What are the common CCTV maintenance issues?

Modern CCTV cameras are strong, operator-friendly devices, light-years ahead of the finicky and trouble-prone CCTV cameras from thirty years ago. However, no matter how much effort producers put into making their devices operate well without much configuration, some issues still occur. Don’t want to deal with CCTV problems by yourself? We get it! Give us a call or send us an e-mail, and our CCTV Installation Services will fix any issues in record time! This is to be expected of any CCTV camera. You are bound to face trouble even with high-end equipment from respectable manufacturers. Numerous typical CCTV issues are just a sign of imperfect setup or incorrect setup. Thankfully, a few of these issues are simple to fix. Here are 11 of the most common CCTV issues- and their repairs! 

CCTV Video Camera Colour Issues

The Colours on My Camera Are Off: 

If your CCTV camera’s colours are distorted, it’s likely due to a problem with the white balance settings. Examine the camera’s settings, configure it for outside use if needed, and angle it far from lights. You can adjust the white balance by hand or through additional colour settings if offered. Remember that some cameras might disappoint the right photo under all ambient conditions. I Only Get Black and White Images. CCTV cameras might just capture black-and-white video if there isn’t sufficient ambient lighting or if they are ranked for night usage. Infra-red LEDs can enable CCTV cameras to tape in low lighting, but they can’t distinguish colours under infrared light. To repair this issue, ensure the lighting matches your CCTV camera’s requirements, inspect the CCTV camera for damage, and validate that the input video type matches the output video if your CCTV camera outputs analogue, composite, or part video signals. 

There Are Horizontal Lines on My CCTV Video: 

To troubleshoot horizontal lines on CCTV footage, check for disturbance from ambient lighting or electrical disturbance. Ensure no electrical light falls directly on the camera and check for damage in the power supply and cables. Route cables correctly and far from high-frequency devices. If lighting is the concern, think about a WDR camera or CMOS sensing unit camera. 

My CCTV Video Is Flickering: 

CCTV flickering can be caused by disturbance or inadequate power supply. Inspect the display, ports, cables, and grounding. If the flickering continues, examine the power supply, equipment, and IR LEDs for damage. Guarantee the CCTV camera and all gadgets are ranked for 50 Hz operation. 

My CCTV Camera Video is Noisy: 

Loud CCTV video is typically an outcome of electrical or RF interference. Similar to flickering, you must inspect and remove common sources of disturbance:

1. Examine ports and cable televisions for damage, especially analogue video cable televisions.
2. Make certain all cable televisions are routed correctly, away from interference sources, and correctly grounded if needed.
3. If your camera has an analogue output, disconnect the video cable from the camera and check if you still see noise on your monitor.

That’s normally an indication of a disturbance at the monitor’s end: inspect its power supply and cable televisions. Examine if disconnecting any other CCTV cameras or CCTV equipment lowers the sound level. Damaged or incorrectly protected equipment can disrupt other devices. 

No Video Signal: 

This is, without a doubt, the most discouraging CCTV issue. You can deal with flickering or noise for a little while, but what if you can’t get a photo in the first place? This issue manifests itself in different ways:

Check that your camera is correctly powered: It might appear obvious; however, we’ve all been bitten by this. Even skilled security engineers will periodically understand, with an embarrassed look on their faces, that a CCTV camera has no video signal because it’s not powered on. Initially, and the majority of obvious, check the power ports and the cables- make sure they’re plugged in and intact. If your CCTV camera has an external power brick, make certain it works. If you have access to that sort of equipment, try to power on your CCTV camera with a test cable and power supply. If your CCTV camera is connected to mains, or if it’s connected through a CCTV power supply with a circuit box, inspect the fuse box. If your CCTV camera utilizes PoE, examine the PoE switch and ensure the CCTV camera is really being powered on. 

Check your cam’s video or information connection: If you can’t get a photo on your CCTV camera, however, it is powering up, and possibly the images aren’t making their way to the monitor. If your camera connects to a DVR box, inspect the cable television and the connectors at both ends. Ensure they’re properly plugged in and undamaged. A CCTV test screen can assist in this case. If your CCTV camera is IP-enabled, make certain the network settings are right. If it’s a wired camera, inspect the cable television and the connectors for damage. Check any additional network or video devices. If your CCTV camera connects to any network switches or routers, DVR boxes or video multiplexers, ensure they’re in working order. 

Check your CCTV software: Advanced video monitoring software allows you to disable access to some CCTV cameras or to protect some streams with a password. If that holds true, ensure that you can truly see the stream you’re searching for. 

Check your camera for damage: We’re at the end of the road here. If the camera is effectively powered on and there are no connectivity issues, it’s time to inspect that there’s no problem with the camera itself. Make sure the lens and any protective domes are intact, and the optical course is unobstructed. If the camera shows no external signs of damage, connecting to the maker for tech assistance is your next best alternative. 

My CCTV Camera Reveals a Black Screen: 

If your CCTV camera does not reveal a photo and all you get is a black screen, there is a good chance that the DVR box or the monitoring application can’t get a video signal. Just to ensure, take a look at the steps above. If that does not assist, or if you have reason to presume that a video signal is, in fact, offered, but all it’s carrying is a pitch-black image, here are a few things that you can check: Guarantee that the optical pathway is not blocked. This may not be very obvious: small lenses at high zoom levels can be easily blocked by leaves or branches, for instance. Make sure that the ambient lighting conditions of your CCTV camera are satisfied. Not all video cameras can see in the dark- during the night or in a dark room. If the light levels are listed below the video camera’s threshold, all you’ll get will be a black image. Power your camera off and on once again. If all CCTV cameras, not just one of them, show nothing but a black screen, reboot the DVR box. Modern DVR boxes and some cameras, especially very high-end ones, are genuine- if small- computers, and they can crash much like computers do. Examine the lens and the CCTV camera for damage. If a camera’s optical elements or sensor have actually been harmed, the CCTV camera may still power up and send data- but it will not get a picture. 

My CCTV Camera Isn’t Operating At Night: 

If your CCTV cam is rated for night usage, but all you get at night is a black image, it’s normally due to the fact that the IR LEDs aren’t working. Typical reasons why that occurs consist of the following:

Camera misconfiguration: Make sure that your CCTV camera is configured to work at night. If it’s a day-and-night camera that needs to instantly switch to night mode, examine its ambient light setup settings, if any. 

Insufficient power: The LEDs draw extra current, so a CCTV camera needs more power in the evening than it does during the day. This issue is particularly common with battery- and PoE-powered cameras. Ensure that your CCTV camera’s power requirements are fulfilled. 

Damaged LEDs: Inspect the CCTV camera for damage. LEDs age, too, so an ageing camera might simply no longer be able to supply adequate light. 

My Video Camera Reveals Degraded Images at Night: 

If your CCTV camera does work, but the images are weakened at night, there are a couple of things you can do. If you occasionally get images that are completely white or appear like they’re over-exposed in some areas, make certain that your cam is pointing far from sources of brilliant light. An automobile’s headlights, for instance, can saturate the CCD sensor in low ambient lighting conditions, and the electronic camera won’t reveal anything but a big, white mass. If you get white spots on your image, make certain that the CCTV camera’s visor properly covers the lens and that the camera is not close to and pointing at a glass window. Otherwise, the image might be weakened by the light originating from a camera’s own IR LEDs or from another nearby CCTV camera’s LEDs. 

My CCTV Camera Is Not Dealing with Mobile: 

If you can access the video stream in your area but can’t see the CCTV stream on your mobile app, fortunately, there’s normally nothing wrong with the cam or its devices. Barring astonishing problems like malfunctioning network ports in a switch, it’s normally just a configuration problem. Mobile access to CCTV camera streams is a relatively new innovation, though, and there are no widely accepted standards in the market. Numerous issues are, therefore, vendor- and application-specific. However, before you start suspecting that it’s a problem particular to your particular video camera, you ought to examine a few things: Make certain that your CCTV camera and/or your DVR/NVR is linked to the local network and all pertinent settings are correctly set up. If your electronic camera or DVR has a fixed IP address, guarantee that you have set up the correct netmask, gateway and DNS addresses. If your camera uses mobile gain access to through a cloud-based application, guarantee that your network firewall software is not obstructing connections from the video camera to the Web. If your CCTV system needs a VPN connection for remote and/or mobile gain access, make sure that the VPN service is correctly set up. If your CCTV camera installation in Hyderabad system provides remote/cloud access through a vibrant DNS (DDNS) service, make sure that the DNS settings are properly set up. It’s also worth keeping in mind that DDNS may not work on all networks and all configurations, especially 4G networks. 

My CCTV Camera’s DVR is Not Recording Anything: 

If your CCTV camera is working fine, however, the DVR is not recording anything; typical culprits include misconfiguration, absence of storage area, and failing DVR parts. Don’t despair: modern-day DVR boxes are pretty friendly and easy to fix. Examine that recording is enabled. It may sound obvious, but it happens. If you restored a gadget to its factory settings, or if the settings got corrupted and were immediately restored to factory defaults, the DVR box might stop taping without you understanding. Check your CCTV and DVR settings and ensure that recording is permanently allowed or that it’s allowed for the period of time that you’re troubleshooting. Some devices can be set up to tape footage only at specific intervals. Ensure that there is sufficient storage space readily available on your DVR’s recording media. Erase videos that you no longer require. If your DVR publishes a video to a network server or a cloud account, check its network connection. Its local storage might be full. Your DVR’s hard drive might be stopping working. Many DVRs have a small, on-board Flash storage for their firmware and utilize the hard disk drive only for recording, so your DVR might continue to work even if it can’t store video any longer. 

My Camera’s Video is Choppy: 

If a real-time video from your CCTV camera appears choppy or suffers from visible tearing, it normally indicates a network issue. Video footage from IP cameras will appear choppy if the network does not actually have the bandwidth required to bring it. Analogue video signals normally don’t get choppy by themselves. If there’s a connection issue, it will manifest through flickering, sound or blackouts. Nevertheless, the video output of NVR or network-connected DVR boxes can become choppy due to a slow network, regardless of its source. Some of the things you can check are Inspecting your CCTV camera’s video settings and making sure that your network is quickly adequate to carry a video stream at the resolution and quality settings currently in use. A 4 MP, H.264-encoded video stream needs 8 Mbps of bandwidth per video camera. If you have a cordless CCTV camera with choppy video, make sure that the signal strength is adequate in the camera’s area. It’s insufficient for the CCTV camera to be near a Wi-Fi hotspot: high levels of RF disturbance can drown the Wi-Fi signal in radio sound, which leads to sluggish speeds and regular disconnects. If you have a wired CCTV camera, an NVR, or a DVR, inspect all cables (and specifically the shielding) for damage and ensure the cable you are utilizing is adequate for its length. A Cat-6 cable television, for example, can carry Gigabit signals over no greater than 100 meters. Make certain that the cable is routed far from sources of interference. Inspect your NVR’s deciphering ability and network connection. If the video stream exceeds your NVR’s decoding capabilities, a few of the frames might be skipped and lost, leading to choppy, jerky motion. If it has a network connection issue, some of the frames may be lost in transit- which, once again, leads to choppy videos.