masterofnone

Terrific help. Thank you very much. I guess it didn't make sense to me that it would be snow/rain since I thought I had seen it when there was none. But now that you've explained it I assume it was an occaisional blowing snow flake. That leaves me with a little bit of a problem since I can't put the cameras under an eve (they are on a dog house). It also wouldn't be possible to mount a separate IR source since this is a low budget operation and I haven't seen any low budget outdoor cameras with night vision but without built-in IR. I guess I'll have to live without the email surveillance capability. If something happens I'll merely have to go back and review the thousands of video clips made if the event occurs when it's raining/snowing. Jim Young

Thanks for the reply, Mike. I am using coax cable bought from Radio Shack. I got the cables from the audio section if that makes a difference. I then have to use a bnc to RCA converter because the DVR board has RCA connectors. I do not know if the cables are solid copper core or not. If you have recommendations for a source for cables I would probably order new ones. There are 3 cameras. Each camera has it's own 12vdc transformer. One camera does not seem to have the problem but it doesn't have as many IR LEDs. I think you are right about it possibly being a power issue, Mike. After reading hundreds of posts on this forum I would be inclined to agree with you. Specifically not enough power. That would explain why the day pictures are rock solid and the night pictures have the problem - because the IR LEDs kick in. I guess it's still somewhat of a mystery as to why 4 or 5 frames will be ok and then the 6th one will be all messed up. I'm attaching another picture with lots of the distortions.

I have a couple different brands of cheap cameras with day and IR capability. The day pictures are perfect. For the most part, the night time pictures are ok but there are these distortions that look like lightning or lighted rain or something that occaisionally creep in. It messes up my surveillance. Here's a couple pictures with and without the distortions: