Floozy Speak!

Sony gets plenty of crap online these days, but they are AMAZING on the security IP camera technology. We use four SNC-RZ30 pan tilt wireless IP capable video cameras in our retail video ethnography rig. They are awesome cameras. To do what we wanted to do with our retail research rig, we had to make some modifications to how the cameras would operate. Mainly we wanted to able to walk into a store environment put up cameras in a flash and get down to observation and research. To do that you have to think about power, battery power, our RigMasterTroy whipped up wheelchair battery powered camera setup for us. We use wireless B to run the cameras, snag a few laptops and yer doin some fun stuff. Best of all the cameras are placeable anywhere now free to give their pan till goodness.

Pretty soon we knew we'd need some cases. How do you ship a rig like this? Its bulky, batteries are heavy and so on. We ended using some good cabbage cases that do the trick however, in our last rig, the cameras we're damaged in shipping.

By now I've had the cameras 3+ years, and I didn't really expect Sony to walk to water for us in helping us out with broken cameras. I wanted FedEX to pay for the repairs cause they basically threw these cases off trucks. The cameras were packed good, foam padding, bubble wrap and all. To damage cameras you basically need to drop them off a truck, 5-6 feet would probably shake anything inside to pieces.

Sure enough when I was back in Hartford last spring thats just what happened. I had 3 damaged cameras and I had 2 days of research to do. I pulled a win via a linksys wireless webcam, that we made work for our purposes. But I was still hacked off at FedEX. As time went on and FedEX finally sent a guy out to visit us and review the damage, and he never said anything yes or no on the outcome. FedEx told me weeks later ummm no. Great. Out of warranty cameras, damaged and now what? I call Sony and say, ok I need to get these repaired or replaced if thats too expensive.

Sony service center people in the security division are godly!! They told me "oh ya know... there's a flaw in those cameras, you may of never noticed, but we'll replace them for free.. in fact probably upgrade you to a newer camera... is that ok?" OK?? ARE you frickin serious?!? OK!?!? That's awesome!!!

UPS blue, bam new cameras on the way. That people is frickin delivering on the promise for life. These cameras aren't cheap, and maybe Sony just wants to keep ya security folks happy but holy frickin yaness!

Thanks SONY!!! YOU GUYS+GALS ROCK!
PS- Big thanks to Jackie!!!

Technorati Tags: sony, cabbage, buddychrist