Video Management System Service and Repair

Usually yes, and the answer is normally recoverable from the system itself. We look at whether the camera was online for that period, whether the archiver was writing, whether the recording schedule or motion configuration covered that time of day, whether disk write errors or a full volume interrupted recording, and whether retention had simply already rolled past it.

The audit and event history often shows the exact date the behaviour changed, and just as often shows a configuration change made by someone with the best of intentions. Whether the footage itself can be recovered depends on what happened to it, and we will tell you plainly if it cannot.

Cameras that fail together are almost always sharing something, and it is rarely the cameras. The common factors are a switch or a switch stack, a PoE power budget that is exceeded when all devices draw at once, an uplink that saturates at a particular time of day, a VLAN or multicast configuration problem, or an environmental issue in one closet such as a failing UPS or heat.

Physical location can be misleading. Cameras on four floors may all be homed to the same intermediate distribution frame. We map the affected devices back to their switch ports and uplinks first, which usually makes the pattern obvious in a way the floor plan does not.

Because retention is the result of a calculation, not a value the system guarantees. If bitrate has gone up since commissioning, or cameras have been added without storage, or a scene has become busier, the system writes more data per day and the same disks hold fewer days.

We measure the actual bitrate each stream is writing and compare it against usable capacity, then give you the real figure. Bringing it back to policy is often a configuration exercise rather than a purchase, and where storage genuinely has to be added we size it against the measurement.

Not by itself. Recorded video lives on the storage attached to that archiver, so an archiver server failure interrupts new recording but does not erase what is already written. The recordings are usually recoverable once the server, or a replacement pointed at the same storage, is brought back and reassociated with the system.

Real loss happens in two other situations: the storage itself failed rather than the server, or the archiver was down for long enough that the period you needed was never recorded in the first place. The second is far more common, which is why unnoticed archiver downtime is one of the specific things we check for.

Yes. Where the cable, bracket and mounting position are already in place and serviceable, replacing a camera is service work: remove the failed device, fit the replacement, address and configure it, set focus and field of view, add it to the recording platform, confirm the recording schedule and retention, and verify that video is written and can be played back.

What we do not do is create a new camera position. A new location needs cable pulled, and in most cases drilling or conduit, which is electrical or cabling contractor work. We will tell you that up front rather than treating it as part of the service call.

No, and it is often the fastest route to a fix. Video faults frequently sit on the network side, so we would rather work with the people who own the switches than around them. We come with specific requests: port counters for named devices, PoE budget on given switches, VLAN and multicast configuration for the video segment, and firewall rules between camera, archiver and directory servers.

Any change we need on the security side is documented and scheduled through your change process. If the fault turns out to be entirely within the network, we will say so and hand your IT team the evidence rather than continuing to bill for video work.