I know this is an April fools joke. But can I ask what's the background for it? What's the relationship between this forum, reolink and what I assume is the youtube channel "the hook up"?
Thanks.
Reolink cameras and "The HookUp" are generally regarded as bottom of the barrel, crap cameras by most IPCT members due to the poor night quality and lack of control of critical settings in Reolink cameras, plus their non-standard video encoding. "The HookUp" is basically a shill for Reolink and ails to mention any of the problems that are inherent in their cameras since he makes money by promoting Reolink.
Reolink cameras and "The HookUp" are generally regarded as bottom of the barrel, crap cameras by most IPCT members due to the poor night quality and lack of control of critical settings in Reolink cameras, plus their non-standard video encoding. "The HookUp" is basically a shill for Reolink and ails to mention any of the problems that are inherent in their cameras since he makes money by promoting Reolink.
Thank you for the explaination. I thought I'd heard him mention something about not receiving any kickback and all that. And he put videos out showing what he says are direct comparisons of footage from various cameras, including night/low light, and the reolink appears to be very good in those videos. So...is there some level of fraud going on?
loony2ns replied to my intro thread with some reading material, so I'll check that out asap.
The reos are very poor videos - ghost, missing body parts, etc.
Check out this thread where I dissect his video and demonstrate how he suffers from the same issue of most unsuspecting consumers - trying to do too much with one camera and using the wrong testing for a fixed lens cam and demonstrating what a better camera can do.
Hot off the press, The Hookup ranks @EMPIRETECANDY T5842 as the best affordable camera if night time performance is the main concern. I still think he has flaws in his analysis trying to do to much with a camera and trying to get a further distance IDENTIFY out of it than the focal length is...
ipcamtalk.com
And as a follow-up, this thread that demonstrates the importance of optical length over MP.
At the urging of several folks here, I created a thread to show the importance of focal length and how focal length can be more important than megapixels (MP). I mentioned some of this in the post regarding The Hookup’s latest video demonstrating different cameras, including one sold from a...
ipcamtalk.com
And of course our master thread where folks put up their best reolink videos that come nowhere close to being usable video:
Executive Summary: DO NOT be a sheep. Ask what a reviewer can be missing, ask if a reviewer is using hype words to sell the cheapest product. Test your cameras and kits right away. Just do a bench test. Test real world conditions. Test moving suspects. Test at night, test at day. Use a test rig...
The thread importance of focal length over MP provides what we generally consider the best bang for the buck camera for each distance you want to IDENTIFY.
Bon't feel too bad, you're definitely not the first person to be mislead by "The HookUp". I don't know for sure that he's getting paid but the story I've heard is he quit his regular job to do "reviews. He also seems somewhat challenged regarding how cameras actually work and how to adjust them properly. It's either that or he deliberately doesn't do anything to improve the video quality. Either way, no a good comparison.
The hookup definitely gets paid an affiliate commission for every camera purchased from the links he provides. He mentions that in the videos. Now whether reo gives him additional or not is not confirmed. But the word on the street is reo pays for positive reviews.
Either way he is making enough doing this that he quit his regular job as a science teacher to do this full time.
Thank you for the explaination. I thought I'd heard him mention something about not receiving any kickback and all that. And he put videos out showing what he says are direct comparisons of footage from various cameras, including night/low light, and the reolink appears to be very good in those videos. So...is there some level of fraud going on?
loony2ns replied to my intro thread with some reading material, so I'll check that out asap.
Reolink has in the past Astro-turfed, and manipulated social media posts to mislead purchasers / potential customers to the point many of us view Reolink's action as close to fraudulent if not in fact fraudulent.
TheHookUp - imho his earlier videos were clearly misleading ( see the thread ) and many other reviewers on youtube reviewing Reolink cameras are also misleading .. many of these videos have a bias to a positive review of Reolink at the detriment of honesty and a fair review. ( Reolink is really good at doing this manipulation ) .. and thus you rarely see a good solid honest view which a person new to this topic can rely on.
That noted, TheHookUp imho is getting better now that he is discussing the topic referred to as DORI ( see the cliff notes ), which is critical to know about when comparing cameras which have different FOVs and resolution ..
If you need quality low light image capture and / or compatibility - Reolink is a very poor option for this. Plan to spend more for better cameras.
and you got it wrong again!
It says posted 2nd April down here!
(Or does that mean those on the other side of the planet get to be an April fool for two days...?)