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Raegina Smith photo
Norway, Oslo
1 Level
486 Review
0 Karma

Review on ๐ŸŽฅ FoMaKo FMK20UH: High-Definition PTZ Camera with 20X Zoom, USB & HDMI - Perfect for Conference, Church Live Streaming & Web Broadcast in Full HD 1080P by Raegina Smith

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Some issues exceeded my expectations

I have never used a PtZ camera but the price of this camera was attractive. I used two vintage "Full HD" video cameras on the balcony, zoomed in on the front of the church, and a professional camera for a group shot. I connected it directly to the atem mini video mixer via the HDMI output and didn't connect the USB at all, instead using the IR remote to program and control the camera. Positive: The image quality is excellent even in low light. My camcorders couldn't handle low light and looked blurry and noisy. This camera delivers a sharp, clean image under the same lighting conditions. The device looks good and was easy to set up. The more I zoomed in, the bigger the difference between my old cameras and this one became. Saving the camera position was a breeze. I ended up using 8 out of 9 presets and the positional accuracy is very reproducible. Disadvantages: The main disadvantage of this camera is that it is very sensitive to vibrations. Everyone who goes on our balcony shakes the camera so much that it is unacceptable for the camera to be on the balcony railing. My old camera had the same problem but not as bad as this one. When the church bell rang, it actually shook the camera so much that zooming in made it unacceptable. I'm going to attach it to a ceiling joist that doesn't bend with the balcony. It is not recommended to mount this camera on a tripod. It was the first thing I did and it was horribly wonky (unusable) even without magnification. I admit it was a cheap tripod. If you use this camera, make sure you have a safe place to mount it. The next problem was that the remote control sensor is on the front of the camera. If you mount it on a balcony or anywhere else behind the camera, the remote control won't work well, if at all. As you can see in the picture I folded the piece of paper that the camera sits on lip up towards the front of the camera to reflect the IR signal back to the camera and was able to get it working. This camera needs an infrared sensor on the back to work around this problem. An alternative way to get around this problem is to purchase a wired joystick. This completely solves the remote access problem and I can still do it depending on how I can get it working after installing it on the ceiling joist. A couple of times when panning the camera, the HDMI output would drop out for a moment (the signal went black) and then immediately come back (maybe half a second or less). I'm not sure if there is poor brush contact or some other wiring issue. Assuming I won't move the camera while streaming (too fast and it's dizzying to watch), if that happens, no one will see it on the live stream. If the problem becomes more frequent or severe, I will update the review. Overall I'm very happy with this camera for the price. I can get two of these for the price of the camera I wanted to get and I'm very happy with the optics and sensor resolution. Update a week later: I installed the camera upside down on the top bar and now the camera doesn't shake when I go to the balcony. The video flip feature works great, although it doesn't swap the controls on the remote. Now left is right and up is down. It's really not a problem, just an observation. In any case, I will mainly use the preset locations. I haven't seen any blanking issues while the camera is moving, so that's good news.

Pros
  • Good product for the price
Cons
  • weak