If you have lost video of your surveillance system then there are a few things that you can check yourself before you have to call out a technition.
These tips are for the Do It Yourself (DIY) crowd.
Take a piece of paper, and draw a picture of all of the wires. Show where they come from, and where they go. Check with the manuals that come with your products.
If your power went out, and you lost video then we will try some various techniques.
Find the power cord to your DVR. Unplug it, and count to 10, and then replug it back in. Some DVRs may "lock up". You may not be able to turn the power button off, or on. When you press camera selections it will not switch, or the lights on your DVR are not lit up to what you are normally seeing. If the DVR does not work after this technique then you will need to seek professional help.
IF YOU ARE USING A VCR TO RECORD YOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE CAMERA:
Lets start with your TV. If the VCR is plugged in to one of the yellow connectors (composite input) on your TV, then it is possible that the TV went back to the cable connector selection rather then the composite input.
On some TVs to activate the composite signal it is a simple as pressing the channel down button until you get to channel 2. When you press the down button one more time this will activate the AUX, or GAME input. This should bring back your video. If it does not, then you may have to find the remote control to the TV, and you will have to find a button that is marked as one of the following:
SOURCE, or INPUT, Aux, or the button may be marked as GAME. Press this button, and it should reactivate your composite signal input. For those TVs with multiple inputs, you may have to press this button several times. You will see an On Screen Display (OSD), and it will show you input 1, input 2, input 3, input 4, and so forth. It may show High Definition 1 (HD), High Definition 2, S video, Composite 1, and Composite 2. Keep pressing your button until the composite is highlighted. On some TVs you may have to press a "select" button after you have highlighted composite.
http://www.swannsurveillance.com/webfiles/download/567input_selects.pdf
You may have to reset your VCR also.
The VCR may have switched back to the cable input when the power went out. Press the channel down button until you get to channel 2, then press the down button one more time. This should activate the composite input, or the yellow connector on the back of you VCR. If this does not work you will have to find the remote control to the VCR. You will have to find the button that will switch on the composite input. It may be marked as source, input, or game, or aux.
In some cases you may be able to press the TV/VCR button on the VCR.
If you are still having problems with a DVR that is attached to a VCR, that is attached to a TV, then lets take the DVR output, and go directly to the TV. If you have the video of your DVR, then the problem is with the VCR settings.
If you have just a VCR hooked up to a TV, then take the camera cable, and hook it up to the TV. If you have video of the camera then the VCR is the problem.
If you are using a multiplexor then you may have to unplug the multiplexor, count to 10 then replug it in.
Take the multiplexor video output, and hook it up to the TV directly to see if you can see the video from the multiplexor.
I hope this has been of some help!
Scorpion
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