Sentinel Onscreen Menus

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Question

What can I do with the Sentinel's onscreen menu?

Answer

Quite a lot of things.

The onscreen menus change the low-level, technical operation of the Sentinel camera. In most cases you do not need to change any of these settings.

Bringing Up The Menu

Press C1, C2, C3, or C4 to select the camera you want to control.
Press and hold Setup until the camera button light stays on. Release the setup button, then press and hold Setup again until the camera button stays on again.
Press the Right arrow button to bring up the onscreen menu.

When it’s open, the onscreen menu is displayed over the picture from the camera. Use the Up and Down arrow buttons to select items from the main menu. Use the Right arrow button to select a menu item and move into its sub-menu.

To exit the onscreen menu, press the Left arrow button until the menu disappears. Then press C1, C2, C3, or C4 as appropriate.
To discard all changes made in the onscreen menus and restore the default settings to the camera, select the PRESET submenu, and change the PRESET option to ON.
If you leave the onscreen menu open for a while without pressing any buttons on the remote, you will stop being able to control the menu. Follow the numbered steps above to enter the menu mode again. You can then close the menu by pressing the Left arrow button, or continue working with menu options.

Iris Settings

Iris settings control the amount of light let into the Sentinel camera. Changing these settings affect how bright your picture will be, and how the camera reacts to changes in lighting conditions.

PEAK:

This setting controls the reaction of the automatic iris adjustment in relation to the average light level in the picture. A higher level of peak sets the camera so that the automatic light controls adjust to a higher average light level.

ALC: Automatic Light Control determines whether the camera should adjust for light differences automatically or manually. If you set this to manual, you can set the level of lighting control that will be used.
AES: Automatic Exposure Setting selects whether to use automatic or manual exposure settings, how long the exposure should be. This affects

how fast the camera “sees” an image – a long exposure time lets more light in and could give you a clearer picture, but it will mean that motion is harder to see.

Backlight Compensation

Backlight compensation settings affect how the camera adjusts for light sources behind the camera’s view or focus. You can use this to adjust for the silhouette effect you might get when looking at things with light behind them.

BLC: Turns Backlight Compensation On or Off. Turning BLC On will brighten the part of the picture that is being silhouetted, but will also brighten the background.
AREA: If BLC is on, the AREA setting allows you to set the sensitivity separately for different parts of the camera’s field of view. The default setting only turns on BLC in the center of the camera’s viewing field.
SENS: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Backlight Compensation. Low means that the camera responds less to backlit conditions, higher settings means that compensation turns on more quickly.

Automatic Gain Control & Sensitivity

The settings for Automatic Gain Control (AGC) or Starlight mode, affect the brightness and picture levels of the video produced by the camera. AGC amplifies existing video to help the camera reproduce a video signal at low light levels. Sensitivity controls adjust how the camera works in low light conditions.

FREEZE: Freezes the picture in a still mode until you select Off, or until you move the camera with the remote control.
AGC Levels: Selects the base level of gain control used when automatic gain control is on.
SENS: Changing the sensitivity changes how the camera compensates for low light. The higher the setting, the more light the camera lets in when in the dark, and the better the picture that results.

Color Settings The options in the color settings menu control the appearance of the video picture you get from the camera.

ATW: Adjusts the settings for Auto Trace White Balance (ATW). ATW automatically adjusts the picture to accurately show white in response to varying light conditions. Change the setting towards R (red) or B (blue) to tell the ATW how to adjust for your specific light conditions more accurately.
AWB: Auto White Balance works with ATW to maintain accurate levels of white in the video from the camera. Change the setting towards R (red) or B (blue) to tell the AWB how to adjust for your specific light conditions more accurately.
R Gain and B Gain: Adjusts the saturation of red or blue in the video produced by the camera. Set these to higher levels to correct for low levels of red or blue in your picture, or vice versa.