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ATN X-Sight first Video
- Thread starter FrankT
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Crazydoc68
Almost a doctor
Let me know when you get the replacement in. I would love to look through it in person before I purchase one next year. Have been reading great reviews about them.
Doc
Yep, I'm glad we have early adopters, they have saved me thousands of dollars through the years.
Personally I'm thankful, I was about to pull the trigger on one of these against my better judgement and then your issue came up. I'll sit back and watch the reviews on them for 6-12 months and then decide.
FrankT
6.8 SPCII Hog Slayer
Don I think they are good to go now with continuing firmware upgrades. The 5x has seen no issues but the FOV at 50-60 yds is terrible but it does have manual focus where the 3x is fixed focus but for me 200 yds at night is a LONG shot and I can see that far w the 3x...the focus for filming is the only bad thing. I would still order one, mine ar all pre-order pricing is the reason I am holding on to them and not making new orders.
I could hunt w mine now just not record, depends on what is important to you.
I could hunt w mine now just not record, depends on what is important to you.
That is my thought on most multi-tools. On paper they appear great, in reality they are ok, but aren't great at anything they do. At least for right now I'll stick with my PVS-14 and DBAL
FrankT
6.8 SPCII Hog Slayer
yeah actually the X-sight maybe new but is hardly advanced technology ..seems so in night vision but really is behind in what could be done or has been done in other industries...the problem is the price point. If they had made it 50% higher $ from the beginning they would have ended up with a better product.
The same issue occurs w DVR's for filming for publication and TV..you have to go to a $15,000 production camera. When TLM was filming a show with Keith Warren the camera men laid down their expensive cams as they were getting what they need w the new Iphone 6...it was funny.
The same issue occurs w DVR's for filming for publication and TV..you have to go to a $15,000 production camera. When TLM was filming a show with Keith Warren the camera men laid down their expensive cams as they were getting what they need w the new Iphone 6...it was funny.
That is really the crux of the problem with night vision. It's expensive to do right and trying to do it at an inexpensive price point is disastrous at worst and results in toy like quality at best. Most people look at the $800 price tag and think it's expensive which means high quality, but they don't realize that even an entry level quality PVS-14 is $2k +/-, so in comparison $800 do it all will be no where near the same quality. Digital night vision is making huge leaps, but IMO it's still not where it should be for serious use, but I would be willing to bet it will be in the next 3-5 years which should bring the cost of NVGs down across the board.
That said, I would still like to try one of these in the future.
Just so you understand where I"m coming from and I'm not just trying to be a dick, my current Gen3 PVS-14 was a big step backwards to what I was used to using for the previous 20 years. It's all good though because just like your iPhone6 above you have to adjust the equipment for your needs.
FrankT
6.8 SPCII Hog Slayer
No, I understand Don and agree.
Want advances the thermal lines are really much better than even last year, almost scary. The prices are falling, just not fast enough for me. The Armasight new line is affordable for thermal and some of the best in innovation. I just don't want to pay the price point of a nice used car for something to play with..would be different if I was making a living from it.
Ident marking wrote this up for Thermal imaging
Just like an image intensified NVD a thermal imager has quite a few parameters that dictate performance (detection range). If you are looking for a thermal imager these are important because you are fixing to spend several thousand dollars on any TI and a buyer should start with three simple questions:
1) what do I intend to do with a thermal imager?
2) what do I want the thermal imager to do?
2) how much do I have to spend?
That seems like its over simplifying but by answering these questions you can figure out why a 320x240 thermal imager costs anywhere from $2.8k to $15k+.
By far the major cost of the inside of thermal imager comes from the detector, lenses (germanium glass) and the display. The housing can be expensive as well but I am speaking about the internal parts at this point. DOD wanted thermal imagers that were lighter, smaller (and cheaper). The size and performance is usually tied directly to the cost. A small, high end thermal is going to cost a lot. A $12k 320x240 Insight MTM is not the same thermal imager as a $3k FLIR 320x240 PS-32. Typically speaking again, if you buy a small TI that is low cost it will not perform like a larger model in the same price range- you'll be giving up something. One way to look at it is that dollars buy smaller packages as much as they buy performance.
The PS-24 has a lower resolution like 240x180 the reason its a weird resolution is because FLIR did the same thing that L3 did years ago- it was a cost saving measure. When L3 or FLIR manufacturer these detectors some of them come off the line with bad pixels in the array, usually at the edge of the detector. So instead of tossing them in the trash can they built a unit around them- al la the PS-24. Price point tends to be a big part of any sale and FLIR's price makes it attractive, it also makes it harder for vendors to explain the advantages of a more expensive system- there is a big difference between the low cost units and the more expensive TI's but the cheap ones have their place- if you only need to look a short distance the PS-24 or the PS-32 might fit the bill. A lot of our customers need to look farther out here in Texas so we tend to sell longer range systems.
Resolution- Reso ranges between 100x80 and 640x480. 1024x768 detectors are out but you will need to rob a few liquor stores before you buy one. 320x240 is probably the most common with 640x480 growing as it gets less expensive. 640x480 detectors seem like they would be twice as nice on paper but looking though them the user notices that objects closer to the user tend to look better than 320x240 reso and then typically flatten out and only look marginally better at longer ranges. That seems counter intuitive and could be subjective but that is what most users see when you are comparing two units that have similar specs and magnification. The reason for this is that the higher resolution units can get away with smaller (cheaper, slower) objective lenses so manufacturers use it to keep costs down. If you buy a 640x480 unit with big expensive glass or add a $2k magnifier to it you will see bigger differences but now your at $15k again.
Refresh Rate- Faster is better, you can see about 24 frames a second. Anything slower can be annoying and the reason you see high end systems with 60Hz is because it allows for better scanning and viewing from moving vehicles. The FLIR PS series are 9Hz and that's a big gripe about the PS series.
Magnification- This is important and like a camera you need to know the difference between optical mag and digital. A 2x digital zoom basically cuts your image quality in half verses optical zoom that will maintain the image quality but affect the field of view, like any daytime optical system would, like a rifle scope. I won't go as far as to say that digital zoom suck but its not very good, even on high res thermal imagers. The bad part about optical zoom is that the lens will get bigger and goes back to the cost. That lens on the W1000's you have seen online lately? It cost almost $4000 to produce that 100mm lens and you can smash it on the ground and the metal scrap yard will still give you about $1000 for the little pieces. Germanium is expensive, really expensive. This is where buyers make a mistake a lot of times. They buy a nice handheld TI that doesn't have enough lens. Sometimes you can add an afocal lens but the lens is very expensive as well. High resolution systems not withstanding you can usually assume that if the objective lens is smaller you can expect shorter detection ranges. Don't go buy a $8k COTI clip-on if you want to scan long distances across fields, buy one if you want a small, fused NV and thermal and look around short ranges. FLIR got the PS-24/32 cost down considerably by learning to pour and polish the germanium lenses. They aren't a diamond point turned lens like larger lenses but hey the PS series still work, just at shorter ranges and slower refresh rates.
Detector pixel pitch (measured in microns)
Don't stress over it- its more about manufacturing and less about performance. You can make the detector smaller and it also relates to smaller cheaper glass again but it doesn't mean a lot in relation to what a user sees looking through the unit. A 17 micron pitch (about the smallest commercial pitch currently) will get you a smaller detector and this could be put in a smaller housing- that's really the primary advantage after you pay for it. If FLIR can fab more detectors on a single wafer and then they can sell them cheaper. Big Army agrees- while new 17 micron thermal weapons sights are fine thay won't pay even a nominal amount to upgrade their current 25 micron PAS-13's despite being hounded buy BAE, DRS and Raytheon.
Sensitivity- This is important but you have to be careful because its a two edge sword. Sensitivity is important- it means most to the user when the humidity and ambient temperature is higher, allowing for better detection ranges. Bad part is a detector trades response time for sensitivity and now you have a new set of problems to deal with, you can end up in the same boat or even worse in some cases if you don't have a clever way to mask it with software. You FLIR M18/M24/307 owners will notice this, the sensitivity is good on all those units but at times the background will 'wash out' at times and this its whats happening, a NUC calibration will sometimes clean it up, and sometimes won't, depending on conditions. Honestly, 30mK to 80mK is fine as long as the firmware is written well along with some other considerations. (ATN THOR customers should be reading this twice because ATN simply bought a detector [just the IC chip itself] from FLIR, in order to keep costs down and are now learning that those boards around the detector are important too.)
Detector type- This is a fight between FLIR, Raytheon, DOD, BAE and L3. All current and detector types work pretty well with small/minor differences. If any of the smart guys from above are reading this then I will get crappy PMs but in reality AS, VOx, BST all look pretty good when comparing them side by side. These different technologies do use different methods of non-uniformity calibration (recal) so you could argue about choppers and shutters vs manual recalibration but really the only topic a typical end user talks about is that the most widely used device- the shutter- drops in and freezes the picture frame about every 2 degrees or after a specified time. People have figured out that this happens a lot right when you don't want it to, this isn't Murphy's law the unit is doing it on purpose. The military has noticed this too and now you have systems that you manually have to re-calibrate. This may be even MORE annoying because you have to remember to recal it every few minutes or the image slowly degrades with you finally remembering after you wonder what you have been missing because you forgot to cal the unit for the last 15 minutes.
Weapon Sights- this is especially important side note. If you want a weapon sight you should really take care in choosing a quality unit, the vast majority of commercial thermal weapon sights simply use an off-the-shelf detector and board set, add a reticle and a housing that will mount to a rifle, shoot it for a while and pray that they don't break under recoil. Even the detectors themselves are designed different and you blow up a thermal imaging weapon sight on a rifle you just broke the part that costs the most in the system. There are some commercial units out there that are holding up to decent recoil but they are generally the more expensive units. A thermal weapon sight is great because its extremely fast at detecting and getting on target and its by far easier to video your night time pig killing rampage but unless you by a 3x optical unit or better you are going to be shooting at relatively short (~120 to 150 yards at 2x)ranges. 640x480 is pretty much the top resolution and it still lags behind a night vision device but again the thermal imager is extremely fast when it comes to target acquisition.
All in all, try to look through the system you want to buy, or talk to someone that has looked through a lot of different thermal imagers so they can relay the differences between the systems. I didn't discuss the displays, the user menus and other features that also can affect your viewing pleasure (or displeasure).
Want advances the thermal lines are really much better than even last year, almost scary. The prices are falling, just not fast enough for me. The Armasight new line is affordable for thermal and some of the best in innovation. I just don't want to pay the price point of a nice used car for something to play with..would be different if I was making a living from it.
Ident marking wrote this up for Thermal imaging
Just like an image intensified NVD a thermal imager has quite a few parameters that dictate performance (detection range). If you are looking for a thermal imager these are important because you are fixing to spend several thousand dollars on any TI and a buyer should start with three simple questions:
1) what do I intend to do with a thermal imager?
2) what do I want the thermal imager to do?
2) how much do I have to spend?
That seems like its over simplifying but by answering these questions you can figure out why a 320x240 thermal imager costs anywhere from $2.8k to $15k+.
By far the major cost of the inside of thermal imager comes from the detector, lenses (germanium glass) and the display. The housing can be expensive as well but I am speaking about the internal parts at this point. DOD wanted thermal imagers that were lighter, smaller (and cheaper). The size and performance is usually tied directly to the cost. A small, high end thermal is going to cost a lot. A $12k 320x240 Insight MTM is not the same thermal imager as a $3k FLIR 320x240 PS-32. Typically speaking again, if you buy a small TI that is low cost it will not perform like a larger model in the same price range- you'll be giving up something. One way to look at it is that dollars buy smaller packages as much as they buy performance.
The PS-24 has a lower resolution like 240x180 the reason its a weird resolution is because FLIR did the same thing that L3 did years ago- it was a cost saving measure. When L3 or FLIR manufacturer these detectors some of them come off the line with bad pixels in the array, usually at the edge of the detector. So instead of tossing them in the trash can they built a unit around them- al la the PS-24. Price point tends to be a big part of any sale and FLIR's price makes it attractive, it also makes it harder for vendors to explain the advantages of a more expensive system- there is a big difference between the low cost units and the more expensive TI's but the cheap ones have their place- if you only need to look a short distance the PS-24 or the PS-32 might fit the bill. A lot of our customers need to look farther out here in Texas so we tend to sell longer range systems.
Resolution- Reso ranges between 100x80 and 640x480. 1024x768 detectors are out but you will need to rob a few liquor stores before you buy one. 320x240 is probably the most common with 640x480 growing as it gets less expensive. 640x480 detectors seem like they would be twice as nice on paper but looking though them the user notices that objects closer to the user tend to look better than 320x240 reso and then typically flatten out and only look marginally better at longer ranges. That seems counter intuitive and could be subjective but that is what most users see when you are comparing two units that have similar specs and magnification. The reason for this is that the higher resolution units can get away with smaller (cheaper, slower) objective lenses so manufacturers use it to keep costs down. If you buy a 640x480 unit with big expensive glass or add a $2k magnifier to it you will see bigger differences but now your at $15k again.
Refresh Rate- Faster is better, you can see about 24 frames a second. Anything slower can be annoying and the reason you see high end systems with 60Hz is because it allows for better scanning and viewing from moving vehicles. The FLIR PS series are 9Hz and that's a big gripe about the PS series.
Magnification- This is important and like a camera you need to know the difference between optical mag and digital. A 2x digital zoom basically cuts your image quality in half verses optical zoom that will maintain the image quality but affect the field of view, like any daytime optical system would, like a rifle scope. I won't go as far as to say that digital zoom suck but its not very good, even on high res thermal imagers. The bad part about optical zoom is that the lens will get bigger and goes back to the cost. That lens on the W1000's you have seen online lately? It cost almost $4000 to produce that 100mm lens and you can smash it on the ground and the metal scrap yard will still give you about $1000 for the little pieces. Germanium is expensive, really expensive. This is where buyers make a mistake a lot of times. They buy a nice handheld TI that doesn't have enough lens. Sometimes you can add an afocal lens but the lens is very expensive as well. High resolution systems not withstanding you can usually assume that if the objective lens is smaller you can expect shorter detection ranges. Don't go buy a $8k COTI clip-on if you want to scan long distances across fields, buy one if you want a small, fused NV and thermal and look around short ranges. FLIR got the PS-24/32 cost down considerably by learning to pour and polish the germanium lenses. They aren't a diamond point turned lens like larger lenses but hey the PS series still work, just at shorter ranges and slower refresh rates.
Detector pixel pitch (measured in microns)
Don't stress over it- its more about manufacturing and less about performance. You can make the detector smaller and it also relates to smaller cheaper glass again but it doesn't mean a lot in relation to what a user sees looking through the unit. A 17 micron pitch (about the smallest commercial pitch currently) will get you a smaller detector and this could be put in a smaller housing- that's really the primary advantage after you pay for it. If FLIR can fab more detectors on a single wafer and then they can sell them cheaper. Big Army agrees- while new 17 micron thermal weapons sights are fine thay won't pay even a nominal amount to upgrade their current 25 micron PAS-13's despite being hounded buy BAE, DRS and Raytheon.
Sensitivity- This is important but you have to be careful because its a two edge sword. Sensitivity is important- it means most to the user when the humidity and ambient temperature is higher, allowing for better detection ranges. Bad part is a detector trades response time for sensitivity and now you have a new set of problems to deal with, you can end up in the same boat or even worse in some cases if you don't have a clever way to mask it with software. You FLIR M18/M24/307 owners will notice this, the sensitivity is good on all those units but at times the background will 'wash out' at times and this its whats happening, a NUC calibration will sometimes clean it up, and sometimes won't, depending on conditions. Honestly, 30mK to 80mK is fine as long as the firmware is written well along with some other considerations. (ATN THOR customers should be reading this twice because ATN simply bought a detector [just the IC chip itself] from FLIR, in order to keep costs down and are now learning that those boards around the detector are important too.)
Detector type- This is a fight between FLIR, Raytheon, DOD, BAE and L3. All current and detector types work pretty well with small/minor differences. If any of the smart guys from above are reading this then I will get crappy PMs but in reality AS, VOx, BST all look pretty good when comparing them side by side. These different technologies do use different methods of non-uniformity calibration (recal) so you could argue about choppers and shutters vs manual recalibration but really the only topic a typical end user talks about is that the most widely used device- the shutter- drops in and freezes the picture frame about every 2 degrees or after a specified time. People have figured out that this happens a lot right when you don't want it to, this isn't Murphy's law the unit is doing it on purpose. The military has noticed this too and now you have systems that you manually have to re-calibrate. This may be even MORE annoying because you have to remember to recal it every few minutes or the image slowly degrades with you finally remembering after you wonder what you have been missing because you forgot to cal the unit for the last 15 minutes.
Weapon Sights- this is especially important side note. If you want a weapon sight you should really take care in choosing a quality unit, the vast majority of commercial thermal weapon sights simply use an off-the-shelf detector and board set, add a reticle and a housing that will mount to a rifle, shoot it for a while and pray that they don't break under recoil. Even the detectors themselves are designed different and you blow up a thermal imaging weapon sight on a rifle you just broke the part that costs the most in the system. There are some commercial units out there that are holding up to decent recoil but they are generally the more expensive units. A thermal weapon sight is great because its extremely fast at detecting and getting on target and its by far easier to video your night time pig killing rampage but unless you by a 3x optical unit or better you are going to be shooting at relatively short (~120 to 150 yards at 2x)ranges. 640x480 is pretty much the top resolution and it still lags behind a night vision device but again the thermal imager is extremely fast when it comes to target acquisition.
All in all, try to look through the system you want to buy, or talk to someone that has looked through a lot of different thermal imagers so they can relay the differences between the systems. I didn't discuss the displays, the user menus and other features that also can affect your viewing pleasure (or displeasure).
Crazydoc68
Almost a doctor
Yeah nowadays if something new comes out people are good to post things up on this great thing called the Internet good or bad. I usually wait the same time frame before making a large purchase too. I work too hard for my money only to buy a defective product. I also always love to hear how customer service is with "company x".
SAWMAN
Master
The reason that I went with the thermal unit that I did is SIMPLICITY. At this point in my life I want things to be easier on my body AND my mind.
My thermal is 8 inches long and weighs 30oz. That's it ... nothing else needed. No illuminator at the added cost. No wired attachments. No helmets or the like.No extra scope with magnification. I got my gun ... then there is this unit(thermal) that attaches to the pic rail,and sits on top.
My thermal will not do a goddamned thing EXCEPT light up a animal. That's it. I know,I know,pretty freakin' antiquated isn't it. It will not record(if people want to see a hunt,go buy a thermal for yourself),it does not have a built in GPS(if you don't know where you are maybe you'd be better off at home),or a Wi-Fi(WTF is that anyway,some kind of telephone hot spot that allows you to talk on the phone or use your computer while hunting ??). MY POS unit will not even make a cappachino,french toast,or allow you to play a board game while waiting for an animal. It did not come with a deer call or hog grunter sound track that you could access with the simple touch of a button.
My unit is what it is. Just a simple mo-sheen that lights up a hot(or cold) object out to >1000m+ without any bells and whistles. It has a "+" that you try to hold on the game animal while you squeeze the trigger of your firearm(separate unit). That's it. For me ...... this is enough "stuff" to have to deal with while hunting.
And finally,the ol' saying comes to mind ...... "if something seems to good to be true.it probably is". If a unit with all these features is offered for $550.(price point ??) I would probably ask myself ...... what's missing here ?? Could it possibly be ...... quality,longivity,useability, ..... pick one(or more). --- SAWMAN
My thermal is 8 inches long and weighs 30oz. That's it ... nothing else needed. No illuminator at the added cost. No wired attachments. No helmets or the like.No extra scope with magnification. I got my gun ... then there is this unit(thermal) that attaches to the pic rail,and sits on top.
My thermal will not do a goddamned thing EXCEPT light up a animal. That's it. I know,I know,pretty freakin' antiquated isn't it. It will not record(if people want to see a hunt,go buy a thermal for yourself),it does not have a built in GPS(if you don't know where you are maybe you'd be better off at home),or a Wi-Fi(WTF is that anyway,some kind of telephone hot spot that allows you to talk on the phone or use your computer while hunting ??). MY POS unit will not even make a cappachino,french toast,or allow you to play a board game while waiting for an animal. It did not come with a deer call or hog grunter sound track that you could access with the simple touch of a button.
My unit is what it is. Just a simple mo-sheen that lights up a hot(or cold) object out to >1000m+ without any bells and whistles. It has a "+" that you try to hold on the game animal while you squeeze the trigger of your firearm(separate unit). That's it. For me ...... this is enough "stuff" to have to deal with while hunting.
And finally,the ol' saying comes to mind ...... "if something seems to good to be true.it probably is". If a unit with all these features is offered for $550.(price point ??) I would probably ask myself ...... what's missing here ?? Could it possibly be ...... quality,longivity,useability, ..... pick one(or more). --- SAWMAN
Last edited:
FrankT
6.8 SPCII Hog Slayer
Well the good news is my distributor, Ultimate Night Vision responded to my email and video of my unit. His solution? Send it back to me, I will replace it and deal with ATN myself. You just cannot get better customer service than that! Hoping for the best! Hope he tosses in a thermal clip-on for my trouble...lol
SAWMAN
Master
If your distributor is gonna "run interference" for you in dealing with ATN,this is a good thing. And he has given you his best.
And ......... all of the bullshit that you guys have been going thru with ATN,seems like they would toss in a free thermal. It would damn near(almost) be worth it. --- SAWMAN
And ......... all of the bullshit that you guys have been going thru with ATN,seems like they would toss in a free thermal. It would damn near(almost) be worth it. --- SAWMAN
Famine
Master
Not having the money right now to buy what I want I picked up an ATN X-Sight HD i5 X 18X or I should say my wife picked it up for me and now there is a minor dispute on who gets it...anyway reading the instructions I need 4 Lithium AAs and a Micro SD card which I will pick up tomorrow and see if I have any of your problem Frank. I will let you know how I make out as soon as I get it together...not going to mount it just yet...got to decide what to put it on. No real hurry - no hogs on our lease, lots of yotes - but that will have to wait until after deer season. We shoot them as we see them but hunting the lease at night during deer season is frowned on. That said our camp is on a separate 80 acres and our gut pit is a real draw for them...maybe I can drop a few before the end of deer.....
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