I used to like ACTi quite a bit, but the stack of 20 or so bad cameras I have now is slowly changing my mind. No other cameras I have ever tested die so quickly. I literally have three bad bullets sitting to the right of my laptop as I type this. I have installed a lot of Vivotek cameras and have had a grand total of four go out, with ACTi I'm easily at 4-8 a month here. The only ACTi cameras I'm still buying are the KCM-5611 and really for everything else I've found other brands.
I just opened up the boxes from a group of eight that were sent off for repair and two of the eight still are not working. Many of these going bad are not powering up at all, and the repairs almost universally are power related. Some are not repaired for free as they say a power surge killed them and they show popped chips near power, others they apparently cannot tell where they died, but replace the power area and they are fine.
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This issue is primarily with the bullet cameras, TCM-1111, e31, e33. I understand power issues, but if I have a mixed camera install, say 6 Vivotek and 4 ACTi, the ACTis will be the only ones dying. All installs use ZyXel switches, or Cisco depending, and all are powered POE, yet only the ACTi's are dying off like this. The 5611 is better, but I have had to have 5-6 repaired but all were covered by warranty. I also have a 3911 hemispheric camera on my desk that lasted maybe 5 months installed on an office wall before going nuts and randomly powering on, but usually off now.
They were my favorites, but they are just not good enough reliability for me over time. And for $100 a camera repair bills I'll just replace them with Hikvision. So far so good with those, not had one go bad yet. I'm putting those in where the ACTi's go out and so far not one has gone back out. It will happen of course, but I still cant believe they are better than ACTi, but so far they are for me anyway and I hope it holds up!