jabaroon

Hi Scorpion, If I set the DVR to NOT record, then everything works fine. Its only once I set it to record that the problem occurrs. I presume your suggestion of disconnecting the HD below would be equivalent. I might just source/borrow a new HD and ribbon cable just to see how it performs. Interestingly, it appears to be a 4ch DVR, not a 16. The model is Not AVC, its AV777M. Printed on the mobo is: AVTech AV777M 2003-APR-17 I was browsing around the site looking for manuals to see if there was anything to trouble shoot the problem I was having, but all references to anything 777 were for a 16ch unit. Mine is defo a 4ch! Maybe its an older line or something? Cheers, Jab

Hi All, I have an AV-777m that is a 4 channel slim DVR with a 160gb HD installed. As soon as I started using it, I noticed that it would hang after about 30-60 seconds of recording. Basically, as soon as it powers up, it starts recording and after about 30-60 seconds a message appears on the screen saying "Primary Hard Disk", "Detecting." or something similar! Its like it has lost its connection with the HD and it is trying to re-establish it. Once this message pops onto the screen, it stay for about a second and then dissappears. From this point forward all controls and the display have stopped working. You have to pull the plug to get it back running again. I have tried formating the harddrive using the internal menus, I have tried a system reset using the internal menus. I have confirmed that the IDE ribbon lead is ok and that the master/slave jumpers on the HDD are correct. Any other suggestions?! Thanks, Jab

hi, thanks for the info. is there any way to test the hd? also, any recomendations based on your experience for a better dvr in case I need to replace. Internet viewing is important to me!

Hi, Thanks for the reply. The machine is about 2 years old. I have only seen this problem happen twice in the last 2 or so months. I may have happened before, but I never spotted it until now. It doesnt matter if I go through front panel or through Video E server, in both cases, all displays show black (no video). I have only one hard drive and it is set as the master on the master (as far as I recall). This has not been changed since delivery. Dont know about overheating. Its in a fairly well ventelated area with only a single HD (320gb). I can pull it out and give it a good dusting out maybe that would help? Any other suggestions? I think its pretty poor of Avtech not to flag an error in these situations. You would think for such applications, there would be some sort of write confirm process or sampling. Cheers, Jab

Also noticed that the GB free in the top right of the screen was showing a mere 6gb remaining. However have overwrite on. Thinking about it, I seem to always have only something in the region of 5-6gb free....this doesnt really make much sense with overwrite on? Anyway....decided to delete the HD totally and am now back up to 363gb free.... Any ideas?

Hi All, Am very frustrated at the moment. Twice recently I have had cause to look back over footage recorded by my AVTech avc785. The first time, entered the time frame manually to the previous day time and found that no matter what time I choose, the picture on all cameras was black. I subsequently decided that the CTRL+ALT+DEL approach might be necessarry, do powered on and off the device. For the next few days I deliberatley logged in randomly to Video Server E to check if things were recording....yes, all seemed fine. Now, again today, I have cause to check yesterdays footage. Guess what?....Search for anytime in the past and all I get is a black screen on all cameras. I cannot verbalise my frustration at AVTech. Anyone any suggestions as to what is wrong? Cheers, Jab

Hi Scorpion, Sorry for the delay in replying. I was away for a few days. I now believe that I have the source of the problem. When I try to access the DVR's in-built web-server from a location off the subnet where the DVR is located (or more specficially, from a NAT'd location on the internet), I get the following error after trying to login to the DVR: "The requested URL was not found on this server" This is a response from the DVR web-server, NOT from anything else in the traffic loop. I now believe that the reason for this is as follows: In the HTML for the login page of the DVR, there is a hidden form parameter called: On the submit action for the login event, the following javascript is run: function apply() { var url; ur1 = window.document.URL; form1.url.value = ur1; document.form1.submit(); } It takes the browser URL [Lets call this the EXTERNAL url] and passes this as a parameter to the CGI webserver in form1.url Presumably the CGI tries to connect to this URL or uses this as a relative path somehow. This is all fine if you are on the INTERNAL network as the DVR box will be able to access the URL typed into the browser (eg: 192.168.1.xxx). However, if you are trying to login from an external location, the URL in your browser will look something more like: www.mycameras.com/... This EXTERNAL url will not necessairly be accessible behind a NAT firewall where the DVR box is located! In essence, if you are NAT'ing your connection and/or more specifically doing any URL re-writing along the way at the apache layer, your AVTech DVR will have problems it would appear. Possible Solutions - Need advice here! 1) Download a copy of application.jar and write custom HTML/login pages to bypass the dodgey ones mentioned above. Anyone have any notes on parameters to pass to it etc? (to save me decompiling!) 2) Firmware upgrade?...would this solve it? 3) Is it possible to get a copy of the CGI script that is actually installed on the webserver within the DVR? That way I could confirm my theory [albeit that I am fairly certain!] 4) Is it possible to make my own firmware modifications. Specifically to the HTML.BIN file. Does anyone know how to explode the .BIN and then re-package it? Using a Hex editor, I can see a war/jar inside with all of the HTML that is needed! If I knew how to explode the BIN and repackage, I could create my own patched version of the HTML components that would correct the issue! Thoughts? THanks, Jab

Hi Scorpion, I was actually going to try new firmware to attempt to address the issue over on my other thread that you were looking at: http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=100455#100455 Not upgrading for the sake of it!...but by the sounds of what you are saying, an upgrade would leave me worse off! Cheers, Jab

Hi scorpion, I am using the inbuilt web server into the DVR, eg: http://ip-address-of-my-dvr/ Title of the browser reads --- VIDEO WEB SERVER --- I also use Video Server E, but in this case, I am trying to get the video web server mentioned above working from locations not on the same lan segment. As mentioned, its almost like the home.cgi script internally in the DVR webserver either has a bug in it or its deliberatley doing some sort of detection and rejecting the request (but cant imagine why). I did attempt to upload the latest firmware (ref: my other thread!), but also tried to see if I could extract the HTML.BIN file to examine the HTML / CGI to try and figure out what it might be doing! Havent managed to extract it successfully yet, but can see application.jar inside!! Any ideas?! Cheers, Jab

Hi All, Another question for anyone out there that has an AVTech or even better, an AVC875 model. I have it setup to allow remote connections from the local network so that you can login and view / control the cameras. Everything works fine normally on the local network. However, if I want to make it available to the outside world, I need to port forward from my gateway to the DVR. Simple you would think....but here's were things get whacky! Once I hit the login page, I enter username and password as normal. However immediatley I get an error response back from the DVR: "home.cgi was not found on this server" All of the paths and configurations are correct on the client side. Even inspecting the request from the browser through a proxy, I can clearly see that it is requesting the correct resource (eg: it exists). Therefore I conclude that it is the home.cgi script itself that is programatically generating the error response......but why?!?! Anyone else got any similar experiences or better still, a solution!! Cheers, Jab

Hi All, I have just been reading lots of posts on here as I feel that my DCR (although on 2 years old) is due a firmware upgrade! However, when I look here: http://weclonline.com/eng/res_firmware.asp (a link I got from this great site!) the latest firmware version appears to be 1066. However, when I look on my DVR, its version appears to be 1098. Is this correct? or am I looking at an old resource for Firmware or something!?! Cheers, Jab

Hi Scorpion, No, I havent yet managed to get a distribution amp im afraid! Jab

A distribution amp?....where would one acquire one of these! (or in my case, several of these!). Not looking to break the bank here, so budget on-line options welcomed!!! Thanks, Jab

Hi, this is certainly an option. Is there a particular type of splitter or would just a regular coax/satelite splitter do? Tx, Jab

Hi All, Bad news im afraid.... I tried plugging the cameras directly into the quad and it worked fine. Then tried using the DVR looped to the quad (as before) and the result was that some of the cameras had video loss, some got all fuzzy/jumpy. When tried switching to "high impedance" on the DVR (dip switches on the back) and then all of the cameras turned to either white screen or video loss?!?!?! Any suggestions? This is a little baffling! Thanks, Jab