Provided herein are methods and systems that provide automatic compensation for frequency attenuation of a video signal transmitted over a cable. In accordance with an embodiment, a system includes an equalizer and a compensation controller. The equalizer receives a video signal that was transmitted over a cable, provides compensation for frequency attenuation that occurred during the transmission over the cable, and outputs a compensated video signal. The compensation controller automatically adjusts the compensation provided by the equalizer based on comparisons of one or more portions of the compensated video signal to one or more reference voltage levels. One or more values indicative of one or more levels of compensation provided by the equalizer are stored in memory and/or registers for each time, of a plurality of times. A monitor monitors for changes in the cable and/or the video signal transmitted over the cable based on the stored values. Additionally, the monitor can selectively trigger an alert based on changes in the one or more stored values.