Troubleshooting, English, Reference

English

Troubleshooting

Reference

Q:The images from my cameras are black & white and/or flickering. What’s up?

A:Most likely, your Video Standard isn’t set correctly for your region. Check out the section on PAL/NTSC (“System: General” on page 50) for more information. As a rule of thumb, set your video standard to NTSC if you’re in the USA or Canada, or PAL if you’re in Europe, the UK or Australia.

If this is happening to only some of your cameras, then there may be a problem with the compatibility of those cameras. If you’ve got them from a kit, then this shouldn’t be the case at all and it indicates that something quite strange is happening. If you have cameras purchased separately - particularly if you’ve found them online or from overseas - then they might not match the standards of the cameras you’ve already got. The DVR can only support one video standard at a time: mixing PAL and NTSC cameras does not work.

Q:I can’t login to or unlock the DVR - it says my password is wrong.

A:The default username/password combination for the DVR is “admin” with the password section left blank.

The DVR does have a default password (“12345”) but it should be disabled by default. If leaving the password section blank doesn’t work, try 12345. If that doesn’t work (and you haven’t set a password of your own that you’ve forgotten) then something strange has happened - contact Swann technical support (contact details are on the rear cover).

Q:The DVR will boot up and show live images, but there are no menus being displayed. Why?

A:There might be a fault with the hard drive installed in the DVR. Before the menu system is displayed, the DVR attempts to detect the drive that is connected. If there is an ambiguous signal preventing the DVR from ascertaining whether there is a drive connected or not, then it will keep looking and waiting for the drive to respond.

If you’ve just installed a new drive, disconnect it and see if that fixes the problem.

Q:How do I eliminate false-triggers on my motion detection?

A:There’s no guaranteed way to eliminate false triggers, but - in the majority of cases - you can fine-tune the DVR’s motion detection settings to reduce the number of false triggers you’re likely to get. (See “Alarm: Motion” on page 42 for more detailed information about setting motion detection.)

1.Mask any redundant movement. This includes obvious things like trees blowing in the wind, roads with cars passing and so forth. Some less obvious things which might cause false triggers include: the “flickering” of screens, monitors or fluorescent lights, reflections of movement in windows/ mirrors and so on, lights which are often turned on or off, shadows passing and so on. We can’t possibly imagine what you’re going to find in your unique circumstances, so we encourage you to experiment.

2.Fine-tune your sensitivity. There’s no substitute for getting a volunteer to play the part of intruder and experimenting. Some cameras are just more “touchy” than others; some lighting conditions are harder to get the settings “right” for. As a “rule”, CCD cameras require a lower value than CMOS cameras, and that motion detection is going to be more sensitive at night (whenever the active infrared night vision is active).

3.Adjust your image settings (see “Display: Camera” on page 28). Unlike many image adjustment options, the DVR pre- processes video, which means that, when the DVR looks for motion, it’s looking at your already processed images. By reducing the amount of video noise in your image, you can increase the accuracy of the motion detection dramatically. Typically, the settings that most often require adjustment are Brightness and Contrast.

Video noise is a problem with any video signal. It’s the very slight change in brightness and/or color of pixels between frames, and it’s commonly regarded as being “just one of those things” when dealing with digital imaging. By tweaking the brightness and contrast, you can usually remove a good deal of this noise, as it tends to be most pronounced near the blacks (the really dark bits) and the whites (the really bright bits) of your images.

Q:I’m getting too many email alerts from the DVR.

A:There are a few things that might help, depending what’s generating the email alerts. Here are a few possibilities:

•The emails are for real events, however it is telling me about it multiple times.

This indicates that the DVR is functioning properly, but that the Interval setting for your email alerts is too low. Increasing the Interval time will decrease the number of email alerts the DVR sends.

•The DVR sends email alerts when nothing seems to be happening.

This suggests that there might be something amiss with your Motion Detection settings.

The most likely explanation is that there is something in view of your cameras which is moving, or causes the illusion of movement. Have a look at “Alarm: Motion Detection Configuration” on page 43 for some more information.

•The DVR keeps reporting errors (such as Video Loss, HDD Error or similar).

There seems to be a hardware or configuration fault with the DVR. These are most often caused by a faulty (or simply poorly connected) connection or cable. Check the integrity of your cables and connections.