Q1. What do the front panel Light (LED) flashes mean?
A. The table below describes the DVR’s front panel status LED.

Operation

Status Lamp Operation

Description

Ready

Static green

The DVR is ready to record.  Video and card OK.

Video OK, No Card

Flashing long red / short green

In stand-by or unable to record with card not present or full.  Video input OK.  If card present, reformat with FAT32

No Video, Card OK

Flashing long green / short red

In stand-by (or unable to record) with video not present but card OK.  Check Camera connection & power or check PAL / NTSC setting OK

No Video, No Card

Fast flashing red

Unable to record.  Video and card not present or full, or system fault.

PC Connected

Flashing equally green / red (0.5s red / 0.5s green)

DVR is under external control of the Configuration Utility.

Rec.  100%

Flashing green External Recording Lamp also illuminated

Recording OK.  The longer the green flash the greater the memory remaining.  With a new card the Status Lamp will flash for approx. 2.7 seconds on : 0.3 off.  50% remaining, lamp flashes 1.5 sec on : 1.5 off.  10% remaining lamp flashes for 0.3 sec on : 2.7 off.

Mem.   50%

Remain.  10%

Recording, No Video

Fast flashing green / red

Recording but video is not present, audio only is being recorded.

Resetting or Busy

Static red

System reset / preparing to record or card format.

Q2. What do the on screen display messages mean?
A. The table below describes the DVR’s, On Screen Display (OSD) messages.

Note: These messages are available only on the recorded video & are not applied to the video monitor signal.

Our experience so far with VBR is :

• The VBR version needs very fast memory cards.
  
• Sometimes even the recommended cards have a small % of sectors that don't work & these will cause pixellation in the video picture.
  
• Unfortunately you can't even be sure that once you have found a good one it will remain OK. This is because some manufacturers have a wear levelling scheme which moves (re-allocates) file locations each time a new file is made.

Q4. Do you recommend a CF Card or PCMCIA card for use with this unit?
A.  Both types of media has its good & bad points. Generally the following is true:

• PCMCIA for:     Ruggedness = Best temperature & Vibration spec.
  
• CF for:              Read speed & low price.
  

Generally cards with greater than a x25 write speed (>4MB/s) will work, but read the answers to Q5 for reasons why they may not.

Note: Card manufactures usually quote the read speed for a card, which can be 10 to 20 times faster than the write speed. So take care to choose a card with a fast write speed.

Q5. What causes the picture to Pixellate (Pixellation)?
A. This can be caused if the memory card write speed is insufficient. Memory card speed is related to the byte locations, hence pixelation will tend to be at the same location on the card. e.g. Pixellation occurs 5 mins from the start of the card.

Notes:

• Static pictures are less likely to pixellate than a full action video picture, especially if recorded in Variable Bit Rate (VBR) mode.
• Memory cards that have a wear-levelling scheme will pixellate at a different location each time a new file is created.

Q6. How can I speed up the video file transfer into my PC?

A. PCMCIA ports on PCs tend to be much slower than a USB2 based reader or a dedicated CF slot. All PC are different so try the available options to find out which is best on your PC.

Q7. What can I do if memory card media is not recognised by the DVR?

Answers:-
a) With the card in the PC check that the card is Formatted with ‘FAT-32’ & the sector size is set to ‘Default’. If the card is Not FAT-32, then Re-Format.

b) The DVR should not be switched off, or the memory card removed from the DVR, when recording is active as this can create corrupted files.

Use the PC, ScanDisk utility, set to 'Fix errors automatically', to check for errors on the memory card. 

Note: May succeed on the original file but will not work on a copy of the file.
If this does not recover the file then re-format the media with FAT-32 and try another recording.

Make sure that the recording is stopped at least 2 seconds before the DVR is switched off and the card removed.

c) Check that the memory card is at least 512Mbytes, Smaller cards are formatted with a sector size that is too small for the DVR.

d) Set the DVR back to 'factory defaults', & then re-program with your required configuration.

Now see if the DVR will recognise your media & records successfully.

e) Sometimes the video file format is not recognised by the media player.

1. Try downloading a new ‘Codec’ from the Web. or use a different media player.
2. Use different settings on the DVR for video picture size and quality.