Why Hikvision?

[Ethrex]

Hi, I am pretty new to IP cameras. So far I have an Axis and ACTi camera mounted outside my house, and I am using them with Blue Iris. Upon sifting through IP Cam Talk I have noticed a bias toward Hikvision. This becomes tangible when you see the number posts in the branded sub-forums. Even outside of these forums there is a lot of Hikvision presence. ACTi has virtually no presence in any forum.

So my question is pretty basic: why do people on this forum lean strongly toward Hikvision?

Thanks

 

[Mike]

They are very reliable, fairly inexpensive, have great picture quality and play well with Blue Iris.

 

[fenderman]

Hi, I am pretty new to IP cameras. So far I have an Axis and ACTi camera mounted outside my house, and I am using them with Blue Iris. Upon sifting through IP Cam Talk I have noticed a bias toward Hikvision. This becomes tangible when you see the number posts in the branded sub-forums. Even outside of these forums there is a lot of Hikvision presence. ACTi has virtually no presence in any forum.

So my question is pretty basic: why do people on this forum lean strongly toward Hikvision?

Thanks

Simple, Acti is priced high and their cameras are generally inferior to hikvision. Axis, while making good cameras, cost 5-10 times what hikvision does.

 

[blake]

They are very reliable, fairly inexpensive, have great picture quality and play well with Blue Iris.

I second this notion. Thanks to Fendermans' recommendation, I added a new Asus RT-N66R router and everthing has been running stable ever since.

 

[Razer]

Hi, I am pretty new to IP cameras. So far I have an Axis and ACTi camera mounted outside my house, and I am using them with Blue Iris. Upon sifting through IP Cam Talk I have noticed a bias toward Hikvision. This becomes tangible when you see the number posts in the branded sub-forums. Even outside of these forums there is a lot of Hikvision presence. ACTi has virtually no presence in any forum.

So my question is pretty basic: why do people on this forum lean strongly toward Hikvision?

Thanks

I used to wonder the same thing. I was a user of the same two brands as you, and Vivotek also. When I say I was a user I mean I used 300+ of these on my system and a few years back I dismissed the Hikvision brand as home user stuff that was cheap based on my perception of the cost.

I then decided to try a couple out and I dumped all my ACTi and Axis and Vivotek cameras. Actually, if I need a hemispheric camera I will still buy a Vivotek as the Hiks were not working well for me there when I last tried them. Other than that I replaced all my cameras with Hiks and they are superior in every way. I have 7 ACTi e32s up at home and just replaced one with a Hik and the image is not a little better, it is WAY better in clarity and overall image night and day.

I had used KCM-5611 cameras for night plate shots, replaced with Hiks. In fact I have three ACTi B45 cameras sitting here new in the box, anyone want to trade me for some Hiks form @milkisbad? Seriously, would love to swap them for an appropriate number of Hiks.

I have hundreds of the Hiks now on my system and I have had maybe 4-5 fail ever. Two hit by lightning, one my guy drilled into it while installing the dome somehow with a screw. It worked for a few months but water eventually got it as I expected. Two killed due to water and it was installer both times. I had one die with water inside it that should not have been there that I never figured out how it happened. I fault Hik for that one camera, every other camera has worked perfectly. I replaced tons of ACTi cameras, I sent over 60 shipments back and forth with them over a couple of years. I have moved on.

They work perfectly with Exacq (my NVR software of choice) and the motion detection alone is a reason to switch from ACTi. Amazing how much better it is!

 

[alastairstevenson]

And to add to all that - in my opinion they have a very good feature set, well implemented, way above even the well-known (expensive) brands.
For very small scale use, with availability of external storage, there is quite a good 'mini-NVR' capability.
The 'smart events' give lots of flexibility for different usage scenarios, though as with anything that's got lots of parameters that can be tweaked, there can be a fair investment optimising the many combinations of settings.
And the same comment applies to the video parameters.
I've been very pleased with my (much smaller scale than some ...) experience of swapping out cameras from much smaller Chinese brands that weren't actually a lot cheaper but are nowhere nears as good.

The only negative right now that's giving me pause is Hikvision's current activities trying to shut down the on-line resellers that have provided such a good resource for the small-scale end-user.
Hikvision - if you are reading this - you are doing your brand and reputation no good at all, pushing smaller customers towards your competitors.

 

[Ethrex]

Thanks. I have actually been displeased with the night noise in my ACTi E33A and am looking for an alternative. I have been eyeballing DS-2CD2042WD-I. Where do most people buy Hikvision from? Amazon has one seller of the camera I am interested in, and though I am looking to get a good deal, I was hoping to avoid some shady internet shop.

 

[klasipca]

I second to everything what was already said, but if you care about nightvision, I would ignore 2042WD-I and suggest you to look at darkfighter series in Hikvision. Considering you paid premium for Axis and ACTi price will be around the same, but quality is far superior.

 

[Mike]

@Ethrex check out Nelly's Security, they are a vendor here and @RyanODan is giving first time IPCT members 5% off. They stick a 3 year warranty on their Hik's.

 

[whoslooking]

Well said gentlemen, quality and value is what we have with HIKVISION, it's a shame they don't realise that they are doing them selves out of business, rather than embracing it.

It won't be long before another brand steps up, and a dip in profits shows what the grey market is truly worth.

 

[aster1x]

I would kindly request the members of the forum that are switching from one brand of cameras to HIK to produce comparative pics between the two cameras (the old brand and the new HIK one). It is the only way to document beyond any doubt the quality differences betwee the different brands.

 

[Del Boy]

Your basically asking to compare BMW and Audi. The quality is very close and miles better than Analog stuff.

I've got both and planning on doing a comparison and hopefully that will prove that there is no need to be so nit-picky with this stuff.

 

[Del Boy]

Well said gentlemen, quality and value is what we have with HIKVISION, it's a shame they don't realise that they are doing them selves out of business, rather than embracing it.

It won't be long before another brand steps up, and a dip in profits shows what the grey market is truly worth.

^^ This

 

[aster1x]

Your basically asking to compare BMW and Audi. The quality is very close and miles better than Analog stuff.

I've got both and planning on doing a comparison and hopefully that will prove that there is no need to be so nit-picky with this stuff.

My intention is not to doubt the evaluation comments of any member. My request intents to allow the members to draw their own decisions. The Audi fans will critisize that the BMW plastics feel more plastic than the Audi ones, and the BMW fans will prefer the rear wheel drive of the BMWs compared to the front wheel drive Audis. Who is right? Both of them. On top of that a picture quality might be adequate for some one but for a photographer may be inferrior. I have seen many pictures in this forum which were out of focus but not mentioned it and some were praising the picture quality of an ... out of focus picture. This could not be right.

Since no manuacturer will never produce comparative pictures and videos of their produts with their competition, only the members of this forum that are switching cameras can help us make informative conclusions.

As an example many members are praising the better picture quality of the new 4Mpixel cameras due to the true 120db WDR sensor. So far there have been only two comparative picture posts of the new cameras. The first post had pictures shot during a cloudy day that did not have any high contrast areas due to lack of sun to demonstrate the wide dynamic range and therefore it was inconclusive.
The second post proved that when the WDR is ON the picture is worst but the member latter stated that the picture could be improved by adjusting the brighness and/or contrast but he did not post any pictures.

I am still waiting for proper comparative pics between cameras and comparison of features.

Finally I thank all the members that take their time to inform and educate the members of this forum.

 

[whoslooking]

As you say some praise the 4mp some don't, to me there are issues that need to be resolved, image correction for the barrel is also needed.

 

[aster1x]

@whoslooking Are you talking about the image barrel distorion due to a not horizontal positioning of the camera or the optical barrel distortion due to poor optics?
If you are referring to the first case (image barrel distortion) do you expect some kind of image anti-barrel manipulation in the software of the camera?
If you are referring to he second case (optical barrel distortion), then any 2.8mm lens has barrel distorion of the horizon. This is the nature of optics. Humans perceive vision in a rather "horizontal" way. Flies perceive vision in a more shperical way. That's why humans can not always kill a fly, even from behind . In this case what do you expect? Most lenses above 4mm have little or no optical barrel distortion.

 

[LittleBrother]

Because with Hikvision, for under $400, I got three IP66 rated 3 MP cameras. Approaching the one year mark on the install of these now. To the best of my recollection I've had the following two issues over this 10-11 month period:

1) One camera's "hard drive" (it records to a drive on a PC) got corrupted and I had to format it once.
2) One camera stopped responding and I had to yank the power to it and boot it back up.

These have delivered on by my hopes, and exceeded my expectations, and I can tell I'm not the only one who has more or less a pain free existence--that is, once they are setup (I thought setup was a pain in the ass and the firmware is substantially to blame for that; it's more mature now, though).

 

[gwminor48]

I would kindly request the members of the forum that are switching from one brand of cameras to HIK to produce comparative pics between the two cameras (the old brand and the new HIK one). It is the only way to document beyond any doubt the quality differences betwee the different brands.

I have a question about posting the pics. When I post to ebay, facebook, etc I reduce the size because a large pic is not needed. When we post pics here to show difference in quality of cams should we most them at max quality? jpg or bmp are ok? I presume space isn't a problem here.

 

[whoslooking]

@whoslooking Are you talking about the image barrel distorion due to a not horizontal positioning of the camera or the optical barrel distortion due to poor optics?
If you are referring to the first case (image barrel distortion) do you expect some kind of image anti-barrel manipulation in the software of the camera?
If you are referring to he second case (optical barrel distortion), then any 2.8mm lens has barrel distorion of the horizon. This is the nature of optics. Humans perceive vision in a rather "horizontal" way. Flies perceive vision in a more shperical way. That's why humans can not always kill a fly, even from behind . In this case what do you expect? Most lenses above 4mm have little or no optical barrel distortion.

The barrelling is caused by limited lens size for the sensor and resolution, this is an easy software fix with image skew control, either done via the firmware auto or with a manual setting.

To me personally I could not have a live image that makes everything look warped, moving upto the 4mp is pushing the limited design of this model of camera. which is a great 3mp camera.