Review of the VEI OceanView Zeus, a marine night-vision camera. VEI, the Florida-based manufacturer of marine monitors and computers, has jumped with both feet into marine night-vision cameras. Its OceanView line includes five pan-and-tilt models each named for Greek deities.

By Ben Ellison

VEI OceanView Zeus

VEI, the Florida-based manufacturer of marine monitors and computers, has jumped with both feet into night-vision cameras. Its OceanView line includes five pan-and-tilt models each named for Greek deities, hence the company's "Play God! Turn night into day" tag line. It starts with the $12,995 Apollo, which sports fixed 15-degree field-of-view low light and 35-degree thermal cameras and goes up to this $132,995 gyro-stabilized Zeus with three zoomable cams. At up to 32 control stations (now that would be some yacht!), it lets an operator switch between a 42-1.6-degree color daylight view, 30-3-degree low light, or 9-4.5-degree (digital zoom only) thermal, all of course aimed at the same spot. (The number pairs define the fields of vision that the cameras can zoom through.) Zeus can also track a target much like a radar does MARPA, as shown in the screen shot, or can point itself instantly at an actual MARPA target received from a vessel's radar. No doubt instant AIS target tracking, already available from competitor NVTI, will soon follow. An unusual feature of the whole OceanView line is "Quick Release Base Assemblies," which smartly simplify installation and maintenance and even allow interchange between boats.

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