Amcrest Forum

Hi Folks,

I have a 1080 HDCVI 4-camera + DVR set up I picked up a few years back. It has performed flawlessly until recently. A couple months ago I noticed one of the cameras showed some "rainbow" effects. There were bands of colors running across the view about 2/3rds of the way down. I logged in a couple days later and couldn't get any video from that camera. It's been that way a couple months now, but lo and behold a couple days ago I logged in and it worked briefly for a few hours before going back to black. The camera in question is an AMC1080BC (I'm unsure model number beyond that as that's all that was on the documentation included with it - I no longer have the box, which I believe had a more specific model numbers).

I've noticed the following with the camera in question:

1. The camera still appears in Surveillance Pro. However the resolution comes up as 1280x720. All others show as 1920x1080. If I go into settings and try and change it back to 1080, when I try to save it reverts back to 720.
2. The name assigned to the camera and date and time show in Surveillance Pro. But there's no video - just black.
3. When I check in Surveillance Pro, it shows some ridiculously low kbps like 51, where as all the other cameras will show something over 5,000kbps.

I've inspected the camera visually and see nothing wrong. The cable runs underneath my vinyl siding to the back of the house where it enters the basement and goes to the DVR. There is a short run of about 6 feet where the cable is NOT under the siding to get around a sliding patio door. I checked there and see no problems with that section of cable. There is a second line that runs in that same place and it's working fine.

The only thing I've been able to think of to test is to swap two cameras and see how that works. I figure if it's bad cabling the camera that's not working will start if swapped to a different spot. If it's the camera, it will still not work. Is there something easier I can do? Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,

Gary

Gatman wrote: Is there something easier I can do? Any suggestions are appreciated.Gary

I would suggest switching power supplies just in case otherwise this is a great idea to see if it is the channel within the DVR or if the issue follows the camera.

So I noodled around with this for a couple hours today. Swapped two cameras and still had the same problem, so I figured it must be the cabling. The one giving me the problem had to have an extension because it was too short to reach to the DVR (it's furthest from the DVR). So I pulled up the siding where the was and inspected there.

I had wrapped all connectors with water resistant electricians tape, and I noticed the power one seemed to have come apart partially despite the tape. Cut the tape off of that and the female to female BNC connected, and lo and behold everything started working again with a crystal clear picture. Put it back under the siding and it died again. Grrr.

After messing around a bit, I believe I may have a bad BNC connector. Had to fuss with it by reconnecting it several times for it to stabilize. I put everything back under the siding, but didn't wrap with tape this time. I'll keep an eye on it and see how things go. But for now we're back in business! I really do like this system. I've had it about 4 years now and other than this one problem it's been rock solid. Just wish Amcrest would release more updates for firmware/software.

Thanks,

Gary