How to trouble shoot "Video Lost"

A Video lost can be caused by several issues
( in order of most likely cause )


Electrical "brown-out"
- A brown -out is a voltage drop that causes the camera to turn off due to low voltage. The camera may not always come back as the voltage returns to normal.

To fix this - turn off, then on the power to the camera transformer. This gives a full power on to the camera.

A much better solution is to connect all transformers and computer to a Battery backup that has "AVR - automatic voltage regulation". This is very highly recommend anyway for various other reasons.

see -> Belkin Battery Backup with - AVR


Lose connections
- Remove and re-attach the cable on both ends (camera and computer) for both the video and power connections


Bad Transformer (Power Supply) - At the computer end of the cable - swap the power connector from a "good" camera with your "bad" camera. If your bad camera comes back on with the new power supply - then the original power supply is bad.
The power supply is a -> 12 Volt 500MA. See Radio Shack or Video Observation for new ones.


Bad cable or camera
We need to see if the cable is bad or the camera is bad.
Start by testing the camera directly to the back of the computer.

- to test, disconnect the camera from cable, unscrew from mount - connect the camera directly to the back of the computer using a
test cable from Radio Shack (Model: 278-0990 , Catalog #: 278-990) can be used for this test cable. Any BNC to BNC cable will work.


or test adaptor (available free from Video Observation and sent with all orders)

Its a small connector actually made up of 3 small parts connected together.
As you can see the ends are BNC - BNC used for both the camera connection and computer connection. This allows you to test the camera and computer without the cable.

- be sure to connect the camera to the power supply.

Now for the test......

If the video comes on with the test cable or adaptor - then the camera is GOOD and the the 100 ft cable is bad.

If the video does not come on - then the camera is bad. In either case contact Video Observation.