Can anyone tell me why the first three seconds of my videos are black and can that be changed?

[harshalom]

All of my video recordings start with about 3 seconds of black. I am wondering why this is and whether or not it can be eliminated.

[StephenB]

• Can you tell us what camera model you have?
• Is this only happening with night recordings (or recordings made in a dark space)?
• Is the camera AC powered?

[harshalom]

The cameras are the PRO models. This does happen both during the day and at night. The cameras are not AC powered. Thanks for your reply.

[StephenB]

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@harshalom wrote:

The cameras are the PRO models. This does happen both during the day and at night. The cameras are not AC powered. 

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With my own cameras, Nightvision sometimes takes a while to kick in.  Also with Pro 2s and and later, when the camera is AC powered there is a 3 second lookback (and Nightvision might not be on during the lookback).  The LED takes about a second to turn on (typical with LED bulbs).

But none of those possibililities apply to a Pro camera during daylight.  Does this happen every single time?  If not, about how often?

[harshalom]

Yes it does. However, it seems as if the daylight black screen time is shorter than the night screen by about a second. Question: What is the look back feature that you mentioned? Is it only available if they are AC powered? I really appreciate your help.

[StephenB]

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@harshalom wrote:

Question: What is the look back feature that you mentioned? Is it only available if they are AC powered? I really appreciate your help.

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When the camera is AC powered it is always capturing video, and stores the previous 3 seconds in the camera.  Then when motion is detected, it includes the previous 3 seconds in the stream (providing the look back).  

This can't be done on battery, as continuously capturing the video would drain the battery very quickly.

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@harshalom wrote:

Yes it does. However, it seems as if the daylight black screen time is shorter than the night screen by about a second. 

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This sounds very unusual to me.  You might want to contact support:  https://www.arlo.com/en-us/support/contact.aspx

@JamesC - have you folks seen this issue before?