DVR's in large stores

[G22 0]

Anyone know what DVR's (or PC Based?) are used in large stores? ie. Walmart. When I was in the local Home Depot, I noticed they had large Sanyo monitors. Curious if they have Sanyo DVR's as well.

[scottj 0]

i know that some of the Walmart stores use WREN products, but then again there are thousands of stores.

 

One of the largest providers of DVR's for chain stores is Checkpoint Systems, they do the target accounts and have some Home Depots as well.

[DataAve 0]

Home Depot here on Long Island and NY are done by a company called LPC and I will get that info for you tomorrow. My bud is the Foreman on them. I will get the WAlmart info for ya too.

[rory 0]

I imagine as they are all seperately owned (??) they go with their own sources.

[DataAve 0]

All the same out here. LPC has a lock in. Who ya know/pay?

[rory 0]

All the same out here. LPC has a lock in. Who ya know/pay?

 

Mr Wall and Mr Mart, we have crumpits and tea on sundays on the golfcourse

 

Who's LPC? do they drive the golf carts

[DataAve 0]

Loss Prevention Corp

[bryan1656 0]

I've seen Sensormatic using American Dynamics Intellex DVRs. I'm not sure about their cams.

 

I may have an opportunity to have a look at Target soon and will report back if things go through as I hope.

[CCTVKING 0]

All of the Home Depots nationwide use a combination of Sanyo and GE. The Home Depot bid was over 2 years ago and was well over 7 million dollars in CCTV products.

 

Sensormatic is by far the largest player in the retail market. They own upwards of 70% of the tag business in most retail chains. This allows Sensormatic to create "package" deals to bring in their other products. In most cases, they will give the retails chain free tags if they buy their cameras, dvrs, etc. Sensormatic has specialized in POS systems as well as complete solutions for the retail market which makes them very appealing to the retail platform. However, many of their products have been sitting idle in advancements while other manufacturers surpassed the capabilities of Sensormatic's "retail specific" products.

 

The majority of the large "chain" retail jobs are going to be sold directly by the manufacturer in the future. The large retail outfits have become more aggressive in the price requirements and are demanding that the manufacturers sell direct at their lowest price. 5-10 years ago, it was agreed by the major players in the industry that no one would sell direct. Today, everyone is playing by themselves and thus, ruining the market for everyone.

[MetzLyov 0]

You are right as far as majors selling direct.. Sensormatic always sold direct, even though their manufacturing arm, American Dynamics, sells through distribution and dealers.

 

We cought Panasonic with their pants down selling a complete CCTV solutions to Gaming. The same goes with Sanyo and specially Pelco. The only major player that we had not been cought yet is Bosch, which so far plays it fair and sell their equipment through distribution and resellers alike....

 

My take is that all the major will start selling direct within next few years and slowly eliminate distribtuion.. Case and point, Dell initiall sold through distribution in early years and then went completely direct. HP was selling only through distribution and in recent years, well they went direct as well.. I think in our sector, all the major will follow this same path.... That is why the conventional distributors will be thing of the past in the few years, unless if they manage to diversify and get into different areas.

 

With so many products going around and with so many manufacturers, where do you make money?? My take is INEGRATION... Like in computer industry, everyone can buy workstations, servers, etc... But most of the time they all depend on integrators to put everything together... I see the same happening in our industry in the few years...

 

Levon

[DataAve 0]

Good, it will bring the prices down. The ride of selling products at 1000 times what they are truly are worth, is over. They say "you are paying for the technology". What does it take to make a DVR today, 25-50-100 bucks, tops? I am just talking about the unit itself. By the time it gets to the End User, the damn thing costs $7000. Cry all you like, but I like this trend! What is happening here, happens with any product. It's like the computer-when I was a kid, my Pops took me to work and showed me a computer, it was the size of a small house and cost major $$$. This same computer today, I can fit on the floor at my desk and is a few hundred bucks.

 

The only "safe" place to be is in the service industry.

[MetzLyov 0]

I agree... Integration, consulting, service and maintenance... and if you are lucky to sell some hardware and software (and hope that you can make razor thin profit), then you are doing really good...

 

Levon

[C7 in CA 0]

Good, it will bring the prices down. The ride of selling products at 1000 times what they are truly are worth, is over. They say "you are paying for the technology". What does it take to make a DVR today, 25-50-100 bucks, tops? I am just talking about the unit itself. By the time it gets to the End User, the damn thing costs $7000. Cry all you like, but I like this trend! What is happening here, happens with any product. It's like the computer-when I was a kid, my Pops took me to work and showed me a computer, it was the size of a small house and cost major $$$. This same computer today, I can fit on the floor at my desk and is a few hundred bucks.

 

The only "safe" place to be is in the service industry.

 

You are paying for the technology. Say a DVR does cost 100 bucks to make... How much was spent on R&D, support, and all other costs associated with doing business? And they aren't just recouping the cost of the last product they put out; They are funding the next wave of technology in development as well.

 

And I don't know anyone in the service industry that doesn't rely on the markup made from the "cost of goods sold". I know I couldn't sell a 8 thousand dollar phone system at cost and only make 600 on installation. I'd have to sell a system everyday, and that ain't going to happen in my market. And what about waste? My cable comes in thousand foot pull boxes. 9 times out of 10 when I get to the end of a box there is 20, 30, or 40 feet left. Not enough for another pull. I'm not going to eat that. Costs have to be passed on to the customer.

 

Cry all you like, but that's business.

[rory 0]

Waaa ahhhhh ah hhhhh

[DataAve 0]

My cable comes in thousand foot pull boxes. 9 times out of 10 when I get to the end of a box there is 20, 30, or 40 feet left. Not enough for another pull. I'm not going to eat that. Costs have to be passed on to the customer.

 

The non-union type would splice the 20, 30, 40 feet of mongo to make the 90 foot run.

 

True, customer all ready paid for that leftover mongo, but then you charge the next customer for that same leftover mongo that will have a 20, 30 or 40 foot run. Nothing wrong with that, because that is GOOD business.

[CCTVKING 0]

While I completely disagree with Panasonic's direct sale to the New York New York casino, it was not a typical CCTV sale. Panasonic's CCTV division was brought into the job after their consumer division was awrded the sale of all the televisions, radios, phones, etc in the hotel rooms. The consumer portion of the sale was on a direct basis which forced the CCTV division to either sell direct or lose the sale.

 

Sanyo's only direct sale was the Home Depot project, which was an entire CCTV industry affair. Every major CCTV manufacturer was on the bid list and the only way to bid the project was on a direct basis. Sanyo was not even the lowest bidder but their package which included superior cameras won them the job.

 

Bosch is not an angel by any means. They have done countless direct sales to casinos and then gave a small "commission" to an integrator (usually GSA) to make the sale look clean. They have done an excellent job in keeping it all a secret and cameflouged with the "commission".

 

It will take a lot more time for many of the manufacturers to sell direct on a consistant basis. The larger players such as GE and AD will be the first. They not only have a complete solution that spans every protection platform (CCTV, fire, burg) but also their own finance companies which gives them a major edge with dealing on direct basis with end-users.

[AVCONSULTING 0]

Don't forget Tyco which owns Sensormatic, I.E. American Dynamics et al.

 

Honeywell which owns ADI and all of their Ademco and related products.

 

Most manufacturers will gladly bypass dealers, distributors, etc to make a sale in this highly competitive atmosphere. If the deal is big enough they will grab it and make the excuse that if they didn't do it their competitors would have so the distributor/dealer wouldn't have gotten the sale anyway.

 

Unfortunately CCTV is a total disaster when it comes to a structured selling philosophy and now with the entrance of myriad overseas suppliers selling direct to anyone (even on Ebay) it is just getting worse.

 

As for dealers, they are getting beaten down by companies like SuperCircuits and Security Cameras Direct, Spy Town, and many others.

 

These are trying times for dealers and distributors. And end users aren't being served well either since they are buying more complicated products with no technical support and are set adrift when they need help. But the day may be coming when end users will start to sue places like SuperCircuits et al over potential harm that may come out of poorly installed systems because they didn't perform as expected and someone was hurt.

[CCTVKING 0]

AVConsulting - good points.

 

There is light at the end of the tunnell with the current "structured selling philosophy" that is bringing the market down. Some manufacturers are aware of this and I have been consulting on some "no brainer" changes. The key is for manufacturers is to establish a legal dual class of trade operation which seperates the way they sell to the distribution and integration channels. Integrators will receive better pricing on specified "integrator" products while distributors will be contractually obligated to not go below a minimum selling price. This is very similar to the way a large majority of the computer industry operates in large chain stores. You can go to the three different retail stores looking for the same HP printer and the price will rarely be diferent.

 

As many of today's manufacturers expand and increase their technical support operations, they are essentially feeding right into the distribution game without knowing about it. The complexity and level of technical aptitude needed to support todays products are extensive. Integrators are taking the right steps in hiring IT professionals and employees who can effectively support the products they sell and install. At the same time, they are increasing the costs of their infrastructure needed to maintain operation of their company. Distributors realize this and are able to undercut open bids and then outsource the labor to a number of unqualified installers. Distributors are also turning more into "order takers" that no very little about the products and are armed with all of the manufacturers tech support phone numbers that they immediately distribute if any questions are raised by their customer. Manufacturers continue to add more tech support capabilities which are giving distributors free "after the sale" support and an open door to compete with integrators.

 

There are many ways to combat these growing issues while making the playing field benificial for both the inegration and distribution channels. Unfortunately its going to take a collaborative effort by at least 4-6 of the major manufacturers to agree on, follow, and enforce. Many manufacturers products are slowly being filtered into the hands of a few select distributors who do not mind making 3-5% margin while offering no support to the customer after the sale. This is a channel of sales that is doomed to fail and cost much more to the manufactuer unless changes are made.

[Bluto 0]

WalMart has over 4000 March Networks DVR's installed according to their cabling company.

[G22 0]

March Networks eh. Interesting. Thx.

[rory 0]

never believe the grape vine

 

4000x$4000 = ...?? Would they really spend that much on a rather small company, i mean in comparison to say GE, Honeywell, or Bosch. ? Thats like buying 4000 Chung-Fu Stand Alones from Hung Kong ... its a gamble .. a huge one ..Regardless of features, if Im going to buy 4000 DVRs its going to be from a company that has been doing it from day 1, like GE (well Kalatel actually), they were one of the very few of the first CCTV manufacturers making stand alone Embedded DVRs.

[G22 0]

The March Networks 3204 which has a total of 60fps across 4 inputs says that this is for CIF setting only.

 

Does that mean the 3204 can only record at 320x240 if each input is set to 15fps for example? What good is 320x240 anyway?

[rory 0]

Looks like it, but this is their economical DVR, still, id never use a DVR in CIF mode.

 

--------------------------------

Video Recording: Total of 60 fps for NTSC inputs, 50 fps for PAL

inputs; QCIF, CIF, 4CIF resolution supported; the following rates

at CIF setting:

 

NTSC Inputs PAL Inputs:

60 fps across 4 inputs 50 fps across 4inputs

(15 fps per input, (12.5 fps per input,

30 fps on 2 inputs) 25 fps on 2 inputs)

H.263 or ISO-compliant MPEG-4 video compression; 5 quality

settings; average image size ~2 KB/frame; video signal loss

detection; all configurable per camera

---------------------------------

 

"CIF - Common Intermediate Format. A video format often used in video conferencing systems that easily supports both NTSC and PAL signals. CIF is part of the ITU H.261videoconferencing standard. It specifies a data rate of up to 30 frames per second (fps), with each frame being a size of 352 pixels wide by 288 pixels high."

[G22 0]

Well then... at the end-user quote I received for the economical 3204... they can bite my ding dong! None even have any buttons to play wit on the front!

[DataAve 0]

...not everyone was made to drive a Mercedes. Some do just fine with the ole Dodge.