Chinese market products vs those for the international market

[mat200]

While this does not directly discuss the Dahua or Hikvision OEM Chinese Market products compared to the international market products, it is useful to give you a better understanding of why you should be more cautious when purchasing Chinese market products. ( executive summary: It's about quality control and short cuts, and profits )

Comparing Chinese Market products to products made for the international markets.
In this case DJI


Over time as China develops more I would expect the quality control lessons / skills to be applied more broadly. For now you can certainly expect that more affordable Chinese market IP POE cameras to have some short cuts taken compared to the international model that are sold for higher prices.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Addressing Dahua cameras specifically, for the models I have, the chinese market cameras are equivalent to the international market cameras in terms of reliability, performance, and build quality. I've had most of them opened up and observed they use the same quality circuit boards, connectors, and individual components. When I got my first 5xxx starlight bullet I noticed how much more robust its mounting base was, then with a later purchase I saw that the 4xxx starlight bullet mounting base was the same as one type of 4xxx chinese market mounting base. My chinese market cameras handle sun glare much better than the international starlights, and some of the IVS functions work better in the chinese market cameras. The only failure I've had was with an international starlight, an assembly error I was able to correct on my own. On the other hand, I bought one chinese market Hikvision camera that is clearly inferior, performance-wise.

My executive summary is that it's pretty dangerous to make broad and/or blanket statements without first having a pretty large collection of reliable data samples. It's hard for me to accept that "all" the chinese market cameras are junk after seeing all 9 of mine performing as well as the international starlights (except for low light image performance). For all I iknow, the models I have are the only good ones, which is why I try to avoid assuming that other models are the same. I haven't seen any chinese market starlights, so there's no debate when low light performance is important. I do agree it's about profits, otherwise the companies wouldn't be going out of their way to prevent the chinese market cameras from working with the NVRs.

 

[mat200]

...

My executive summary is that it's pretty dangerous to make broad and/or blanket statements without first having a pretty large collection of reliable data samples. ...

Hi Tigerwillow1,

The vloggers who made the video actually do a fairly good job covering a lot of the issues with Chinese market products and have been living there for many years and have significantly larger experience base and data than either of us do.

Others who work with electronics also note that often the QA requirements of companies like Apple will demand that the supply of ( for example ) memory chips be of a certain quality, those batches that fail those quality tests are then sold cheaper, and often end up in Chinese market electronics.

For the Dahua OEM cameras, the case is only one of the components. Often if you look, many of more affordable the turret style Dahua cameras for the Chinese market are made out of "plastic" vs. the more expensive metal cases.

Naturally, if you pick better camera models you will have better results. It was very clear to me when I started looking at Hikvision and Dahua OEM cameras on Ali that many vendors were less than honest on their advertisements. The vloggers in that particular youtube channel have addressed that issue a couple of times, and it is a very interesting one to note and understand.

It does make sense to inform people who are new to ip camera technology to avoid Chinese market cameras which have been hacked with English firmware. I believe only those who have greater knowledge and time available should consider purchasing such hacked products. As is many people find security cameras and IoT and internet connected devices to be more of a challenge than they anticipated - so I see no need to encourage them to get potentially more complex products.

 

[tigerwillow1]

It does make sense to inform people who are new to ip camera technology to avoid Chinese market cameras which have been hacked with English firmware. I believe only those who have greater knowledge and time available should consider purchasing such hacked products. As is many people find security cameras and IoT and internet connected devices to be more of a challenge than they anticipated - so I see no need to encourage them to get potentially more complex products.

What I left remaining in the quote above sounds like good common sense. Yet for the 4 different models of chinese market cameras I have, it's not only wrong, it's in some ways opposite of reality. I started out with just under $200 official USA market cameras that were totally disappointing to me. Out of desperation I tried a couple of different $60 chinese market cameras. One was lousy and the other very good, and I built my system around the good one. Had I not randomly tried this one "junk" camera I likely would have walked away from the whole endeavor. Once there are obvious exceptions to the blanket rule, the rule loses its value.

I see a lot of "red herring" blanket statements about the chinese market cameras, for example:
- Lower quality components (might be true for some, not for all)
- Can't upgrade firmware (correct, but likely not necessary)
- Risk of a flaky seller (correct, but not specific to chinese market cameras)

Plastic vs. metal cases I have a hard time with. Like most, I'd pick metal. Some of my chinese market cameras have plastic cases that have led to no problem whatsoever. I have 2 cars with plastic intake manifolds and I really have a problem with accepting that.

I haven't noticed any encouragement on the forum for buying chinese market cameras, only rebuttal to the blanket statements in instances where they aren't correct. Better IMO to present specific facts and risk factors, and let the reader make his own conclusion. The statement about it currently in the wiki is IMO fairly reasonable. Right now, I think the two biggest factors against the chinese cameras are what the manufacturers did to make the NVRs exclude them, and the prices of the starlights having drifted down. At this point I think they're a viable option only for BI users who don't see a need for the best low light imagery. As my chinese market cameras fail, I'll replace them with starlights. So far, zero failures in 2+ years.

 

[mat200]

What I left remaining in the quote above sounds like good common sense. Yet for the 4 different models of chinese market cameras I have, it's not only wrong, it's in some ways opposite of reality. I started out with just under $200 official USA market cameras that were totally disappointing to me. Out of desperation I tried a couple of different $60 chinese market cameras. One was lousy and the other very good, and I built my system around the good one. Had I not randomly tried this one "junk" camera I likely would have walked away from the whole endeavor. Once there are obvious exceptions to the blanket rule, the rule loses its value.

I see a lot of "red herring" blanket statements about the chinese market cameras, for example:
- Lower quality components (might be true for some, not for all)
- Can't upgrade firmware (correct, but likely not necessary)
- Risk of a flaky seller (correct, but not specific to chinese market cameras)

Plastic vs. metal cases I have a hard time with. Like most, I'd pick metal. Some of my chinese market cameras have plastic cases that have led to no problem whatsoever. I have 2 cars with plastic intake manifolds and I really have a problem with accepting that.

I haven't noticed any encouragement on the forum for buying chinese market cameras, only rebuttal to the blanket statements in instances where they aren't correct. Better IMO to present specific facts and risk factors, and let the reader make his own conclusion. The statement about it currently in the wiki is IMO fairly reasonable. Right now, I think the two biggest factors against the chinese cameras are what the manufacturers did to make the NVRs exclude them, and the prices of the starlights having drifted down. At this point I think they're a viable option only for BI users who don't see a need for the best low light imagery. As my chinese market cameras fail, I'll replace them with starlights. So far, zero failures in 2+ years.

Hi tigerwillow,

There's always some sort of summary here and other places which can be challenged due to it not fully covering ( and recovering ) the nuanced details.

We see numerous comments "2MP starlights" are the best - well it is a more nuanced issue and it really depends. In some threat use cases a 8MP camera will be superior ( example daylight )
We see numerous comments bullet cameras suck because of spiders - again more nuanced - my bullets work just fine, no issues with spiders - because I keep the camera in color mode.
We see numerous comments about domes being bad outdoors - again more nuanced - I really like the mini-domes at the front porch protected from direct UV exposure and with a porch light on 24/7.

In all of these cases they are basic summary statements which are good guiding principles for those new to security cameras to start with.

Once someone has a better understanding of the issues they are welcome to find the appropriate exceptions to the base "rules" / guiding principles.

I believe numerous threads have discussed various nuanced and more detailed issues, and hopefully those new to this will take the time to dig further into the material.

I really do not want to deal with a bunch of new folks always coming in here and always looking for the cheapest ( Chinese Market ) camera they can find which has the appropriate MegaPixel specs and then ask for help with the issues which we've documented well. People are welcome imho to do how to's and share information for those who are willing to learn more and take their time to flash firmware on to the various cameras ( US, international, Chinese market .. any of them ), as well as point out exceptions to the basic rules / guiding principles.

I certainly believe that many people new to security cameras will not have a good enough understanding about "why is this Chinese Market camera cheaper" than a similar "international model" sold by the same vendor.

I believe it is important for those new to this area to be warned about basics, and once they learn more they can then take the time to understand the more nuanced and detailed issues.

In the end, we all have some sort of "blanket" statements which guide us and which we share with others due to limits of time / effort to get into the details each time.

 

[tigerwillow1]

From what I've seen personally, the chinese market cameras are not any cheaper to build, and the lower price simply reflects what can be charged in china vs. other countries. We see this all the time with cars, prescription drugs, etc. Dahua restricting the nvr to not work with chinese market cameras (to me) validates this thinking. By "don't want to deal" do you mean you don't want to be burdened by having to respond, or don't want to even see it polluting the forum? You certainly don't have to respond when you don't want to. I often offer help for any camera I have personal knowledge of. If I'm not confident of what I'm saying, I don't say anything because bad information is worse than none at all.

I appreciate the discussion and would like to keep debating, except I'd start repeating myself a lot. There are actually a lot of things we agree on. I'm fine with your statement "more cautious" in the first post, but consider "can certainly expect" to be an unfounded assumption. I got it all out, and I'm done "beating the horse". I do honestly appreciate the discussion.

 

[mat200]

We've seen Zmodo / Funlux as well as Reolink play these games

How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon

 

[tigerwillow1]

I've always wondered about the divergent reviews on Amazon. A few outliers I can understand, but when there's a large cluster of 5-star reviews, and a large cluster of 1-star reviews, it just doesn't make sense. I have noticed that a review is often for a different product than what it's posted under. As far as the sleazy tactics in the video go, it sounds to me exactly like political campaign tactics in the USA. I use ebay more than amazon and see a lot of instances where it looks like one entity is using multiple seller names for the same products. I've seen it with cameras as well as all sorts of other things. The video addressed this for amazon, and I suppose the same reason could apply to ebay. The video title specifically mentions china, yet everything it addresses can be done from any country, and I can't think of any reason that it isn't. Feels like a bit of political bias on WSJ's part, but doesn't make it any less informative.

 

[mat200]

...The video title specifically mentions china, yet everything it addresses can be done from any country, and I can't think of any reason that it isn't. Feels like a bit of political bias on WSJ's part, but doesn't make it any less informative.

Hi Tigerwillow,

Yes, others can play the game. Still - of the products I have looked at in the security camera space, there are a large number of Chinese based vendors which are clearly using these tactics compared to US based vendors when I have been looking for security cameras.

I also see this and other tactics used on ebay and ali by various vendors including some selling security camera equipment. One vendor removed me from purchasing from them when I did not give a positive review.

Due to the discrepancy in shipping costs there is a significantly disadvantageous game going on for US based vendors on various e-commerce platforms. The cost of shipping a domestic package within the USA is significantly higher that that of shipping a package from China to the USA thanks to China being classified as a developing nation. ( crazy, sometimes it is cheaper for me to buy a new item and have it shipped to me from China than it is for you to give me the item for free but I have to pay for shipping it to me )

This has allowed many Chinese vendors to do "free shipping" for smaller items, and thus has attracted a very large number of Chinese vendors onto the various platforms, and thus of course there will be a large percentage of Chinese vendors in the game. So, yes perhaps other nations selling in these market places also play these games, however the Chinese are now the manufacturing center of the world and as such have dominated these platforms so naturally there will be a greater focus on them compared to the smaller groups ( like the Vietnamese for example ).

 

[tigerwillow1]

Let me see if anybody knows what's going on with a specific example: On ebay, search for "dahua 4431r-z", with "U.S. only" selected. I got 93 hits just now, and looked at the first 30. 4 of them show different sellers with the item location as "IN" and I'm assuming they are the same seller. Likewise, 4 different sellers show the item location as Walton, KY, and I'm making the same single-seller assumption. And for added suspicion, one seller has multiple listings showing the camera in different U.S. locations. Some of the ads have enough chinglish to know they weren't written or corrected by a native English speaker. Leads me to asking questions, for example:

- How many different companies are there really?
- Are these US-based companies or just some kind of Chinese front?
- Why are multiple companies in the same location selling the same thing? Illogical, because it's a pretty limited market.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a single "mother ship" for all of these different sellers. This could be a great example of gaming the system. If so, it is a chinese or USA entity behind it?

Whatever the answers are, these "companies" do provide a good alternative to the slow shipping from china, with a pretty small price premium. I've bought several cameras this way (one at a time because of my suspicions) and they all arrived in a few days without a lick of trouble.

 

[mat200]

Let me see if anybody knows what's going on with a specific example: On ebay, search for "dahua 4431r-z", with "U.S. only" selected. I got 93 hits just now, and looked at the first 30. 4 of them show different sellers with the item location as "IN" and I'm assuming they are the same seller. Likewise, 4 different sellers show the item location as Walton, KY, and I'm making the same single-seller assumption. And for added suspicion, one seller has multiple listings showing the camera in different U.S. locations. Some of the ads have enough chinglish to know they weren't written or corrected by a native English speaker. Leads me to asking questions, for example:

- How many different companies are there really?
- Are these US-based companies or just some kind of Chinese front?
- Why are multiple companies in the same location selling the same thing? Illogical, because it's a pretty limited market.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a single "mother ship" for all of these different sellers. This could be a great example of gaming the system. If so, it is a chinese or USA entity behind it?

Whatever the answers are, these "companies" do provide a good alternative to the slow shipping from china, with a pretty small price premium. I've bought several cameras this way (one at a time because of my suspicions) and they all arrived in a few days without a lick of trouble.

Certainly work like this would be good for Chinese Americans who know both English and Chinese.

Ideally, what you would do as a Chinese business person is establish a US entity or other entity that keeps the cash outside of China. ( Getting significant amount of cash out of China requires going to Macau and playing the gambling game - if you play well you expect them to take about 3-5% iirc out of the transaction converting Yuan to another currency ).

It is fairly easy for Chinese to establish US entities.