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DrBunsen
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- Posts: 38
- Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:57 am
- Location: Fate, TX
by DrBunsen » Thu Apr 05, 2012 3:55 pm
Agreed. I'd really like for them to be adding features as well, but I'm pretty sure that what's currently happening is adding to the list of supported cameras, minor bug fixes, and perhaps some minor improvements. Probably nothing major unless they decide to dive down the rabbit hole of coding again. The problem has been that sales of VDV have not met expectations, so the developers have had to move on to their "real jobs" since they gotta put food on the tables of their families. If sales of VDV were higher then they could probably make their living at it.
So why aren't people buying? It's a GREAT product. I wonder if my story is similar to other potential customers, so I'll tell it, in case my thinking and rationalization might help the developers understand the mindset of at least one of their customers...
Last July/August I was looking for a monitoring solution since there were some burglaries in the neighborhood. I tried several free solutions, and VDV had - BY FAR - the best detection technology of those that I tested. The human recognition algorithms are awe-inspiring. I was hoping for a free solution, but was fairly happy to pay $50 for VDV Basic last year (no way I was willing to pay $200 for software, and even $50 had to be rationalized a bit since I still needed to buy cameras). Unfortunately, as the reports of the nearby burglaries grew, so did my apprehension, as did my want to get something up as quickly as possible. So I gave in and purchased a 4-camera Swan unit at a great price ($230 for four 480TVL cameras, DVR, etc.). But before I went beyond initial tests with the Swan system the burglars were caught and the need for putting up cameras was much lower in priority.
Flash-forward to a couple weeks ago... I recently decided to revisit the monitoring project, and played with the Swan system in depth for the first time. The image quality of the cameras are disappointing, even when viewing a live view, and the recorded videos are way worse than the live images. So now I want to sell the Swan system on eBay and put together a PC-based system. My first choice was obviously to upgrade to VDV Pro, but since I have some time I decided to re-investigate options. Especially since that $150 upgrade price is hard to swallow.
I don't want to name competitors here, but there is at one (perhaps more) that is very compelling. For $50 I can purchase his software and have up to 64 cameras. I can use multi-port capture cards to allow the use of cheaper cameras rather than being locked in to more expensive IP-based cameras. It has web server capabilites. It has audio capabilities. It's actively developed, and the vast majority of the customers on the support forums are pleased.
That's VDV's competition, and it's formidable competition indeed. Anyone who looks at the forums for that competitor would have to think to themselves "why should I pay 4 times as much for VDV?" And you know, it's true for me as well. And that's from a paying customer that LOVES VDV.
One thing that I didn't realize when testing VDV last year is that it doesn't date/time stamp the recordings. That's actually a fairly huge thing for security recordings to be able to do so that they'll stand up in court. I don't HAVE to have a web server on my security system (though it'd be way cool). Don't have to have audio (though it'd be cool). But as soon as I found that out that VDV's stored recordings are not date/time stamped my heart sank. I didn't WANT to go to the competition, but I'd be dumb not to. It's far cheaper and has a critical feature that I need in case I need to go to court.
I wonder how many other potential VDV customers have similar thoughts to the above. Is it better to have a few hundred customers at $200 each or possibly thousands at $50 each? The VDV developers made that decision long ago, and have stuck by it, perhaps to their detriment.
At this point my fear is this: I purchase the competition, and then a week later a beta of VDV comes out that does time stamping. And they also announce pricing that's in the ballpark of the competition. If that happens I'll be really bummed.
If I could decide on behalf of the devs, this is what I'd do. Drop the price to the level of the competition (e.g. Basic for $30, Pro for $50). Existing Basic customers would have to pay full price for Pro (still a bargain!). Then see how the income works out. If the sales start rolling in, then maybe the devs could finally be able to afford to add some features that are requested here in this forum. Then charge existing customers a discount (e.g. 50% of the original price) for upgrades. I'd be willing to keep paying for the devs to keep coding.
Oh, and I would also vote that they grandfather in the people who paid $200 for Pro and let them have free upgrades (or perhaps the first upgrade or two for free). They took a leap of faith that so far has not panned out too well for them.
As it is, I fear that there's no way that VDV can gain market share. The competition is too good, and too cheap.
Ray
Why bother with this section if you are no longer progressively developing your software? This gives everyone false hope that you are actually working on your product more then just bug fixes. You should nix this section until the time comes when this product is under development more then just "critical updates". 
