DaveM

Guess I'm doing OK for a newcomer to the forum. I make my living fixing IP and telcom issues-CCTV is a hobby. Kind of expensive now, up to 3 Pelco PTZ, 2 DVR, 4 other cameras. Lots of wires and UPS. I even had to upgrade my internet to handle the bandwith! How would you reset the Admin password in an AVTech DVR if it was lost? You can set the keylock from the remote or keypads, but where would you do the network if you can't log into it?

A direct connection will probably need a cross-over cable. You might want to try using a hub or a switch. Make sure to set a fixed IP address on both the PC and the DVR. Something like 192.168.1.2 for the PC and 192.168.1.3 for the DVR (192.168.1.10 should be the default for the DVR, but don't assume it is set right). Set the netmask to 255.255.255.0. You can set the default route to 0.0.0.0 or 192.168.1.1. Make sure you set the LAN port on your PC to a speed the DVR can use. It may come up in GB and have lights but not be able to talk. Reboot both the PC and the DVR. If you are using a hub or switch you should see the link lights come on for both ports. From the PC you can then open a DOS window. Start/Run CMD. Enter the command ipconfig /all to see verify your current PC config. Enter Ping 192.168.1.3 (or whatever the IP of the DVR is set to). This will verify that the network is good. If you can't ping, something is set wrong or burned out. Make sure the DVR is set to use port 80. Next try going to the web page http://192.168.1.3 and see if you can get in. If you get a web page, see if you can log in. You may need to load the Java update if you have never done it. If you get the page, but can't log in here, then you might have a user/password issue. If you have lost the network password, I think you will need to do a factory reset. Scorpion would be a good person to check in with in that case. If you can get in via the Web Browser, then try Video Server E again. If you can't get in make sure it is the right app for your DVR, and that you have the port settings right. These are the basics, give them a try. Dave

Your story reminds me of my 8th grade electronics shop. We built a 1 tube AM radio with a handful of parts. The guy next to me wired the 3" tall metal electrolitic capacitor up backwards. When he plugged it in, it exploded sending the can up through the ceiling tiles to rattle around, and coating him in a sticky smelly paper mess. Great times!

Be careful here. I tried to wire my alarm panel into my 761, and 12V from the panel blew out the main board. I have come to understand that High means open circuit and Low means closed circuit. It would be best to have your alarm panel activate a relay (you can get them from Radio Shack) and run the contacts to the DVR between the alarm input and ground. I prefer to use a normally closed contact that will open when the alarm activates. This way your DVR will be in alarm if a wire comes loose. I also helps prevent noise on an open pair from tripping the DVR. It could be that my DVR was bad to begin with, but I wasn't going to take a chance with the replacement. My heart sank when the the screen went blank, smoke came out of the DVR, and the beeper went on solid. One of the little chips on the motherboard had a hole blown in it. Scorpion is a dealer and probably has easier access to replacement parts. I would be real interested to see what happens if he puts 12V battery into the input.

Scorpion-you are right. I downloaded the new version 0.0.9.3 version of the viewer, and it does work with my older 761. Email images are available from Miscellaneous Control, Server Settings, General, Trigger. I haven't tried it, but looks to be the same menu I used before. Dave

Without the technical knowledge of how the DVR stores the data, or help from the manufacturer, you are probably out of luck. The utilities for Windows recovery are designed for a standard file system that is used on millions of computers. If you knew about the damage before re-installing the disk you might have been able to fix those sectors up, but it looks like the disk was cleared by the DVR. A data recovery company might be able to help, but they are very expensive. If you are really good with computers (expert) and have a lot of time on your hands you could give it a shot. Before you do anything with the disk, I would clone it using something like Ghost. I guess I'm saying with enough money and time almost anything can be done, but is it worth it? You can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_editor to find out about disk editor software. Dave

You should be able to go into Video Server E, system settings, Alarm and enable the alarm trigger to send you pics via email. I get Jpeg attachments.

Although I am not an AVTech expert, I am pretty sure I know what happened. Windows will write a disk signature when it detects a new disk. The 4-byte signature is located at offset 0x1b8 from the start of the Master Boot Record (physical sector 0). AVTech, and others (ICRealtime Pro for instance) do not partition the disk the way a standard operating system would. They seem to write to the raw disk. If one were to use a disk sector editor and put those bytes back where they were, then the disk should be usable again. That value should be all zero's, but could be verified by checking a good DVR disk. The bad news is that it sounds like the DVR went ahead and setup the disk again when you put it back in. In that case all the indexes would have been wiped clear. It would take someone with detailed knowledge of the AVTech file structure to recover it then. Dave

I split off the coax as mentioned above, and then feed each camera into a Channel Plus video modulator, putting each camera onto a separate TV channel. The output is fed into the house cable TV run, and I can see the cameras from any TV in the house. I had to put a "trap" into the cable TV feed to give me some blank channels I could use. If you have a video card with a TV output, you can also feed your PC display back into the cable TV with a modulator. Note that you will loose some quality in the conversion to RF.

Hello all, I am a home owner who has gone from a single old BW Tube camera tied to the TV set, to a full blown ICRealtime system with 3 Pelco Spectra cameras among others that are tied into the network as well as the cable system through the house over the course of about 10 years. I have been following this forum for about a year and a half now, and have really learned a lot. I will be making some posts aimed mainly at the newcomers with what I have learned in the process. Most of the professionals and old timers will probably know this stuff. I am currently having hardware problems with my ICRealtime Pro 8 channel unit. Getting support has been a real challenge, and a return phone call almost impossible. I did finally get an RMA and have sent the unit in for repair. I will be posting my end user experiences with this product as well. Dave Macchia

I had similar issues with the same recorder at my home. If I used the motion detection I had so many events logged I couldn't find the ones where people activated them. Leaves blowing, rain, and even shadows moving activated it. What I ended up doing was leaving the motion detection on, but adding waterproof infrared sensors in the key areas. Both will activate the recording, but the sensors show up in the log as "alarm" so I can go right to the important event, but I still have the other "noise" events to see what happened before and after. They connect up to the DB-25 connector. Make sure to connect them between the input and ground only, the docs aren't real clear on that. I have a 500 gb hard drive in it, and I was getting 2 months+ of recording at highest quality, but it is pretty quiet around here. Dave

Hello All, I am a new member, but have been lurking for a year or so. I have one camera input doing just what you want, but it was just an afterthought since I had and extra input I wasn't using. I have an Oregon Scientific WMR968 weather station. It can interface to a PC with the right software, I use Weather Display, there are others. It is running on an old PC 24/7, and I have a video card with a TV output. I just leave the PC display showing the screen I want and feed it into a channel input. The PC also uploads to my personal website to give me detailed weather info, as well as providing data to a world-wide personal weather station network. As I said, the weather station already existed so this might be overkill for your purpose. It shows rain/wind/temp as well as keeping a history. Dave