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Troubleshooting Q&A

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HOW TO GROW YOUR CCTV BUSINESS IN A DOWN ECONOMY When I ask them what they are doing to boost their sales, some say they are just doing a lot more of the usual sales activities, but complain that it is not delivering the level of sales they need. Others I have spoken to have developed an interesting approach that I would like to share with you. This approach keeps their work force busy and boosts sales while improving relations with their existing customers.

My Digital audio levels very wildy and commercials are too loud. The digital revolution has brought us new levels of entertainment and opportunity. But it also presents new challenges to overcome.Many of the problems that were once solved in analog transmissions have re-emerged as new problems in digital transmission. One of the most noticeable problems is in the area of volume control.

How can I add additional signals onto my existing IP camera cable. You can add additional signals of any kind analog or digital to your existing IP camera cable run by using an ETHERNET EXPANDER. As the name implies it expands the use of your 10/100 BaseT Ethernet wire connection. When installing IP video equipment the typical installation uses an 8 conductor CAT-5 or better twisted wire cable with an RJ-45 (8P8C) connector at each end. Non-POE "Power Over Ethernet" digital video installations require 2 of the 4 available wire pairs on the cable, this leaves 2 wire pairs available to use for other signals.

I have horizontal bars on my picture. They look like a horizontal band or bar across the video monitor that slowly moves up the video screen. These bars can be barely noticeable, or can be so bad that the video monitor loses lock and breaks up the picture.

I have thin vertical bars on my picture. Have you ever had interference in your CCTV monitor that exhibited dozens of narrow vertical lines either black or white, and as thin as a pencil line. They may be staggered or jagged from the top of the screen to the bottom and may even dance side to side slightly while standing in one place or move across the screen slowly from side to side.

My camera goes out of focus at night. Have you ever wondered why Auto Iris cameras seem to go out of focus at night? Many installers have had to return to the job site at night and reset the focus of a camera to solve this problem.

I am having trouble reading license plates. Unfortunately an unaided camera does not do as good a job of reading license plates at night. They need some assistance to work well under dark circumstances. Even if the scene were well lit for observation by eye, a car presents special problems for a video camera.

My CCTV picture is not sharp and clear. All video cables in CCTV systems cause some loss of brightness and picture detail. The longer a cable is, the greater the loss. Even a few hundred feet of cable will measurably degrade a picture, while a thousand feet or so will seriously reduce picture detail and brightness.

My DVR has no picture and I know I have video. When properly installed the DVR does not output a video picture, displays a "NO VIDEO" image or has a blank blue video screen. Yet if the video input signal is connected to a monitor it displays a video picture.

My picture rolls when I switch cameras. Switching between non-synchronized CCTV cameras usually causes the picture to "roll" for several frames. This wipes out the very frames that are to be recorded.

I have reflected glare in my picture. Have you ever installed a CCTV camera that had a glaring “hot spot” or bright white area on the monitor, and around that bright spot the picture seemed to be out of focus or blurry, with poor picture detail? Or perhaps you had a camera looking out a window or doorway that had reflected light glaring at the camera during some part of the day. This glaring can come and go, like the reflections off car windshields in a parking lot.

My camera doesn't work well after a weather storm. Protecting a CCTV system and it components from lightning damage does not use the same methods used to protect human life from electrical shock. In fact many of the techniques used to protect humans from lightning also cause some other problems in the CCTV system.

My fiber optic video images are not good. Have you ever installed a fiber optic video transmitter / receiver and discovered that you were not getting a good signal output and you knew you were putting in a good video signal but you were not getting the same good signal out.

My picture has tearing at the top of the screen. When Video Ground Loop problems or 60 cycle Bars occur, they are easy to see on a video monitor. They look like a horizontal band or bar across the video monitor that slowly moves up the video screen. These bars can be barely noticeable, or can be so bad that the video monitor loses lock and breaks up the picture. Sometimes the picture shows a band of broken up lines at the top of the screen. If the video camera is Line-Locked to the 60 cycle main power, the bars may stand still in the picture, but they still obscure picture definition and create customer complaints.

I have jumping lines on my picture. Have you ever had interference in your CCTV monitor that exhibited dozens of narrow vertical lines either black or white, and as thin as a pencil line. They may be staggered or jagged from the top of the screen to the bottom and may even dance side to side slightly while standing in one place or move across the screen slowly from side to side.

I want to add cameras with no space for cable. There are many applications where a video di-plexer is the right choice. This is controlled by the cost of making the connection between camera and monitor or DVR. Coaxial cable or twisted pair wire is the lowest cost way to install the run. However if you need to lay conduit or if the run goes under a parking lot, cement driveway, inside a finished wall, or other obstructions, then it is a good idea to use any existing coax cable or twisted pair wire set to get the second camera through.

My picture goes on and off every few seconds. If you have a video image that goes on and off every few seconds your installation is probably suffering from a combination of two common CCTV problems.

I want to have sound with my video. Hearing and speech are one of mankind's most powerful tools. We rely heavily on the use of these faculties for our day-to-day living. Yet in the average security installation this audio information is not available to security personnel responsible for the safety and security of the facility. Having this audio information can speed the reaction time of security personnel, possibly saving lives and reducing law suits.

I want to use the same cable for video and data. This is a data under video application allowing one video channel and one data channel on the same cable.

My picture has ghosts and fuzzy edges on it. Ghosts and Ringing become more evident as the length of the coaxial cable becomes greater. The ringing effect (where a white-to-black or black-to-white transition in the picture is repeated many times in close succession) occurs with short cable runs of 50 to 200 feet. Obvious Ghosts appear when the cable is 500-1000 feet long.

I need to set off an alarm using sound. Criminals will quite often enter a building by breaking through a wall or ceiling effectively by-passing the perimeter security entirely. Care must be taken to provide detection measures that do not rely on perimeter protection alone.

I want to add contact closures to my video signal. The Vertical Interval (V.I.) is the part of the video signal that tells the monitor to start drawing a new screen. It is made up of special SYNCHRONIZATION pulses with no picture elements. This part of the video allows special command and control signals to be added in a way that does not conflict with the picture information.

My DVRs play back picture is not sharp and clear. Digital Video Recorders (DVR) and Video Tape Recorders (VTR) play an important role in the CCTV system. They can severely limit the picture resolution of the system. Many DVR manufactures do not specify the lines of resolution or bandwidth for the play back of the video signal. If you have a DVR that limits the bandwidth you can see it. The playback video will be not a sharp and clear as the through put signal.

My wireless system reduces the picture resolution. When you have a good picture at the camera but after the wireless transmitter and receiver the picture is not as sharp and clear as it was at the camera.

My pictures go bad at a certain time of day. You have a CCTV system that has good pictures some of the time but at a certain time of the day the pictures look bad either by turning dark or having bars on them. Or the picture just goes away and the DVR shows no picture at all.

My UTP Video installation has a dull picture When you install a twisted pair video installation and the picture is not sharp and clear, you can fix the problem, first you must determine where the problem originates.