Are cameras from china really worth it?

Every day I see more and more companies selling cheap inexpensive china cameras. The funny thing is, dealers continue to buy them. Most chinese models in the market can easily be found on Ebay, Frys, Sams club,etc.Yet dealers continue to quote and sell this to there customers where they can easily find prices on them on the net. Why would you do this? I dont understand. There specs all vary even though they all have the same chipset and dsp and most dealers dont even offer decent support. I am hoping someone has some insight as to there reasons for purchasing these products, is it only price?

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Permalink Reply by Jesse on January 29, 2009 at 7:55pm: We understand and share your concern. First, please do not make your judgment just by camera design.

The camera bodies we are using are similar to those that are used by many other manufacturers simply because manufacturing of custom bodies and housings is a very expensive process and would add another $50 to $100 to the camera price. For instance, the cost of a custom mold for dome camera is about $50,000. There are just a few manufacturing plants that make those types of bodies and they make parts for many camera makers in Asia and in the US. For instance, our LDV-540VN dome camera body style is very similar to Mace CAM95 dome (I guess this model has been recently discontinued). But it is not the same. The dome body is slightly different; however, the body and power supply module is made by the same OEM plant. In fact, Mace CAM95 is actually a generic Korean camera simply marketed by Mace. There are number of several other “manufacturers” putting their logo on the same exact camera. I can email you some pictures so you could see and compare yourself. For example many PC-Based DVRs are built in the same type of cases but that does not make them the same.

There are some more specific details that you should know if you have done your research, for instance what brand of DSP are in our cameras?

Another question for you: how camera “manufacturers” measure the TV resolution? As you know, all hi-resolution cameras have only 380K pixels in NTSC (410K in PAL) that produce 480TVL. How do you think they can achieve all those 500, 540, 580, and sometimes even 600TVL (wow!!!) of resolution in color mode and how the color CCD can produce the same or higher resolution in BW mode as an original BW CCD? Where is the trick and how it has been measured? I bet, many of so-called manufacturers simply do not know those answers or would answer them incorrectly.

If you have any questions we would be more than happy to discuss this further.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CCTV Blog Admin on January 29, 2009 at 8:56pm: I am not making a judgment. I chose not to disclose your manufacturing suppliers out of respect for you. The housing costs that you are speaking about is called tooling and it does not cost 50k. I have been doing business in Asia from Taiwan, Korea and China for 13 yrs. There are very few manufacturers in this business I do not know. If you choose to use a similar or in this case identical housing to many companies but tweak your DSP this does not make you a manufacturer. Mace does not manufacture one item. Not one. Never has. Not even their Mace. That's made in China. I am giving you advise and be careful what you say. Hell I will even delete your post and my comments if you like so others do not read it. My intentions are not to harm you but to help you from having someone else call you out. Its up to you.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Brandon Joubert on February 15, 2009 at 1:53am: Indeed, we have custom housing design , with schematics, test runs, etc at around $3000- $5000 , certainly not $50K; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Brandon Joubert on February 15, 2009 at 1:51am: The China resolutions are simply answered.

The Chinese use Pixel resolution HXV of the CCD as a measure, while the correct method is to use Spatial Resolution as the Japanese and US does, according to accepted standards.

That doesn't make the Chinese Resolution wrong though, and certainly doesn't imply they are dishonest! Testing for spatial resolution is very expensive. The Chinese simply state the maximum pixel count as specified by the CCD manufacturer. Some manufacturers get close to the max and others don't, given that at least 50K pixels are not usuable.

Once again --- many reputed manufacturers use oem factories, some of which may even supply your components, and then put their own brand on them. I don't brand the cameras I buy from China - but given the vast variance in performance of Chinese cameras, I would consider doing so - to differentiate our products. We spend vast energy testing and evaluating, and selecting manufacturers and our customers are extremely happy with our cameras.

Please enlighten us as to the CCD & DSP in your 540TVL LDV-540VN camera?; ▶ Reply to This