there is not a quality 60mm PTZ to be had for under $500; fixed cameras have one moving part; IR Cut Filter.. pretty easy to make reliable and they dont use much power.
when you start attaching multiple motors to a device the complexity goes up dramatically; chances of failure on a camera with a ton of moving parts is very high.. While cheeping out on fixed cameras can be a boon to your wallet, doing the same with PTZ's will end up hurting your wallet.
Fixed Camera is like a bicycle and a PTZ is like a car; when you see someone selling a car for the same price as a bicycle you should really question how long that car will last.
Either use more fixed cameras and give up on the PTZ Game ($500 can buy you alot of fixed cameras); or pay to play..
While I get what you're saying; more parts = more things that can fail...I'm not so sure you can exactly compare it to a bicycle and car. We're really not adding "a ton of moving parts" to the equation. Only thing added here is a pan/tilt motor, which is not very expensive. Guess you can argue a lens motor too when comparing to a fixed lens cam, but still not a ton of moving parts. The price is also 3 times (or greater) the amount of a fixed cam. You can get a 2mp fixed cam in the $50 range...Most of us paid $150 to $200 for these PTZ cams. Given how cheap simple motors are, this should be more than enough to add a reliable motor...
I simply can't see where it would take some $500 or greater to create a reliable pan/tilt head and zoom motor; especially considering how little weight these motors have to carry. I have to believe that paying over $500 for a motor carrying such light weight is simply paying for a brand name (and largely the owner's of the brand name)....
From what I've seen, most of the problems we've been dealing with is related to the power supply and firmware, rather than pan/tilt motor failures. As such, we would still be dealing with a lot of these same issues even if these were fixed units rather than PTZ.
No doubt there is a quality problem somewhere with these units that needs improving, but I don't believe the "moving parts" that make it PTZ are the cause.