Soundy 1 Posted July 4, 2009 Okay, I've recently inherited a client with a number of Geo systems, so I'm trying to get up to speed on these things. I won't get into my thoughts on the whole interface right now, maybe it'll grow on me after a while *coff coff*... but I've run into a weird issue and I'm wondering if this is endemic to this system. We had a camera out on this site (#11), an outdoor dome, that one of our other techs replaced a couple weeks ago. A few days later, the site started calling that TWO cameras were out. I got on site to find #11 was gone again... and #15, right below it on a 4x4 grid. When I pulled the machine away from the wall, though, both came back... but #11 was really noisy, and would intermittently drop out again... and every time it did, #15 dropped with it. Figuring it was bad connections at the back of the machine, I did a little more troubleshooting swapping cables around (to verify whether it was the coax terminations or the the octopus) and found that when I moved #11 to #12, #16 would drop out with #12(!!??) Another odd thing I noticed about it was then if I rebooted while the cameras were out, #3 and #7 (same column on the 4x4) came up black and took forever to show a picture. So, I re-terminated the coax (bloody aluminum-braid RG59), to no avail... then I decided to check the camera... and found that the original install, for some reason, had an outdoor splice point. Great. Unwrapped that, re-terminated both ends... and found I had a good clean signal and no more dropouts. Okay, so here's the thing: is this common to Geo, that noise on one channel affects adjacent channels? This whole time, the machine has been rebooting regularly as well, when the cameras were out... something about a watchdog thread not responding, trying to restart the program, then restarting the machine... that seems pretty messed up to me, that the whole machine reboots itself in attempt to solve a video loss?? Or is this just something with an older version of the hardware? Or...??? Yeah, okay, it's part rant too - bloody thing drove me nuts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted July 4, 2009 Sounds like you need an Isolated Power supply. That should fix any noise problems. It would be a ground issue if anything. The watchdog reboot can be disabled BTW. Also, what version of Geo is there, as some older versions were pretty awful. Believe it or not, even with all of its own issues, Geo is still one of the best card/interfaces out there .. ive used many and most just suck. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted July 4, 2009 It is a central 12VDC power supply, I'm told, but I have yet to dig it out from its home behind a filing cabinet. However, simply re-terminating the outdoor connections cleared up the problem with the noisy camera and so far, with the random dropouts to cams 11/15, so I'm chalking the root of this problem up to a corroded, poorly-sealed connector. The weird thing for me, is how noise on ONE channel can affect THREE other adjacent channels, and cause two of them to drop out entirely. In five years of dealing with the ComArt cards used in Video Insight and Vigil systems, I have never seen an instance where noise/weak signal/dropouts on one channel affect anything other than that one channel. I don't have the version info handy for this system, but I believe it's been in place for some years; I don't know when or even if it received regular updates. However, I don't see how this kind of behaviour would be software-related... it looks to me like something related to the hardware, possibly a shared buss on those four channels or something. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted July 4, 2009 Did you use Aluminum shield on your other systems? Ive even seen this happen on GE (Kalatel) Stand alone systems in the past; ground related. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted July 4, 2009 I've NEVER used aluminum shield, except once when we subbed a couple satellite installs and the suppliers sent us aluminum-wrapped RG6. This is an inherited system for a client we've recently taken over... we've just quoted to replace the Geo with a Vigil and a ton of NAS, to match the new spec we've used on some of their other sites, and add some IP cameras to the store, although with the current economic clime, we're not too hopeful it will go through. I'm dreading how much more of this aluminum stuff I'll run into. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kensplace 0 Posted July 5, 2009 I have seen a bad signal on one channel knock out some others on my 1480 system, I have so far only noticed on cams connected via baluns (where one of the wires has a bad connection, or its wired back to front etc) - I think it also happened with a wireless cam once... There is definately some issue though on the 1480 card with channels being able to affect other channels. Not had any problem with reboots though... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeromephone 6 Posted July 5, 2009 I have seen ground loops affect several cameras at once. Isolated power supplies have soved many of these problems. You mention cheap cable We like everyone else try to make as much as possible on a sale and to try and save 50.00 on cable is crazy. The other installer may have made some money on the install but he lost the customer. You might be better off in the long run to use the old cable as a pull string and replace it. Geo has problems but it sounds like a garfed install is the bigger issue. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted July 5, 2009 Well, like I said, this wasn't a ground loop, it was just poor/noisy signal caused by a bad connection. Noise on one channel should NOT be affecting the stability of other channels, especially not THREE other channels. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jeromephone 6 Posted July 6, 2009 Do you have everything grounded? Power supply rack if rack mounted ? You are right it should not affect the other cameras but we are grounding every piece of rack mounted equipment along with the racks that we install. It is a seperate ground wire to an earth ground or the steel structure of the building. This may not solve anything but it is worth looking at. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cctv_down_under 0 Posted July 6, 2009 It depends on the model and age of the Geo card, however one chip controls 4 x camera inputs and multiplexes the signal, therefore if you are getting a return on one camera it can indeed affect three others. It also depends if the card has a Hint Bridge controller or not, IE if it is a GV650 or below. The rebooting issue can be disabled and is actually floored in some versions of the software so I would recomend an upgrade the version that is newest that the card supports - be careful though as not all cards can have the latest version - I beleive there is software to test the card for what version you can have. Check that the cameras are grounded properly, I have seen this happen with PTZ's a bit because people mount them on Metal material and do not ground the device, try placing a small peice of rubber between the metal wall (if that is the case) and the PTZ or Camera bracket. To test you could disconnect the 485 wire and touch the bnc against the PC case - assuming it is grounded if it has any affect on the video then you may be getting a problem. Lastly if you are able to upgrade the card to the latest software you could add IP cameras to the system without changing the DVR itself. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted July 6, 2009 Do you have everything grounded? Power supply rack if rack mounted ? You are right it should not affect the other cameras but we are grounding every piece of rack mounted equipment along with the racks that we install. It is a seperate ground wire to an earth ground or the steel structure of the building. This may not solve anything but it is worth looking at. Well, again, the problem was already solved by replacing a corroded outdoor BNC. No, nothing here is grounded that I can tell. As stated before, I don't even know for sure where the camera power supply is (I'm told it's behind a filing cabinet; I haven't looked yet). As I've said, I just inherited this site. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted July 6, 2009 It depends on the model and age of the Geo card, however one chip controls 4 x camera inputs and multiplexes the signal, therefore if you are getting a return on one camera it can indeed affect three others. That's kinda wacky - I've never seen that on the ComArt-based Vigil and Video Insight systems, not even with the old HiCap50 carts. The rebooting issue can be disabled and is actually floored in some versions of the software so I would recomend an upgrade the version that is newest that the card supports - be careful though as not all cards can have the latest version - I beleive there is software to test the card for what version you can have. I'll run that by the client as well... what's the typical upgrade cost on GV? I don't have a copy of ANY version of the software yet... Check that the cameras are grounded properly, I have seen this happen with PTZ's a bit because people mount them on Metal material and do not ground the device, try placing a small peice of rubber between the metal wall (if that is the case) and the PTZ or Camera bracket.To test you could disconnect the 485 wire and touch the bnc against the PC case - assuming it is grounded if it has any affect on the video then you may be getting a problem. No PTZs... there are four or five CP484s, the rest (up to the full 16) are cheapie no-name IR domes. Lastly if you are able to upgrade the card to the latest software you could add IP cameras to the system without changing the DVR itself. Well, if we do get the bid to upgrade, it will include the Vigil system - it's their new "corporate standard" and is much preferred by their IT guy (who we mostly deal with)... plus they're already at 16 cameras, so even if we do add some IP cams, we'll also be re-aiming/re-purposing/re-locating all the existing camera positions (and hopefully simply replacing outright the POS B&W no-name IR domes), and we'll need to go to a 32-channel setup. But I'll mention the GV software updates to him and see if he wants to go that route should the bean counters intervene on the full system update. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cctv_down_under 0 Posted July 6, 2009 That's kinda wacky - I've never seen that on the ComArt-based Vigil and Video Insight systems, not even with the old HiCap50 carts. Actually that is consistent with 90% of all cards in the market, 16 cameras = 4 x 25FPS (PAL) chips.....well it used to be anyhow - I haven't mucked around with cards for a while and obviously there is now hardware compression chips which would differ, but even the Comart Systems Korea cards used to be this way, different Hint Bridge though. I'll run that by the client as well... what's the typical upgrade cost on GV? I don't have a copy of ANY version of the software yet... Usually Geo upgrades are free or reasonably cheap but that depends from which version you are going to and if you plan to use IP cameras or not - again some upgrades require hardware dongle change, really depends what version you are running. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
