Threezzzs

Hello TopChips, Many thanks for your response. Yes, the image you included is just what I'm getting, but I don't have digital zoom on. (In fact, I don't think that option is included. If it is, I can't find it on the OSD.) Regarding the lens, it's as supplied and is a 2.8/12mm (2Mpx) objective on a 1/3" Sony Exmor sensor. Other salient details that I have been able to translate are switchable analogue, horizontal lines (2000), AHD-H, 1920 x 1080, PAL/NTSC, IR LED - 40m etc. Without doubt, it's a good quality image, but not suited to our particular purpose, which is a fairly narrow road next to our house. In other words, a narrow field of view would have been better, methinks! I can put up with the very slight curve in the picture when set at its current 50% position. But the vertical stretch is hard to live with; cars appear overly tall, people strecthed and so on. I'm assuming, then, that adjustment of same is not possible? Good of you to have responded anyway. Sincere thanks for your help. Best regards,

Hello again, I have just bought and installed an ECL-578, Compact Outdoor Super Bullet CCTV Cam with integral OSD (retailed by a Polish firm named Kenik, but sold by others in other countries, too). After a lot of fiddling at the top of a ladder with the so-called 'joy-stick' (a truly questionable design concept), and while using a 'phone to my wife at the monitor end, we eventually arrived at a decent quality image. But there are issues and I'm not sure if they are the norm. Firstly, when set at the zoom distance that best suits out needs (about 15m away and about half-way along the zoom spectrum), the peripheral views are deformed into what I can only describe as a fish-eye view. When zoomed fully onto the target (i.e. 100% zoom in), the side of our house is perpendicular and not deformed. As I zoom back, however, each incremental step introduces a curve into the vertical 'Tudor' planks on the wall of our house. When zoomed back fully, those same boards are curved almost into a radius. Because the best setting for our needs is about half-way, the deformation is not terrible, and we can live with that if needs be. But the second aspect of my query is that everything in the picture is stretched vertically. I have been through the camera's OSD in fine detail and, after two hours of yet more fiddling atop the ladder, I decided to eliminate any potential cabling/connection issues by removing the camera and setting it up next to the DVR. The reults were the same. A good, bright picture resolution, but stretched vertically, and a 'fish-eye' distortion whenever the focal object is anything more than about 5m. I should add that ours is an analogue system that now contains a new, high-quality DVR. Upon installation of the camera, the mini-joystick on the camera had to be switched to the Analogue mode in order to see a picture and to access the OSD. This aspect worked fine and without issue. But I really want to know whether the 'fish-eye' aspect is the norm, but especially, how to 'shrink' the picture such that the people and cars it sees are not stretched vertically. (Examaple images available, if required.) Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Best regards to each.

Greetings. I've had a 4-channel (H.264) DVR/Camera system that has worked well since 2013. A couple of weeks ago, however, a lightning strike in our area damaged the telecoms splitter in our home and, worse, fried the ethernet port at the back of the DVR. Remarkably, the DVR continued to function in every respect other than connect to our LAN. Rather than attempt a repair, we bought another H.264 DVR, but of a different make and from a different supplier. It's important to note that until the moment I removed the old DVR, picture quality, PTZ control etc all continued to operate as before; i.e. without issue. Upon installation of the new DVR, however, a couple of issues have arisen. Firstly, all four channels display a narrow, non-moving vertical bar of colour on the left-hand side of each frame. The images are the same whether viewed directly from the DVR via HDMI to monitor, VGA to monitor, remotely to PC via web-client. The bar is about a centimetre wide and is best described as prismatic (rainbow-like), in that the colours range from green through red. Note that bar and colours are stationary; they do not move in any sense, and so I doubt they are due to interference. Those who recall the video colour overlay problems sometimes encountered on the old VHS recorders will have an idea of the bars I'm trying to describe. The second issue leaves me even more baffled. Two of the four cameras are PTZ cams; one a Samsung Mini-Dome, the other a rather expensive and very large Dome Cam (30x zoom etc). All of the cams, cabling, connections etc are exactly as they were prior to swapping the DVRs; nothing has changed at all. However, when I attempt to move Cam-1 (PTZ) at the DVR, both cameras mirror that movement. When I access the same cams remotely (i.e. from our lap-tops), the PTZ cams operate individually and correctly in every sense. The PTZs are operating on Pelco-D, Baud Rate 2400, addresses, 001 and 002 respectively. After much discussion with the vendor, we returned the DVR on the premise that it must be faulty, and have just installed an identical model. Unfortunately, this DVR has the same issues. In fact, the vertical coloured bar is even more pronounced on this DVR on one of the channel frames. No amount of adjustment of frame rates, video quality settings etc yield change. Now set at D1, Best, 25fps, the resolution is OK, but the vertical bar remains on the left-hand side of each video channel (it's about a cm wide). And, as with the other DVR, I can not control the PTZs individually if I try to move them at the DVR, but again, they work fine remotely. Finally, when I put the 'old' DVR back in, the picture quality is back to normal, the PTZs operate correctly, and all without the vertical colour bar! Any and all advice would be very welcome. Thanks in anticipation.

Your advice gratefully received. I suppose you're confirming what I already suspected deep down, especially since the original DVR functioned flawlessly beforehand. Sincere thanks to all respondees.