Urgent Update: TVT products and warranty issues in South Africa

Posted on November 3, 2011 by

We have no option but to provide this forum to update our customers on the issue with TVT products.

Currently we are experiencing an overwhelming return rate on the TVT product. The return rate has exceeded 10% in the past 4 months. We are struggling to cope with the sheer volume of returns as we cannot get any support or replacement parts from TVT in South Africa.

While standard practice at TESC is to keep spare parts and replacement units available for all equipment we provide , we have met with difficulty in this case.

TVT sent us a notification in which they refused to sell us any further DVR’s, as they felt we had not met their targets – in reality, their action was driven by their plan to take over a sales project we had been working on with Secequip. During the entire communication and proposal phase with sec-equip we copied our communications to the relevant TVT personnel. Within a few days, they had issued us with the notice that they would not sell to us any longer, and a few weeks after that they started supplying the very same solution we had proposed – to sec-equip.

During this time TVT assured us that local support and warranties would be handled by Forbattsa in South Africa which they had appointed as their agent.

This support and warranty is not forthcoming from Forbattsa, and TVT now claims to have no agents in South Africa. Despite this claim their product is being sold under various brand names here in South Africa. Provision, Esquire, Spectrum and many more – yet they insist that we must now handle warranties directly via them, although we still cannot purchase machines form them as replacement units.

We are now expected to purchase replacement components on a case by case basis direct from China – in which event the costs of the replacement parts far exceed that of the original machine cost, and the process takes about 3 weeks to deal with a single return.

Given that we have received 8 returns in the past 4 months, reports of the devices overheating, and one violent explosion in another case – we cannot handle the warranties effectively under the current conditions.

I wish to assure all our customers that have purchased the TVT DVR’s that we are now actively pursuing resolution of this matter and that we will keep you updated on the steps taken and the feedback via this forum.

—————————–

Latest update

Still no response from TVT , we have started replacing the TVT claim units that are on long time backorder with dahua units.

 

————————————–

12/2/2011

 

Update: Now we are offering our customers who are returning the TVT dvr’s at more than 15% RMA the oppurtunity to replace them with our new tesc dcr’s -the tesc dvr’s are selling at such a brisk pace that we’ve actually run out of mainboards :) TVT has agreed to sell us replacement boards for those cases where the dvr needs repairs – so much for warranty!! But if TVT won’t honor them – we still will!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

TESC extreme physical security network appliance

Posted on October 17, 2011 by

Why Choose a TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI ((Extreme Physical Security Network Application Device + Intelligence)

 

TESC Intelligeny Security Devices

TESC's eXPS-NAD+1


There are three inescapable facts about the future of video surveillance.

  • Standard Resolution cameras are as dead as the standard
    resolution television, now it’s all about HD surveillance,
  • Convergence of all business hardware and systems on the IP
    backbone is irreversible.
  • Standalone DVR manufacturers are making a lot of noise about
    their switching to dual core processing power – but modern HD, H.264
    surveillance needs far more processing power than a dual core processor.

Is the drive to HD really necessary?

For many years we have put up with CCTV images, purely because that was the best we had. All of us have recognized the shortcomings -of even the best cctv camera, when it comes to forensic investigation of events.
CCTV systems have mostly been deployed to watch people or traffic due to the inherent forensic limitations.

HD is not  a nice to have function – it is what we have been missing in standard CCTV systems for a long time – more  forensic ability.

Forensic ability is one of the most critical factors in turning a CCTV system from a cost center into a profit center – delivering investment returns.

How do HD cameras benefit us?

Every-one appreciates that there is more detail in a 2 Megapixel Camera than the standard 0.4MP CCTV cameras we are currently using. More pixels allows us to use less cameras to observe a wider area.

When we use less cameras, we use less cable. As the cost of HD cameras become more affordable, the infrastructure and installation costs of HD cameras will be significantly less than for standard CCTV cameras.

You will still be doing live monitoring at D1 resolution – but now we have an abundance of additional pixel (detail) underlying the recorded image. This additional detail comes into it’s own, when we need to examine a recording in detail.

You have seen what happens when we zoom into a standard cctv camera. The pictures stretch, and start to expose the pixels. Images deterioriate under zoom due to the lack of pixel detail contained withing the image.

Now , with Mega-Pixel surveillance we can zoom into recordings and extract the kind of detail we need.

What is Convergence and why do I need it?

The best way I could describe this is with the term Synergy.

Management and planning -in any field, is not effective when the individual processes are disjointed. Effective management and planning is achieved by a holistic system, in which the components interact with one another.

In the current environment, we have POS (Point Of Sales) running on one system, CCTV on another, Access Control and Alarm Systems on another. In order to investigate an event or analyse any data from these systems – we
need to extract information manually, from numerous different devices in different formats – and try to make sense of it all.

Standalone DVR’s represent this disjointed approach to security. They are application specific devices – built to achieve a single purpose. We battle to find a way to get them to work with our POS – our engineers spend hours

to make the modifications trying to get devices to talk to one another, then comes Access Control and alarms, all from different manufacturers. Now we are trying to find ways to get them to accept IP and HD cameras. As we have more
requirements, it becomes a whole R&D project to add this to the standalone device.

Standalone DVR’s may be suitable for a residential application for simple application specific deployment, but more often we realise that they are not suitable for holistic security management.

Recognizing the need for holistic, convergent systems in the management of security – Video Surveillance is rapidly adopting the readily available IP communication protocol.

The IP protocol was designed by the military for solid, reliable interconnection of devices.

There is now no stopping the convergence of Video Surveillance Systems, Access Control, Alarms, Plant and Machine management, and factory automation, onto the common IP based communication protocol.

The Future

There is no doubt that we will see a new future, in which security management as a term , swallows up the singular components such as CCTV, Access Control, etc.

We also do not doubt that modern security management systems will use HD video almost exclusively.

The driver behind this evolution is more efficient management of security, and ultimately a visible ROI measure , related to security management devices.

So Why TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI  systems

The R&D Base

TESC TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI (Extreme Physical Security Network Application Devices + Intelligence) are designed with the future in mind. Our entire approach is driven by the need to converge security management into a single system, and to use HD video, and Intelligent Video analytics  to compliment the management process.

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI are built to sustain your security management systems into and beyond the new era.

Reliability

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI systems are not merely a few PC components thrown together with a video capture card. These thrown together systems are notoriusly associated with instability.

Some examples of instability

  • Systems are based on desktop computer OS’s. These OS contain so many uneccessary components, each  presenting it’s own risk for incompatability. Being designed as a desktop, end users are lured into
    using their security system as a desktop. The problems associated with sharing physical security management with desktop computing are many -and include addition of incompatible software and updates and viruses.
  • With the ready availability of so many cheap PC components,system builders are tempted to use off the shelf desktop computingcomponents. These system-builders hope to win your business with their ever so cheap systems. Using incompatible components results in instability.
  • Installers don’t understand the sensitivity of digital systems, and never supply surge protection – or don’t install the equipment in an environment that suits digital equipment. Power surges or even interruptions, cause data corruption.
  • System builders use price as a determinant and try to stretch the maximum  out of  components, without proper engineering application. The processor hungry, H.264 encoding and decoding processes, can easily crash even the most modern of processors.
  • System builders guess at the storage requirements needed for D1and HD resolution storage. They supply systems with the same storage capacity as legacy cctv systems and they ramp up RAM memory. Ultimately the system does not meet the end users requirements.

Given the above practices, many Hybrid systems have developed the reputation for instability.

Why the TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI are different?

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI are carefully designed using stress tested components. In some models – Mainboards
have been custom designed with embedded capture chips.

TESC technicians are armed with loads of data, detailing the stress thresholds of most modern CPU’s on the market. Systems are built with a clear understanding of the relationship betweeh Ghz, CPU Clock cycles, and Camera Mbps. The load on the CPU is the most critical factor in assuring that TESC systems meet the specified performance.

Storage is designed to match the systems specified performance, and we place a lot of emphasis on redundancy and network storage solutions.

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI do not use Desktop Operating systems – our OS is custom built and is seperated from the day to day operating processes of the device.

TESC deploys equipment to market through a specialized network of installers only. We do not provide equipment to online resellers, and fly by night installers – when you purchase a TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI system, you can be assured that your
installer understands the issues related to stability, and power protection.

TESC installers will deploy our systems in the same way that we intended them to operate.

Some extra reasons to purchase a TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI

TESC Intelligeny Security Devices

TESC's eXPS-NAD+1

  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices do not lock you into a single manufacturers HD cameras. These systems support a wide range of the top branded cameras, including the exceptional TESC HDvca IP cameras.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices include artificial intelligence such as People Counting, Object detection and tracking, number plate recognition, virtual fence and more – contributing to the goal of holistic security management.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are designed to deliver real-time D1or HD on all channels without crashing their CPU’s.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices can integrate Point Of Sales and Access Control systems into a single device along with Video Surveillance.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are built , exactly as you need them. need two or three or four monitors? need alarm in, out? These systems are delivered as you specifiy them – no one box solution that you
    cannot modify.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are supplied by pre-approved installers only. You can be sure that an installer offering you a TESC device, is qualified to install it.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are built with 90% locally supplied
    components, repaired and warranted by a local provider without the need
    for expensive, imported repalcement components.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices do not become redundant in a short time, as chassis and components are changed.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices will provide you with a future proof platform that accomodates your existing infrastructure while reducing the costs of future video surveillance.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices will continue to move towards absolute security management convergence.
  • TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices deploy a software interface that is more powerful than any standalone dvr.




Posted in X-Vision POS DVR's | No Comments »

TESC – August Cover Issue

Posted on August 20, 2011 by

 

tesc august issue surveillance magazine

August cover TESC Surveillance

 

Posted in About Tesc | No Comments »

IT & Analog CCTV face the same demons.

Posted on August 13, 2011 by

Todays article is South Africa specific.

Comparing the IT sector to the Analog CCTV sector

I have taken a look into the health of our I.T. sector, and found many parrallells with that in the surveillance sector.

The IT sector started to see increasing business in the first few months of 2011, and then virtually ground to a halt in May&June 2011. That mirrors the surveillance market.

General recessionary view

Just like those in the surveillance sector, there is now wide spread concern of an imminent double dip recession amongst the I.T. Sector.

General economists are virtually unanimous in forecasting a slowdown in the local economy – some have indicated flags, suggesting a return to recession.



Surveillance is suffering the same ethos as IT when it comes to expenditure. large corporations are cutting budgets, and looking for cost savings and this affects the entire

economy. The IT sector is reporting numerous projects that have fallen behind schedule as corporations reign in spending.

One interesting parrallel is that the IT sector is seeing very little innovation – just like the analog surveillance market. In the CCTV world we are seeing some entry level recorders, being ramped up to real time D1 – but that’s about it.


The IT sector is keeping close tabs on emerging technologies like tablets and cloud computing, and the surveillance world is keeping close tabs on IP and HDcctv – but nothing is creating fireworks!

One divergence is that for the IT sector, the second half of the year is always tougher than the first, whereas in our sector, the second half of the year tends to be better than the first.

What could be behind the decline?

Overstocking

While the IT sector is battling to explain the cause of this sudden stagnation – some have hinted at a phenomena that often occurs in the IT sector – overstocking. We at TESC have always promoted a non stock strategy, although lately we had been
pressurised into holding some stock volume. Many distributors have already placed orders , these orders are on the high seas – but they face a problem from overstocking.

Over the past year, I can personally recount instances of surveillance distributors, or IT and alarm distributors wanting to enter the surveillance market – being duped into large stock holdings, and having to sell or dump these products into the market below cost.

Still on the overstocking front,the IT sector lists the pressure from vendors as a contributing factor to overstocking – a situation common to the surveillance sector. With South Africa joining the BRICS nations, and promoting itself as an
emerging economy – many vendors believe this is a market where growth can be expanded and they have high expectations.

Natural Recessionary effects

Another causal effect suggested is that the economy was always going to suffer. The world cup merely cushioned the natural effects of the recession in some sectors, but did little to cushion the effect on consumers and other sectors. With the world cup out of the way – we are all left to face the natural condition that the consumer and other sectors had already found themselves experiencing. This translates into a poor economic environment , potentially yet to bottom out.

ZAR Exchange rate strength

The strength of the South African Rand has also played it’s part. Despite increasing volumes in some cases, revenue has failed to increase proportionately. In the Surveillance sector this has been exacerbated by aggressive price competition amongst asian surveillance manufacturers. Distributors and service providers have had to double, or treble business volume- just to meet the previous years revenue.

New “routes to market”

Exacerbating the problem has been the paradigm shift in “routes to market” that are ocurring in the global market. Direct to user strategies have emerged, manufacturers and distributors have adopted various strategies which have confused
the traditional “route to market”.

The I.T sector and the surveillance sector have both responded in like fashion – which could lend credence to the overstocking asumption. In an overstocking situation – distributors are forced to sell off stock at cost or below,in order to convert holdings to cash. We have certainly seen a vicious price war in both sectors in the past two months.

Convergence

Strangely enough, the IT sector has been hit by the drive to convergence – almost as hard as the surveillance sector. The large network players with SLA’s have had as much impact on the traditional It distributors -as they have had on the
analog cctv sector. In this sense network is not purely related to IP -but the GSM network providers have also been making inroads into traditional data, voice, video and other telecoms sectors.

How will it all end?

Generally the forecast is that things will remain as they are for the rest of the year – very slow business volumes and nothing exciting as the economy limps along.

The IT sector is approaching the future with a twofold strategy of increasing effectiveness and squeezing value. Advocating a return to basics – Focus, give good service and protect and develop your relationships with your clients -so that others don’t get a foothold in your business. If you’ve always been nice to your clients – you are going to have to be even nicer.

One spin off has been the demise of many smaller and some larger IT retailers and mergers between the larger distributors. We have also seen the larger surveillance players merging in various forms , in some cases merely merging logistics and
procurement strategies.

The mergers in the surveillance sector have also had a serious impact on the smaller integrators and resellers, exacerbated by the agressive, at cost, and below selling off of overstocked suppliers.

Smaller players in the IT sector have approached the challenge of mergers, and agressive cut price retailing , by forming alliances with one another. TESC has been at the forefront of this strategy in the surveillance market through our
network partner approach.

There are many parrallels between the current market conditions faced by the IT sector and the analog cctv sector. The future is sure to prove difficult in the coming months.

I hope this article re-inforces the need for us to strengthen our network alliance in the coming months.

Regards
Brandon

Posted in About Tesc | No Comments »

The dilemma with Chinese Suppliers

Posted on August 11, 2011 by

For many years the world has been enthralled by the Chinese Mass Market strategy – but as time has passed, many have burn’t their fingers with Chinese Suppliers.

Chinese supply chains are unstable and unreliable – when compared to other market suppliers. Why such a statement?

The Chinese mass market model depends on an insatiable cycle of consumption. The factories are unable to survive on anything but mass volume, given their low margins. Rather than sustaining consumption through technological improvement Chinese manufacturers continuously produce cheaper and cheaper models.

The traditional import agreement is based on volume, and initially the distributor purchases a massive volume of product from the factory. Within a short time the factory has produced new, cheaper models – past sales won’t keep the factory going, so they need new sales. The distributor is stuck trying to sell off more expensive products, in the face of cheaper and better featured new models. Now the original distributor cannot sell, hence cannot buy more from the factory – so the factory cuts off the distributor and appoints a new distributor, which proceeds to buy a container load of product, and so the cycle repeats.

Now that we have experience of the Chinese model – the examples of casualties are plentiful.

Perhaps the Chinese may learn that it is good to continuously enhance features – but to continuously reduce the price of new models with better features is an unsustainable policy. Distributors have to keep doubling volumes just to keep their income at the same level as last years.

As a result of this cycle – the conclusion is that purchasing Chinese products, results in an unstable supply chain. You find the distributor that sold you the product initially doesn’t carry the same product 1 year later. market development and sustainability suffer as a result.

This is the main reason, why we have shifted our focus to suppliers in other markets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in About Tesc | No Comments »

Short Video: IP Viewpoint

Posted on August 8, 2011 by

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Time to embrace the future of High Definition Surveillance CCTV

Posted on July 20, 2011 by

tesc releases intelligent HD ip cctv system

TESC's intelligent DVR systems

Innovations abound – HDip, IP, HDcctv, Video Analytics  – and yet there are supply and market constraints that prevent us from utilizing these exciting new technologies.

Well we couldn’t sit around and wait for the market to decide where it’s going to – so we will lead it – once again.

The TESC HD DVR has arrived.

You specify the configuration and we give you what you want – HD SD-I cameras? HD IP Cameras? Connect your existing analog cameras?

The new professional TESC DVR’s are just that – Professional Series DVR’s. These are not for homes or small corner stores.

Future proof your surveillance system – without discarding your existing investment in cctv. Get HD where you need it – without a complete overhaul to an HD system – get IP where you need it , without upgrading to total IP solutions or stressing your corporate network under the load of high definition video.

All the TESC systems come with High end analytics, such as facial recognition, people counting, and more.

TESC DVR systems integrate with major POS systems

TESC DVR systems have been tested with hundreds of the leading brand IP and SD-I cameras – you have the peace of mind of brand name hardware of your choice, and whatever picture resolution you desire.

Contact a TESC dealer now for professional design evaluation and advice.

The future will be harsh on those who choose to invest in legacy cctv – future proof your business now.

Posted in HDvca | No Comments »

TESC announces the release of their new TESC Standalone DVR’s

Posted on July 20, 2011 by

TESC has specialized in digital video recorders since August 2000 -very few surveillance providers understand DVR’s as we do.

Amongst the leaders in the switch from capture cards to embedded systems.
Amongst the leaders in offering H.264 Compression systems.
Amongst the leaders in bringing full D1 recording to the market.
Among the first to offer 24 & 32 Channel Embedded Systems.

With embedded h.264 dvr’s now “state of the art”, and very little differentiation between offerings – we have now made the TESC range of dvr’s available to our dealers.

Once again the vision behind the release of our dvr’s, is to add value – at competitive prices.

TESC DVR’s have been put together with attention to detail – encompassing best of breed functionality.

Contact our dealers to discuss a CCTV system, with best of breed functionality – from the new TESC Standalone Embedded DVR’s.

Ask for the TESC DVR!

Posted in About Tesc | No Comments »

TESC – announces availability of all major DVR brands

Posted on July 20, 2011 by

TESC has announced that all major DVR brands will now be available via their light-bulk purchasing solution.

Dahua, Hikvision, Avtech, X-Vision, Samsung, Avermedia, Raysharp and all other brands of DVR are now available and supported by TESC.

The full range of DVR’s will be available – while the TESC DVR will still only be available through our dealer network.

Contact TESC at admin@tesc.co.za or on 031 464 0781 for more information on the Light-Bulk purchasing solution.

 

 

 

Posted in About Tesc | No Comments »

The Real benefits of Mega Pixel Surveillance

Posted on June 27, 2011 by

You have no doubt heard the HD surveillance Hype. Wider Field of View, More detail, and IP is the best transmission medium.

In this very brief article I wanted to examine the real benefits of HD Surveillance.

Some False Assumptions

The first principle concepts to get out of the way are:

(1) MP cameras do not offer wider fields of view. Field Of View depends upon the lens that is employed.
(2) Digital zoom is not a usefull function, when deploying an HD Camera under maximum FOV, at anything over 4m.
(3) Analog CCTV cameras have not failed us at the detection and monitoring levels of surveillance.

Measuring resolution at the target

There are to some, competing views regarding coverage calculations – depending on what they are trying to sell. At TESC we prefer to view both as complimentary.

Pixels Per Foot is one widely used measure:

15 ppf – Monitoring
17 ppf – Detection
50 ppf – Recognition
80 ppf – Forensic (Identification)

While many have adopted 60ppf as the forensic requirement, field testing has shown this to be ineffective, and we have adopted the 80ppf measure.

Percentage of Screen Size. (Human Target)

5% – Monitoring
10% – Detection
50% – Recognition
120% – Forensic Identification.

Practical application

Lets examine the application of the above.

A 5 Megapixel camera fitted with 1.7mm lens will cover an area of 22m – with sufficient detail to meet the requirement of Detection. What’s important

is that the exact same result could be achieved with a 960H Sony CCD & Effio DSP combination.

It is now assumed that the HD surveillance option is superior to the analog option – because HD offers a digital zoom function.

In theory this is born out by the Pixel Per Foot measure.  The 5 MP rating does indeed allow zooming portions of the image to 80ppf – there is sufficient pixel density to achieve that.

The limiting factor is however the lens attached to the camera. A 1.7mm lens will only allow Digital Zoom – of portions of the picture, up to forensic level, where the target is no more than 2-3m away from the camera – if we use the Percentage of screen size , as a measure.

From this we can see that both the 5MP and Effio Analog camera produce almost an identical result in
terms of field of view and forensic ability.

Megapixel cameras come into their own with Forensic or Recognition level surveillance

The first conclusion at this point is that the true benefits of HD surveillance are more apparent at
the recognition and forensic level of surveillance.

Lets imagine that we desire to obtain recognition level surveillance at 2.5m with an analog camera,fitted with 1/3″ sensor. We know that can be achieved with a 3.5mm lens. Using Digital Zoom, within the 5m parameter, we can achieve the same Forensic detail with a 5MP camera and 1.7mm lens.

From the above we see that an HD camera can provide Forensic level detail, over twice the horizontal area of the analog camera and twice the distance from the lens.

Various calculations can be applied to demonstrate that a higher MP  camera can deliver wider forensic coverage than an analog camera.

IP the best architecture for mixing HD and VGA Cameras.

Not all applications require forensic or recognition objectives – although all HD cameras will provide these additional functions, even when not part of the specification.

Where Forensic Detail is required within a system, Standard IP cameras become significant.

Standard VGA ip cameras offer very little over an analog camera.

The advantage of the IP camera is that it can be deployed on the same transmission media as the HD camera, viz – IP. This allows a mixture of HD and non-hd cameras to be deployed on a single system.

It is clear that most installs will have some forensic requirement, and that HD cameras have major advantages at the forensic and recognition level of surveillance.

IP is currently the most attractive option for deploying a mixture of detection & monitoring objectives alongside the forensic requirements.

In those rare instances, where the entire install is limited to a detection or monitoring objective, with no requirement for recognition or Forensic detail — Analog remains our system of choice.

TESC offers the HDvca range of award winning HD surveillance products that encompass advanced video transmission hardware and analytics, including a total solution.

Posted in HDvca | No Comments »