Vendoma vs. Geovision and the Who's Who in the Biz

[cctvexpert 0]

After having spent the last 18 months living through the hell of no support with Geovision I ran into a company out of New York. The company is Aventura Technologies and their product is called Vendoma. I was a little skeptical as everyone passes themself off as having the latest and the greatest.

 

I decided after the nonsense I had been through with others in addition to Geovision that I was going to do an in depth check of who was who in this business. First I found out that Geovision is not even a manufacturer but a Taiwanese trading company that has their products made for them in Korea. When I found this out I researched even further to find out who was really making product for whom elsewhere in the business. This led me to find that even companies like Pelco, Vicon and General Solutions which were well known names were not making their product either. Their product was also made in Korea by a company called Sungjin. When you cut through all of it - the whole thing comes back to a handful of companies. What I found is that much of the software in many cases came back to Vendoma. These guys do alot of the software for many manufacturers. They will private label even for just a few boards which is kind of neat. I can use DHCP with no problem since they provide internal DNS services and they have written applications to address PPPoE issue and a host of the small problems that annoyed me with Geovision. So basically, the system runs uninterrupted. One thing I found interesting was they claimed their product uses full advantage of hardware compression so the quoted frame rates were actually as stated. Most of the other products I tried never really lived up to the claims because they were using software compression which when under many "taxing" circumstances resulted in as much as 20% total frame rate loss. The audio issue was another bear I have had to deal with in the past and although it was kind of complicated the Vendoma product did well. It was the first product I have found that the audio was fully sync'd in record and playback. The only drawback I found was the pricing is a little more expensive then Geovision but overall with the time we save on service issues more then makes up for it. I also had bought one of their finished products which runs on Embedded XP and it was ridiculously fast, but they do not offer that when you buy cards. They advise 2000 Pro or XP.

 

Has anyone been able to get the Vendoma to work on Embedded XP?

 

I have been looking into their mobile products now and it works great local, but wanted to know if anyone has had any experience with their wireless 915MHz solution which they claim will transmit up to 1MB up to 20 miles line of sight using Mobile Ad hoc Networking?

 

Also interested if anyone has had experience with their Network Matrix DVR which allegedly can replace last-generation matrix switchers seamless?[/b]

[AVCONSULTING 0]

Do you have a link to Vendoma? Pelco is using the Picasso board for their new DX8000 system. I'm not sure if Vicon is still using Sunjin since GSS became the big Sunjin importer and I think aced out Vicon. Here is an interesting link to some Korean DVR companies. Net Promax which is popular here in SoCal is using Comart. SoCal is a hotbed of DVR activity because of the large Korean community. I think we have more small DVR assemblers per square foot than anywhere else in the world. Makes for tough competition. A lot of discounting going on.

 

http://www.koreadvr.com/eng/members.htm

[AVCONSULTING 0]

Found Vendoma. Actually it is nothing more than a Chance I card, which you can get from www.chance-iusa.com. Lots of companies using Chance I cards these days. I think in the New York area one of them is John Walsh who has Flashback DVRs, www.flashbacksystems.com. Technovision also sells the Chance I card under their name, www.technovision.com and given some time I could drum up about another 3 or 4 places.

[loop 0]

I talked to one of vendoma's representitives a month ago, and was told that the demo on their site only uses Chance-i's GUI. They told me that the cards they use are manufactured for them in Korea, and did not claim that they manufacture them, like many others do.

Their site is very good, and provides a lot of information for the newbie. They also have a very nice online customer-support system.

 

Do you have a photo of the card?

[AVCONSULTING 0]

Seems that the Chance I USA is still under construction. Try this site.

 

http://www.chance-i.com/eng/products_board.htm

 

I find it odd that they could use Chance I software without using their board.

Also Chance I is introducing a new set of boards with hardware compression.

[loop 0]

They might be writing Chance-i's GUI.

But I doubt that...

[cctvexpert 0]

the website is www.vendoma.com

 

as far as the GUI I have seen several GUI's that look very familiar. This is where I come back to that the software I believe comes from them. They have been able to make modifications for me that could only be done with source code.

 

As far as Chance-i I am familiar with their product and not sure of relationship between the two my guess is Chance-i uses Vendoma software components.

 

I was able to have my private label for me locked to my board so no one else can use and as mentioned they made me certain functions.

 

Also I compared this board to others and it looks different. The boards that Vendoma sells appear to be one thing and the board they use in their products which has their name all over the components and the software appear to be their manufacture.

 

They won't talk about who their clients are and relationships which I appreciate is professional. I did meet one person who said he bought cards from Comart and had Aventura Technologies (Vendoma) write software for them since Comart only sells board without software.

 

These guys at Aventura are way ahead of the curve as I see it, which they attribute to the fact that they were in voice and video long before Korean board manufacturers decided to get out of making cheap VGA cards and jumping onto the DVR bandwagon.

 

AV I think you are right about Pelco, which is another problem I found with Geovision as well as others who keep changing suppliers. VERSION CONTROL, NO BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY.

[AVCONSULTING 0]

Chance I has a software development kit so there can be a lot of variations in the GUI but I have found that almost every version I have found has the same remote and same setup screens in common. The GUI part can look radically different. Flashback is a big example if you look at their screen shots, but when you go into the setup menu it is identical to all the other Chance I versions.

[cctvexpert 0]

I am very familiar with SDK and the changes I had them make for me are not SDK functions which give you basic controls. Also if it was Chance-i the boards would have the same components which they don't.

 

I actually found them thru someone who has been dealing with them for a couple of years now and they made him his own board, with own features and interoperated with external devices that Chance-i boards are not capable of.

 

All I know is the product works, its stable and the prices are competitive and the most important thing is support, as everyone knows these guys are the best.

[cctvexpert 0]

FYI- one of the divisions of their company does nothing but graphics. They have a full time staff for that and if thats the case I am sure they dont keep them busy with just one project.

 

If it was Chance-i they were using they would have at least made some attempt to make a different GUI, since they do the same for all their customers.

 

But then who knows, strangers things I have seen.

 

My experience with Chance-i was I was unable to get 16-channel audio to work and with Vendoma I was able to, also which makes me believe its not the same. Also the audio was fully sync'd and not underwater in both record and playback modes, also something Geo and others as well as Chance-i have trouble with.

[cctvexpert 0]

Vendoma also has a bunch of stuff they don't show on their website which they are in beta with - you can ask about becoming beta tester. I only found out by asking alot of questions. They said they don't like to talk about product until they are in full release because of potential bug issues.

 

They have H.264 boards that are incredible. I tried one and I have never seen video on the remote side as smooth and as crisp. Packet size was ridiculously small also. Problem is still does not have alot of functionality. They said they use them for videoconferencing and are experimenting with surveillance application. the stuff is amazing.

 

They also have a network matrix switcher that allegedly is going to work in place of the pelco with some advanced compression method. They have a lot of interesting stuff coming out of there but not sure if most of them are affordable. Their finished products are incredibly expensive.

 

I think these guys are more R & D then anything else.

[paprotec 0]

Vendoma isn't doing anything new. There are a handful of companies in the US using SDK's. Most go to India to have the software changed for them. How many USA based programmers does Vendoma have? SDK’s always build off of a base. If the bases moves or changes, so will the SDK have to move or change. It is a constant game of leap frog.

 

As a side note…. We found the chance i boards lacking. It seemed a little hard for the end user.

[cctvexpert 0]

Chance-i has an SDK for the capture card itself but with what they have you would have to write from scratch.

 

If you look at the Vendoma product and look at the signatures on the drivers, compile properties on the executable, the .ini files and the .dll header info and it all comes back to them.

 

As far as them not having anything different tell me that after you have worked with it. I have tried at least a dozen different board in the last 3 years and so far this is the only one that does what its suppose to. What's new is it works, unlike the Geovision where there are lists of known issues.

 

I won't toot their horn 100% till I have more of them in the field but so far until anyone demonstrates otherwise I am sticking with this one. I will continue to look for something better as any good businessman should.

 

As far as the number of programmers what I can gather is they have 300+ consultants in New York and do not have any idea who is assigned to this or other projects. They won't say. I know they do alot of work for Government agencies because I keep seeing their name pop up everywhere, which in some ways is a problem. They are bidding against you. They have an integration division, which they don't like to talk about because its a conflict of interest with its customers.

 

Put it side by side with a Geovision and there is no contest. Not in the same league. The only other thing I don't like about the product from the board side is that when they sell their finished branded product they use Embedded XP and people have told me it flies. Yet they will not give you assistance on making Embedded XP work on the boards they sell which I guess is to protect their other market.

 

All I say is they aren't cheap but the support is worth the extra money. If you sell a system for thousands a couple of hundred shouldn't make a difference if you don't have to go back and service it. That was my issue with Geovision was having to go back and service.

 

Also their system is the only one so far that I have not had a problem with when I ran terabit solutions.

 

You should keep your eyes open though because I here there are actually in China of all places some good technology coming along and in the next year or so they will be catching up to the others.

 

I don't see how a Vendoma or other U.S. based companies will be able to compete when things get tougher, although they say this is only a small part of their overall business. Time will tell.

[cctvexpert 0]

Out of the 300+ programmers my guess by the way is not more than 10% of them are doing this, but that is a guess. But to keep turning out what they have been doing on the R&D side, I would bet you are right and they have some programmers over in India because it would be too expensive to develop here. The application they did for me could not have been done here so quickly or cost effectively. Their bread and butter they claim is still custom applications for VoIP, biometrics and HIPAA. They have some neat biometric and wireless stuff.

[paprotec 0]

So they have a board level SDK? That is difficult to come by. Most manufactures won’t give that up. Are you sure they didn’t just change the driver names?

 

I'm not a geovision fan, so I agree with you there. BUT, i must say that no DVR company is perfect. All have their shortcomings.

 

Everyone will eventually use Embedded XP. BUT, it is extremely difficult to configure. Once you get your image right… lock it in.

 

We recently had someone at an Asian Security Exhibit. If the Chinese products that were exhibited at the show ever hit the US DVR market, the whole industry would change. The problem is.... the majority don't support English. So we wait.

 

I think Vendoma does a lot in NY. Don’t see them many other places. However, they do very well at marketing their product.

[paprotec 0]

A little birdie told me Sungjin and GS split. Vicon and Sunjin split some time ago.

 

I'm just glad I'm not in SoCal.

 

Do you have a link to Vendoma? Pelco is using the Picasso board for their new DX8000 system. I'm not sure if Vicon is still using Sunjin since GSS became the big Sunjin importer and I think aced out Vicon. Here is an interesting link to some Korean DVR companies. Net Promax which is popular here in SoCal is using Comart. SoCal is a hotbed of DVR activity because of the large Korean community. I think we have more small DVR assemblers per square foot than anywhere else in the world. Makes for tough competition. A lot of discounting going on.

 

http://www.koreadvr.com/eng/members.htm

[cctvexpert 0]

I agree with you that there are good things happening over in Asia they just don't know how to translate that into business, that has always been a problem.

 

I am sure its no SDK because I have extensive experience with this type of product and like I said the things they do are not things you do with an SDK because they are completely foreign to the application which video was only a small portion in my case. It is a medical application and that is how I found out about their other products. They first started working on the project with conditional wavelet compression, which is not something you simply change in an SDK of a board that operates on Morgan JPEG or MPEG2.

 

They tried to apply three-dimensional wavelet decomposition and adaptive arithmetic coding of 3D imaging and couldn't get it stable but I saw some basic results before they shifted back to another platform where they got it to work. These are guys playing up on another level and my guess is they do more government work then they can say. Basic video surveillance and video capture is a toy to them. I have an MEng and felt ignorant many times in talking to them especially since many of the guys that work there could be my "kids." (Yes they have women to - to be politically correct!)

 

Even their basic low level tech support people that you deal with are light years ahead of the head engineers at other companies I have dealt with, which tells me they ain't living off of selling video capture cards for a few hundred dollars and paying engineering people in New York to answer the phones 24-hours a day for support calls. No one could afford to do that.

[paprotec 0]

What are the chances they have the source code?

[cctvexpert 0]

SJ and GS have not split. You can call Sungjin yourself and they talk about them openly, which is something I would have a problem with if I was GS.

 

This industry has one simple problem. It has become an IT field which security people are trying to play in. Which is like trying to play in a game where everyone in the room speaks Swahili and English and you only speak English and want to converse in Swahili.

 

IMO, you can teach IT people security but you can't teach security people IT.

 

Pelco i feel has the best support of any company I have ever dealt with second to none. They take the position that the customer is always right and will do anything to make them happy. This is why they have become a standard and people will pay extra. Buyers at public agencies buy them because if they choose Pelco and there is a problem they point to the brand and say I chose the most reputable. This of course has been a double edged sword since they can't get the DVR business right.

 

They are though a victim of there own success as the name till this day is magic. But they don't understand the product and won't any time soon and are doing harm to themselves. They are at the mercy of their suppliers and the communication process with overseas is fair to impossible and things take too long to correct.

 

When I was dealing overseas directly every time I had a problem it was weeks before anything got done and usually several times before it was corrected properly since half the time they did not understand what I was talking about. Then they would fix one thing and change another and not tell you. Then you ask them questions and they are asking your opinion.

You have to remember where these companies overseas came from. These were not software developers they were VGA board manufacturers. The board portion is easy, the DB structure is the key and many have not got it right. That's why all the instability, system mysteriously restarts, and when you get to the big systems they crawl and freeze. They just arent designed properly.

 

I have to believe at some point Pelco will bite the bullet and bring in the right people to head this portion of the business. This means IT people not security people.

[cctv_down_under 0]

CCTV you are full of Crapola!,

 

I have used the so called Vendoma support page and SUPPOSEDLY talked to the owner and lead programmer, Theya re so full of CRAPOLA that it is unbelievable, they first claimed that they make the boards, then the software then claimed they made the softwrae for many other companies, the problem was that although knowledgable, the lead programmer had no idea what a BT878 Chipset even was, I argued with him for a while telling him that it was a DiViS Chance-I board and software .. and I checked with Chance-I.. and then I pulled my puch, got him online and stated this in a chat.. "I am about to ask you a question before we proceed with ordering please take care before answering this question as I am currently taking screen shots of your answers.... Are you truley the manufactorer, do you have the source code and did you write the software?" Funny thing was that they said... " I have to go now! " SURPRISE SURPRISE.. My guess is that Vendoma are the old PC Surviellance mob that got burnt by Geovision as they were the original distributors in the US.

 

My second guess is that you actually are a delaer or work for them.. or perhaps the lead programmer I spoke to.. I believe they have a SDK and they probably do testing but I doubt they have the source code, it's always convenient to state that you changed something with the source code when the Manufactorer sends you an advanced Beta... I mean I had version 6 of Geo way before it was released..as I am one of their testors.

 

You glorify them like you would not believe and make statements about their company staff etc, therefore you must know them pretty well,,,,how about you tell us who you work for and show us your website if it exists, I will check your info but I bet its a public email address or not listed..hay use one of your dealers names if you like!

 

That Smuck, sat their filling me with bull**** about what he had done to the sofware and he had no Idea I knew he was full of Crap!

 

P.S what are the known faults of Geo as I would be very interested to know, I have seen limitations but not many faults and I have been selling them for a long time now??

 

P.S. I have always said there are very few manufactorers of the boards, just variations, maybe Vendoma import the boards and pay for the sofware but who knows..

 

Same goes for cameras... most of the major players are not manufactorers at all and 90% of products are made in Asia then rebadged for these companies.

 

I knew Geo was not a manufactorer. the only true ones I know of to date are Avermedia... Comart and a few others that I wont mention.

[cctv_down_under 0]

checked your info CCTV...Hmmm lets see

 

Chief Technial Officer and Public email address at Yahoo, you would think it would not be this way huh?

[AVCONSULTING 0]

Regardless of the good or bad points of the company, the software is definitely the same as Chance I. I've spent a lot of time on the Chance I products, having repped a couple of companies that use Chance I with various changed GUI's. First thing is Chance I offers a development software kit.

 

http://www.chance-i.com/eng/pd_sdk.htm

 

I sold Flashback systems out of New York which heavily changed the GUI on the Chance I product but John Walsh the owner definitely confirmed that it was Chance I boards and software that he was using, but if you looked at the GUI you wouldn't know it. Every Chance I variation that I have seen has always had the same setup screen GUI's, for some reason those don't change. I looked at the Vendoma DVR manual and the setup screens look identical to Chance I and Technovision (which is also Chance I). I doubt if Vendoma has done much if anything to change the product outside of some cosmetic changes. This isn't to say that Chance I is a bad product.

I had good success with it, but it has its drawbacks when it comes to multi site access and some other things. I agree with CCTV 100% regarding Pelco and their problems with DVR's. I hear from local large Pelco integrators that it is an Achilles heel for them and that Kalatel is kicking their butts when it comes to DVR's. I don't know if there is any perfect low to medium cost PC based system out there. We have every major and minor Korean and Chinese DVR in the L.A. area and none of them so far has impressed me. With all their faults DM and Kalatel are still getting the lions share of the DVR market in the West Coast. Which shows that PC based systems have yet to overcome the somewhat justifiable fears that dealers and end users have of all PC based systems.

[cctvexpert 0]

AUSTRALIA - Thats it for me with these forums I see where this goes. Usually the purpose is to try to share ideas you just want to well I see what happens when people defend things such as you and your motives.

 

As far as you talking to the CTO of Vendoma who knows nothing that is a very interesting statement and not even going to go near that one. You must know everything and I guess the 300+ fools that work for the CTO of Vendoma know less.

 

That must mean too that all the government agencies that use them are clueless also. I thought this was an intelligent place to discuss things.

 

Have fun with Geo! Its not about you trying to bash and defend a project. Maybe if you were productive you wouldnt have as much time to spend on this board. Have a nice life.

[cctvexpert 0]

This is why forums like this never grow. You have know-it-alls who well let's see they defend a Taiwanese trading company reselling VGA cards against a high-tech company that...

 

Forums are for sharing ideas in an attempt to learn from each other, not defending the product you sell and when someone comes along that might shed light on something else you chase them off and try to bash anything they bring.

 

That is why people that can constructively contribute to a forum like this won't be bothered. Narrow minded people who think they know-it-all.

 

You should be smart enough to know that there are plenty of people out there that are alot smarter then you are. With all my diplomas on the wall and grey hairs I still know that I learn everyday and keep an open mind.

 

Let's see the lead programmer you spoke to didn't know what a BT878 was, and you argued with the CTO. So you spoke with the 2 top development guys at this company, yea and I am Bill Gates.

 

If anyone is interested in constructive and productive conferences www.asisonline.org has some great programs. That's it for me and good luck to anyone else who wants to speak their mind. This is America isn't it! Wait he's an expert from Australia, that's right! Gidday!

[AVCONSULTING 0]

Oz, that wasn't a very hearty and warm reply that one would expect from you, especially from the friendly environs of Australia. Everyone here should be entitled to post their opinions. It isn't like we have Robert Bass here pumping his lame web site every post trying to lure suckers into buying from him. Disagreements on the merits of the different boards and software are always going to be present since I think we have figured out by now that there isn't one superboard/software combination otherwise we'd all be worshipping it like a sacred cow. Truthfully I don't like the Geovision or the Chance I in its many variations all that much. When it comes to PC boards I like the Digi-It, which is never even discussed here. Let's accept a wide variety of comments on all the areas we deal in so we can all learn a little more from everyone's experience. Now that I'm done with my soap box, I just want to add that "GEOVISION GUI SUCKS BIG TIME"