Roy Cooper, MD of Professional Security Magazine, took the time at the recent IFSEC show to interview Kai J Leuze, product manager from Dallmeier Electronic, about their recent move into the camera manufacturing market.
We at Professional Security were quite surprised and intrigued about the news that Dallmeier Electronic, the very successful German digital video recorder (DVR) manufacturer, were starting to sell cameras and domes. After having been shown a demo of the product, Roy and Kai moved into the meeting room where Royโs first question had to be simply: why would a DVR manufacture want to get into the camera market?
Setting new standard
โGood question,โ said Kai, โand one all our customers have been asking. Itโs simple; we experience many problems with picture quality from other manufactured cameras. Our DVRs produce fantastic picture quality but only if it is presented to the DVR in the first instance. To overcome this problem we felt we should design and build our own camera range – one that will set a new standard – and therefore have control at the outset. It makes a perfect match. We have teamed up with Pixim; hence the productโs name, Cam_inPIX(R) to create what we believe is a unique product. And we hope that this will encourage other camera manufactures to build similar products. It is important that customers are aware that we are a strategic partner with Pixim, not just another customer."
Hmm, a bit like strawberries and cream, said Roy; who then asked: is it being manufactured by you or is it an OEM, by others?
Kai: โThe range is being manufactured by Dallmeier at our plant in Germany, the same place where we build the DVR range.โ
Roy: What are the technical features?
Kai: "The camera is a one-third inch CMOS sensor delivering 480 tvlines, based on the up-to-date DPS(R) platform, >126db wide dynamic range max, 17 bit processor, >53 db SNR max, we have pal and ntsc versions, but we won’t bore your readers with those details, they can ask for a spec if they wish! However it does have the ability to be configured via one of our DVRs or up the coax using a UTC remote box. This means the installer or customer can make all the necessary adjustments without having to get up and down to the camera. Mind you we have designed the products to be as simple to install as we can which means the installer just needs to plug it in.โ
Roy: So what are the benefits to a customer?
Kai: โEase of installation for a start. In 95 per cent of cases the camera will just need to be plugged in from the box. The remote control and diagnostic capability up the coax or from one of our DVRs is going to be very useful and time saving. We have digital pan and zoom at extreme high quality to deliver the perfect image, but most of all the integration the camera and DVR are a perfect match. Oh, and one final note: there is more to come from Dallmeier, including a full range of cameras.โ
