
Would it be possible for Arecont and Pelco engineers to do a stand off at your labs? This way each engineer will be able to configure the best setup and copare images.
Lets not forget about latest softwares and tips and trick for getting the best imatege.
At the end of the day is all right balance - quality/cost
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Undisclosed Manufacturer #6
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Undisclosed Integrator #7
Surprised no one has mentioned the other ridiculous nuance of the Arecont 180's. The multi imagers number themselves in a nonsensical manner. They look fine in the browser, but when you go to add them to a VMS you have to number them from left to right: 4-2-1-3. Arecont's explanation is that they are randomly assigned camera numbers in the order that they identify themselves, however I've found them all to be in this order described above. Very frustrating. Have also seen VMS/Arecont confusion where a duplicate image may show up on 2 feeds even though the cameras are correctly numbered. Only solution was to uninstall/reinstall in the software.
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Undisclosed Manufacturer #6
Arecont's engineers have told customers that their multi imager cameras spit out as many frames per second as they can per second, and that the order in which they are sent is random...sort of a first in first out process. I realize this wasn't your point, but I think its an interesting tidbit that indicates there isn't an exact scients to how many frames per second each imager will consistently provide.
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Alexander Gutierrez
After attending Pelco's (borint)'webinar today about their Optera Line, I was lefy with teh sensation that this is the SOS. Event their short video displays some of the errors that they critizice on Arecont
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Jason Spielfogel
Thanks for the feedback Alex, and it's good to see you're still around. It was stated in the webinar that the sample video that was used had to be compressed significantly to keep the bandwidth and webinar file size down, so it's not representative of the actual use video. Others have discussed this already above.
When you say "some of the errors" can you be more specific?
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Jason Spielfogel
I think it's important to note that overlap is absolutely impossible to avoid due to spherical fields of view. That overlap also helps in the stitching (any stitching software app you use on your phone or camera today uses overlap to perform the stitching) and that overlap helps in the blending of images as well.
I know our Engineering team has spent a considerable effort reducing object duplication and will continue to make improvements on the product.
As far as your question goes, imager positional indexing is performed and calibrated at the factory, and is not field-adjustable.
There was some discussion early in development about allowing re-calibration to be done in the field. This isn't my product line (I'm the Analog Camera and IP Accessories Product Director), but if I recall, it was found to be too complex a calibration to be performed reliably in the field. That's not to say at some point that won't be made available, but I believe right now we're not providing for such field-calibration.
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