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2008-11-20
1/5
"Purchased the "high-end" Sentinel camera. Here's what I encountered:
-USB video adapter installer is a piece of crap. Keeps hanging on VendorCmdRW.dll Tried on 6 different XP Pro systems that I borrowed from work. Still couldn't get the video adapter recognized at all on my primary home system (XP Pro).
-Had to do manual force install on all.
-Cannot reboot when video adapter is plugged in. System hangs during reboot.
-Have to unplug video adapter to proceed and finish the reboot.
-Finally have to disable/enable in Device Manager to get it to work.
-It's apparent that thorough testing was NOT conducted on XP Professional systems.
-Computer grinds at 100% CPU whenever Sentinel is running, causing excessive heat and CPU burnout.
(Pentium M 1.73GHz w/512MB RAM and also AMD Athlon 64bit 3400+ 2.20GHz w/1GB RAM)
-Sentinel dies after apprx. 30 seconds when recording motion trigger when email option is selected.
(both XP and Home edition)
-If email option is not selected, then Sentinel dies after 30 secs when the SECOND motion trigger is activated.
-First hitting Tilt Up in Sentinel control causes camera to tilt down. Must then hit multiple tilt ups to get to prior position.
-Auto focus in Starlight mode really sucks (virtually non-existent).
-Application does not exit cleanly when closed after recording (get "Run a DLL as an App has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.")
-Apply button does not enable when configuring motion detector unless motion detector object is clicked on.
-Still image snapshot files that are saved do not have the correct time in filename. Certainly does not match time shown in video still snapshot!
-Cannot uninstall Sentinel software because of error: "Could not open INSTALL.LOG file"
-Unable to zoom outside of center field of vision, so camera had to be mounted at an odd angle
-6 ft power cord is a joke. Useless outdoors unless special wiring is installed. Was originally told 60ft, then 14 ft was standard when first purchased. (apologies came later).
-Multiple dead pixels on camera on arrival.
The camera is a great idea and adequate for normal use; however the software required to support is not ready for primetime and has not been adequately tested.
Tried to get technical information about the camera from X10 rep "Nakita" who doesn't know what she's talking about. Tried to tell me the camera has a 280 degree field of vision WITHOUT panning! (it's really 50 degrees, found out from another competent X10 rep -- yes there are several)
Tried to get software exchanged for Active Home Pro version which apparently works better, but Nakita refused and said I'd have to pay more (even though they're the same price -- she said the USB video adapter was more and included with Sentinel version -- not what the original sales person told me!). Asked to speak to her supervisor and she left me on hold for 30 minutes. Lousy and incompetent customer service from Nakita."
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