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Firmware User ’s Manual
A1D-900A1.00.05
-AC
2016/02/23
Firmware User
’s Manual A1.00.05
Table of Contents
Recommended PC Specifications 4
Preparation 5
Configure the IP Addresses ....................................................................... 5
Using DHCP server to assign IP addresses: .............................................. 5
Use the default IP address of a camera: .................................................... 8
Manually adjust the IP address of the PC: .................................................. 8
Manually adjust the IP addresses of multiple cameras: .............................. 9
Using IPv6 to Access the Camera ............................................................ 12
Live View 13
Setup 17
Network (ToS, UPnP, Bonjour) .............................................................. 32
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Exposure/White Balance .......................................................................... 54
Text Overlay (OSD) Setup ........................................................................ 58
On-Screen Graphics ............................................................................. 61
70 Troubleshooting
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Recommended PC Specifications
In order to configure or test the cameras, a PC with following basic specifications is needed:
CPU Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz or above
Memory 2 GB or above
Operating System
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 2008
Windows 7
Windows 8
Browser for Accessing
Firmware
Internet Explorer 9.0 or newer (full functionality)
Video Resolution 1024x768 or higher
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Preparation
Connect the Equipment
To be able to connect to the camera firmware from your PC, both the camera and the PC have to be connected to each other via Ethernet cable. At the same time, the camera has to have its own power supply. In case of PoE cameras, you can use a PoE Injector or a PoE Switch between the camera and the PC. The cameras that have the DC power connectors may be powered on by using a power adaptor.
The Ethernet port LED or Power LED of the camera will indicate that the power supply for the camera works normally.
Configure the IP Addresses
In order to be able to communicate with the camera from your PC, both the camera and the PC have to be within the same network segment. In most cases, it means that they both should have very similar IP addresses, where only the last number of the IP address is different from each other. There are 2 different approaches to IP Address management in Local Area Networks – by
DHCP Server or Manually.
Using DHCP server to assign IP addresses:
If you have connected the computer and the camera into the network that has a DHCP server running, then you do not need to configure the IP addresses at all – both the camera and the PC would request a unique IP address from DHCP server automatically. In such case, the camera will immediately be ready for the access from the PC. The user, however, might not know the IP address of the camera yet. It is necessary to know the IP address of the camera in other to be able to access it by using a Web browser.
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The quickest way to discover the cameras in the network is to use the simplest network search, built in the Windows system – just by pressing the “Network” icon, all the cameras of the local area network will be discovered by Windows thanks to the UPnP function support of our cameras.
In the example below, we successfully found the camera that we had just connected to the network.
By clicking on the camera model, it is possible to automatically launch the default browser of the
PC with the IP address of the target camera filled in the address bar of the browser already.
If you work with our cameras regularly, then there is even a better way to discover the cameras in the network – by using IP Utility . The IP Utility is a light software tool that can not only discover the cameras, but also list lots of valuable information, such as IP and MAC addresses, serial numbers, firmware versions, etc, and allows quick configuration of multiple devices at the same time.
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Search and downloand the latest IP Utility for free from http://www.acti.com/DownloadCenter .
With just one click, you can launch the IP Utility and there will be an instant report as follows:
You can quickly notice the camera model in the list. Click on the IP address to automatically launch the default browser of the PC with the IP address of the target camera filled in the address bar of the browser already.
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Use the default IP address of a camera:
If there is no DHCP server in the given network, the user may have to assign the IP addresses to both PC and camera manually to make sure they are in the same network segment.
When the camera is plugged into network and it does not detect any DHCP services, it will automatically assign itself a default IP:
192.168.0.100
Whereas the default port number would be 80 . In order to access that camera, the IP address of the PC has to be configured to match the network segment of the camera.
Manually adjust the IP address of the PC:
In the following example, based on Windows 7, we will configure the IP address to 192.168.0.99
and set Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0
by using the steps below:
1 2
3 4
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Manually adjust the IP addresses of multiple cameras:
If there are more than 1 camera to be used in the same local area network and there is no DHCP server to assign unique IP addresses to each of them, all of the cameras would then have the initial IP address of 192.168.0.100
, which is not a proper situation for network devices – all the IP addresses have to be different from each other. The easiest way to assign cameras the IP addresses is by using IP Utility :
With the procedure shown above, all the cameras will have unique IP addresses, starting from
192.168.0.101. In case there are 20 cameras selected, the last one of the cameras would have the IP 192.168.0.120.
Later, by pressing the “Refresh” button of the IP Utility, you will be able to see the list of cameras with their new IP addresses.
Please note that it is also possible to change the IP addresses manually by using the Web browser. In such case, please plug in only one camera at a time, and change its IP address by using the Web browser before plugging in the next one. This way, the Web browser will not be confused about two devices having the same IP address at the same time.
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Access the Camera
Now that the camera and the PC are both having their unique IP addresses and are under the same network segment, it is possible to use the Web browser of the PC to access the camera.
You can use Microsoft Internet Explorer to access the camera with full functionality.
Functionality
Live Video
Internet Explorer
Yes
Live Video Area Resizable
Capture the snapshot
Video overlay based configuration (Motion
Detection regions, Privacy Mask regions)
Yes
Yes
Yes
All the other configurations Yes
When using Internet Explorer browser, the ActiveX control for video stream management will be downloaded from the camera directly – the user just has to accept the use of such control when prompted so. No other third party utilities are required to be installed in such case.
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The following examples in this manual are based on Internet Explorer browser in order to cover all functions of the camera.
Assuming that the camera ’s IP address is 192.168.0.100
, you can access it by opening the Web browser and typing the following address into Web browser ’s address bar: http://192.168.0.100
Upon successful connection to the camera, the user interface called Web Configurator would appear together with the login page. The HTTP port number was not added behind the IP address since the default HTTP port of the camera is 80, which can be omitted from the address for convenience.
Before logging in, you need to know the factory default Account and Password of the camera.
Account:
Admin
Password:
123456
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Using IPv6 to Access the Camera
The camera is IPv6-ready and has been assigned its unique static IPv6 address. The IPv6 address can be found under the System > System Info
menu (see System Info on page 65 for
more information).
To access the camera with the IPv6 address, type the IPv6 address enclosed in square brackets on the web browser address bar. For example: http://[fe80::20f:7cff:fe10:db2e]
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Live View
This section describes how to configure the IP camera. The administrator has unlimited access to all settings, while the normal user can only view live video.
Login
Initially there exists only administrator ’s account in the camera (Account: Admin, Password: 123456)
– you have to use that account to log in. You can later create normal user accounts with limited access rights if necessary.
Feel free to choose your local language from the list of languages or keep it as English. After pressing
“Login”, you will be able to access the user interface of Web Configurator.
Upon successful login, you will be able to see the Live View page. In case of
Internet Explorer browser , you may be prompted to allow the installation of
ActiveX control from the camera. Press “Install” then. The live video will appear shortly after that.
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Live View
The live view will appear automatically with its default video resolution.
While being on the Live View page, the Live View icon appears as being pressed:
If you leave the Live View page, you can later return by pressing that button.
The buttons shown on the Live View page vary depending on the functions supported by the camera.
If the resolution of the PC ’s monitor is bigger than the resolution of the live video, you will be able to see the whole size of the video immediately. If not, you will only see part of the video at first and you would have to use the scroll bars to see the rest of the video area. In order to see the whole video on your display, you can temporarily re-scale the video to better fit your screen by pressing the digital zoom buttons:
- Enlarge the video size digitally
- Reduce the video size digitally
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Notice: These digital zoom adjustments do not influence the actual video resolution of the camera.
Regardless of how large or small the video appears on the display after pressing the digital zoom buttons, the actual video stream size of the camera is the same as before.
You can also digitally re-scale the video to fully match the size of your display with just one click:
- Full screen Mode
You may use ESC key from the keyboard to exit the full screen mode.
The cameras have dual stream capability – Stream 1 is usually the high resolution stream with the purpose of being recorded by NVR while Stream 2 has lighter video configuration for NVR live view purposes, to reduce the computing power of the NVR PC. The streams can be configured under Web Configurator ’s Setup page. To see how each of the stream looks like, click the Stream (number) button and select the stream you want to view.
- Show the Stream 1 video
- Show the Stream 2 video
To capture the snapshots of the current live view, press the snapshot button. The snapshots are saved in Pictures folder.
- Take a Snapshot
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Cameras with audio function have the audio controls on Live View page.
Speak to Camera
To speak to the camera, press the button. If the camera is connected to a network video recorder, the audio will be recorded with the video stream.
To adjust the volume level of the speakers connected to the PC that runs the Web Configurator in order to hear the audio from the camera ’s microphone or line-in device, use the audio controls as below:
Audio Muted:
Audio level adjusted to the maximum:
This volume control appears on the user interface only when the Audio-in function of the camera has been “Enabled” under Setup page.
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Setup
The following chapters guide you through the Setup functions of the camera.
Access the Setup Page
To configure any of the camera settings, go to the Setup menu by pressing the following button on Live View page:
- Go to Setup
The left side of the Setup page contains the list of Setup items.
Notice: The exact content of the menu list varies for each camera, depending on the actual capabilities of each camera. This manual, however, is designed to explain all the possible functions.
Several items in the Setup page are divided into groups, such as Network, IP Settings, etc. You can expand the groups to see the sub-items by pressing the [+] button.
The following chapters of this manual explain each Setup item separately. The chapters are listed in the same order as the list of Setup menu items.
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Host
The Host menu allows the administrator to define the name of the camera and preferred user interface language.
There are two kinds of names – Host Name and Camera Name.
Host Name is used to identify the camera by a DHCP server. In some networks with very strict security policy, it is required that all the network devices should have their host name, and when the devices attempt to access the network by requesting an IP address from a DHCP server, the
DHCP server would check if the host name is among the allowed devices. On this page, it is possible to edit the Host Name. To actually include the Host Name in DHCP discovery packet sent from a camera, please go to IP Settings and make sure the device is in Dynamic IP
Address mode and “Use host name” is checked.
Language selection under Host has the same purpose as the one on the login page of Web
Configurator.
Camera Name is used to identify the device by Video Management System or by Software
Tools . Usually, upon installation of the camera, the actual installation location is used as an easy-to-remember Camera Name, such as “Front Gate” or “Elevator 1”. In many cases the VMS is able to modify the Camera Name directly via its own user interface without needing to access
Web Configurator.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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GPS Position
The GPS Position section allows users to manually set the GPS position of the camera and find the location of the camera on the map when using a Network Video Recorder (NVR).
Check the Enabled box to enable this feature.
Find the camera location on google maps, for example, installed in the airport.
Copy the first GPS coordinates from the URL bar and paste it on Degree of Latitude . Copy the second part of the GPS coordinates to Degree of Longitude .
Press Apply to save the changes.
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Date & Time
Each video frame contains a time stamp. The accuracy of the time stamp is very important for incident investigators. Therefore the clock of the camera has to be adjusted to most accurate time possible.
The Date & Time menu provides the options for adjusting the date and time of the camera.
There are two ways to adjust the date and time – automatically by getting date and time regularly from any of the NTP servers worldwide, or manually by selecting proper time zone, date and time. The automatic way can be used only if the camera has an access to NTP servers.
If you are using an isolated Local Area Network without Internet access, you can only use Manual date and time adjustment mode.
When choosing SNTP/NTP Server for automatic date and time updating, you can key in the IP address of the NTP server and the time interval for automatic time synchronization. If you want to key in the domain name of NTP server instead, please make sure the DNS server IP address has been set under IP Settings; otherwise the camera will not be able to resolve the domain name of the NTP server.
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If all the cameras are getting the date and time from the same NTP Server, you can be most sure that the video clips from different cameras can be well synchronized later for comparison purposes.
To choose the most suitable NTP Server to synchronize date and time with, please refer to the worldwide pool of NTP Servers: http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/
When choosing Set Manually mode, you can adjust the date and time by the select boxes.
Choose the appropriate Time Zone from the select box, too. If your location is not listed there, then pick any of the listed zones which GMT is identical with your location.
For the countries with daylight saving policy, there is Day Light Saving function with two different types:
Type 1 – define the starting or ending time of daylight saving period by the number of the week in the month (First, Second, Third or Last week).
Type 2 – define the starting or ending time of daylight saving period by the exact date in the month (1-31).
Whether to choose Type 1 or Type 2, please refer to the daylight saving policy of given country.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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Network
The Network menu provides the list of network related functions and services. The [+] mark before Network indicates that the list can be expanded by clicking on it.
Once expanded, the list can later be collapsed again by clicking on the [-] mark.
IP Address Filtering
By “IP Address Filtering” function, it is possible to define which devices (their IP addresses) are allowed to connect to this camera, and which devices are forbidden to connect to this camera.
Check the box “Enabled” to activate the IP address filtering function and press Apply.
Below you can select either “Allowed” or “Blocked” list to add items there and Enable them with the checkbox behind each row.
“Allowed” mode will refuse access to all IP addresses except the ones listed below.
“Blocked” mode will accept all incoming access except the IP addresses listed below.
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Using Netmask (Subnet Mask) allows you to set filtering for a whole range of IP address at once, without the need to enter all of them individually. If you are not sure about the function of Netmask, then you should use 255.255.255.255, and it will affect only a single IP address per line of entry, or use 255.255.255.0 to use the same setting for all IP addresses starting with the same three numbers. .
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
Warning! Do not accidentally block your own IP address that you are connecting from; otherwise you will not be able to access the camera any more to undo the changes. If this happens by mistake, you can do the hardware reset – it will clear all the filtering rules.
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Port Mapping
Port Mapping provides the list of services and protocols that require their own port number for communication. By default, the camera already has all the ports defined. On this page, the user can modify the port numbers in case there is a specific need for that. Most often, the HTTP port is changed to something other than 80 in order to match with easy-to-remember port forwarding rules of the router that acts as a bridge between local area network and Internet.
NOTE: Some items appear only if the camera model supports the function.
Parameters
HTTP port
HTTPS Port
Search Server Port1
Search Server Port2
RTSP Server Port
Description
Select the port assigned for HTTP protocol access.
Select the port assigned for HTTPS protocol access.
Select the first port used by server search applications to detect this IP device (e.g. IP Utility).
Select the second port used by server search applications to detect this IP device (e.g. IP Utility).
Select the port assigned for RTSP protocol access.
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Multicast Setting allows users to configure the IP addresses and ports for multicast video and audio (supported models only) streams. Multicast is a protocol where a data stream is sent only once and shared to requesting devices. This in turn saves network bandwidth. However, to use this feature, network devices, such as routers and switches, should support IP multicast.
Parameters
Stream 1
Stream 2
Audio
By Request
Multicast IP
Network Port
Multicast TTL
Description
Refers to the video stream 1.
Refers to the video stream 2.
Refers to the audio stream.
When checked, the video or audio stream will be streamed only to a particular receiver when that receiver sends a request or in the case of the
Network Video Recorder (NVR), selects to view or record the stream. If unchecked, the video or audio stream will constantly be streamed to the network whether there are devices viewing the video or not.
To save on network bandwidth, it is recommended to check this function.
Set the multicast IP of the corresponding stream.
Enter the assigned port for the corresponding stream.
Enter the multicast TTL (time-to-live) of the corresponding stream. This value determines the time span (in seconds) when the packet is retained in the network. When the time expires and no request is received, the packet is then discarded.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet. New port settings will only take effect after pressing System -> Save & Reboot .
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HTTPS
HTTPS protocol allows creating a secure channel over an insecure network in order to protect the data sent between the camera and its counterpart. Two things are required to have a secure communication – encrypted data, and verified counterpart of the communication. To make sure that the messages are being sent and received from true counterpart, the certificate is needed.
There are two methods to create certificates – Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and
Self-Signed Certificate .
Certificate Signing Request (CSR) : User uses a signed certificate issued by trusted
Certification Authority (CA).
Self-Signed Certificate : User wants to use the certificate created and issued by user himself.
Press Create or Create Self-Signed Certificate button and configure settings in the pop-up screen to install the certificate.
Note that the new setting will only take effect after Save & Reboot .
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IEEE 802.1X
IEEE 802.1X
is an IEEE standard for port-based Network Access
Control. 802.1X authentication involves three parties: a supplicant, an authenticator, and an authentication server.
The supplicant is a client device (such as an IP camera) that wishes to attach to the LAN/WLAN.
The authenticator is a network device, such as an Ethernet switch or wireless access point; and the authentication server is typically a host running software supporting the RADIUS and EAP protocols.
The authenticator acts like a security guard to a protected network. The supplicant (i.e., client device) is not allowed access through the authenticator to the protected side of the network until the supplicant’s identity has been validated and authorized. An analogy to this is providing a valid passport at an airport before being allowed to pass through security to the terminal. With 802.1X port-based authentication, the supplicant provides credentials, such as user name / password or digital certificate, to the authenticator, and the authenticator forwards the credentials to the authentication server for verification. If the authentication server determines the credentials are valid, the supplicant (client device) is allowed to access resources located on the protected side of the network.
Please enable IEEE 802.1x and configure settings on the screen below. Note that the new setting will only take effect after pressing System -> Save & Reboot .
EAPOL Version V1 and V2 are the 802.1X communication types. User name and User password area created by user and set in RADIUS server. Certificates and Private Key are provided by RADIUS Server.
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If certificates or private key exist already, there will be a Remove button behind these items, in order to remove these items when necessary.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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SNMP Setting
SNMP Setting displays the SNMP configuration page.
SNMP provides an easy way to manage network devices. The main features are:
1.
Monitoring device uptime
2.
System detail description. (Ex: model name, model description and firmware version.)
3.
Collect interface information. (Ex: MAC address, interface speed, local port.)
4.
Measuring network interface throughput.
To use SNMP, just enable SNMP function in the camera (SNMP agents) and run SNMP management software in server (NMS: Network Management Station) to connect to the devices.
The SNMP agent supports versions V1, V2 and V3. SNMP V1 is the initial implementation of
SNMP. SNMP V2 is proposed to enhance the performance of management, such as the communication of server and devices, the confirmation of information delivery and receipt.
Primary additions in SNMP V3 concern security and remote configuration enhancements.
SNMP V1/V2 uses “Community” name as password to authenticate identity. “Read Community” is the password for server to get information from devices. “Write Community” is the password for server to edit values on devices. The de fault is “public” for Read Community and “write” for Write
Community. Of course, you can set any other password as your read/write community.
You can enable V1, V2 or both. Click “ Apply ” after you’ve completed setup.
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The security method of SNMP V3 uses a ccount/password for authentication. “Security Name” is the account name to be used with your “Password”. The default security name is “public” and the password must be at least 8 characters long. You also can set any other security name or password. Click “ Apply ” after you’ve completed setup.
SNMP function is now enabled. You may now install and run the SNMP management software on computer server.
SNMP Trap Usage:
SNMP traps enable notifications from devices. Devices may send message to the management server whenever significant events occur such as cold start, warm start and authentication failure.
The manager will get the information immediately and take action if necessary.
Cold start means device reboot by power disconnection. Warm start means device reboot by firmware without power disconnection. If there other parties attempt to connect to the device with wrong security password under SNMP V1, V2 or V3 setting, the device will send an authentication failure message to the management server.
To enable SNMP Trap function in the camera, type the IP address of the computer running the
SNMP management software and type trap community as password to allow server to get trap message from device (Default is public). Select available traps and click “ Apply ”.
Camera ’s SNMP offers following information:
Group
System
Interface
Address
Translation
IP
Description
Provide general information about the managed device.
Ex: system description, system name.
Provide general information from the physical interfaces.
Ex: interface speed, MAC address.
Provide information about the mapping between network addresses and physical addresses for each physical interface
Ex: The IP/MAC addresses to connect to the managed device.
Provide the status and operation of Network Layer (Layer 3).
Ex: the information and traffic flow of received/delivered package.
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ICMP
TCP
UDP
SNMP
Provide the status and statistics of ICMP.
Ex: amount of receive/error message of ICMP.
Provide the status and operation of Transport Layer (Layer 4) using TCP protocol.
Ex: TCP Local Port, incoming/outgoing TCP segments.
Provide the status and operation of Transport Layer (Layer 4) using UDP protocol.
Ex: UDP Local Port, in/out datagram.
Provide the related statistics through SNMP
RTP
RTP allows user to configure RTP Settings.
If the RTSP Authentication is “ Enabled ”, then the RTP streaming will require account name and password authentication.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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Network (ToS, UPnP, Bonjour)
The Network submenu contains the controls for following functions:
Type of Service
UPnP
Bonjour
ONVIF
Type of Service
Type of Service provides 4 options to define the priorities of how the data from the camera should be handled by the routers that support ToS concept. By the default, the ToS priority is set as
“Normal Service”.
For special priority arrangement, there are 3 more options:
Minimize Delay
Maximize Throughput
Maximize Reliability
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
UPnP
TM
UPnP
TM
provides the option to enable or disable the Universal Plug and Play capability of the camera. Having the UPnP
TM
enabled allows the other network devices to seamlessly discover it on the network for convenient identification and access.
The Friendly Name is a human-readable name for the device that will be displayed when the camera is found. By default, the serial number of the camera is used as a friendly name; however, the user can modify the name according to the project needs.
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After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
Most of the Windows-based computers have the capability to discover the devices that support
UPnP
TM
. Below is the example of Windows 7: by clicking on the Network icon of Windows 7 , the
PC will discover the cameras instantly.
Bonjour
The section Bonjour provides the option to enable or disable the ability of the camera to be discovered by the other network devices using
Bonjour protocol, developed by Apple Inc. Both
Bonjour and UPnP serve the similar purpose – to discover devices conveniently.
Similarly to UPnP, the human readable Friendly Name can be defined by the user. That name will be displayed when the camera is found in the network. By default, the Friendly Name is the serial number of the camera; however, the user can modify the name according to the project needs.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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ONVIF
The camera with given firmware is ONVIF 2.2 compliant. By default, the ONVIF function is enabled.
To disable the ONVIF support, remove the check on the box and press Apply .
If you need to activate ONVIF on multiple cameras conveniently, you may use the IP Utility instead, using system cgi and ONVIF_STATE=1 as URL command.
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IP Settings
The IP Settings menu provides the options to define how the camera would obtain its IP address; and to which DNS server should the camera connect to, in order to resolve domain names.
Connection Type
The Connection Type section allows defining the method of obtaining the IP address of the camera. By default, the camera is in Dynamic IP Address mode and attempts to get the IP address from a DHCP server. If such attempt fails after several seconds (for example the DHCP server does not exist), the camera will automatically assign itself an IP address, listed under Static IP Address.
Host Name is used to identify the camera by a DHCP server. In some networks with very strict security policy, it is required that all the network devices should have their host name, and when the devices attempt to access the network by requesting an IP address from a DHCP server, the
DHCP server would check if the host name is among the allowed devices. On this page, it is possible to edit the Host Name and enable or disable the use of host name.
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Most installation projects include clear network topology and static IP addresses for each camera.
In such cases, you can change the camera to Static IP Address mode and modify the IP
Address, Subnet Mask and Gateway accordingly.
In some rare cases, the camera may be connected to the control center over Internet. Usually, the most cost efficient way is to use ADSL connection with PPPoE . To avoid the unexpected changes of IP addresses by Internet Service Provider upon the restart of the camera, it is recommended to activate a DDNS service for such scenario, and let the control center connect to the camera by the domain name instead. Please refer to the DDNS section for more details.
To set the camera in PPPoE mode, set the radio button to PPPoE and key in the User Name and
Password, provided by Internet Service Provider.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
New IP address settings will only take effect after pressing System -> Save & Reboot .
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DNS
The section DNS allows setting up the Domain Name Service for the camera. The camera will connect to the DNS server when there is a need to resolve a domain name for sending data to.
The most common usage is the ftp or e-mail server in the Event Handler section is defined by using domain names. Without having DNS service configured, the camera would not know how to resolve the domain names of FTP or e-mail servers.
It is possible to configure both Primary and Secondary DNS servers . The Secondary DNS
Server will be used when the connection to the Primary DNS Server fails.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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DDNS
There are surveillance solutions that consist of single cameras scattered over a wide territory, therefore each of those cameras should be connected to the Internet in order to become accessible by Control
Center. For example, the chain stores, bus stops, currency exchange booths, etc.
In such cases, one of the practical networking solutions is to use DSL modem on camera site and let the camera obtain the dynamic IP address from the Internet Service Provider through the DSL modem using PPPoE connection, which is much more cost-effective than applying for static IP address.
PPPoE Connection with Dynamic IP address
IP Camera DSL Modem
Internet
Video Stream from camera to NVR
Commands from NVR to camera ’s IP address
Control Center
(NVR)
However, there is one drawback in this solution – in order to do the remote surveillance from the
Control Center, the NVR Server in the Control Center has to know the address of the IP camera at all times in order to get the video stream from the camera. If the camera ’s network connection has been reset for any reason, the camera will get a new IP address through DSL Modem, which may be different from the previous one. NVR will not know about this change, and the connection between the camera and NVR will fail.
There however exists a solution that makes sure the NVR can find the camera even if the camera
IP changes frequently. Our cameras support Dynamic DNS or DDNS service that allows frequently changing IP be mapped to a certain unchangeable domain name. The mapping database and its updating engine are hosted in one of the Dynamic DNS servers, most of which offer basic services for free, such as www.dyndns.org
.
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How does it work? Look at the graph below.
Using Dynamic DNS
IP Camera DSL Modem
Camera notifies DDNS service when IP changed
NVR uses camera ’s domain name to ask DDNS
DDNS tells the NVR what the camera ’s IP is
Commands from NVR to camera ’s IP address
Internet
DDNS Service
Video Stream from camera to NVR
Control Center
(NVR)
Every time the IP camera gets an IP that is different from previous one, it notifies the public
DDNS Service about the change. The DDNS Service updates its database immediately, mapping the assigned domain name (for example camera123.dyndns.org
) to the new IP address. In NVR settings, only the domain name ( camera123.dyndns.org
) is used to identify the camera. Every time when NVR needs to connect to the camera, it asks from DDNS Service what the current camera ’s IP is. The DDNS Service instantly responds to NVR and tells it the camera’s IP. Now
NVR will use the IP of the camera to connect to the camera and the video stream from the camera to NVR can be initiated.
As a result, NVR can always find the IP camera regardless of frequently changing IP address of the camera. Since there are so many public DDNS Services available for free, the PPPoE-based connection is really a good and low-cost solution for single-camera sites.
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To a ctivate DDNS, please check the “ Enabled “. Select the service reference, input the Host
Name (the domain name given to the camera by DDNS service, User Name and Password of the DDNS server account.
You will get the needed Host Name, User Name and Password information from the DDNS service provider once you have registered an account there and requested a domain name for your camera.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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WiFi
The WiFi page allows users to configure the wireless settings of the camera and connect to a wireless access point
Select one of the WLAN modes or disable WiFi functionality.
Ad-hoc
mode is a “peer-to-peer” mode. In this mode, devices on the same network can connect directly to one another without need for a centralized access point.
Infrastructure mode sets the device to communicate with a router/access point.
WiFi Direct is another connection type which allows for peer-to-peer connections; unlike Ad-Hoc, this mode supports WPA2.
WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) provides an easy way to make wireless connections between wireless stations and wireless access points. Through WPS, users do not need to input SSID or pass key information. To use the Push-Button Configuration (PBC) for WPS , click “ Connect ” to initiate WPS mode. You will also need to switch wireless router to WPS mode (by pressing WPS button). After both buttons have been pressed, WPS will establish a connection between client and router automatically.
If the user wishes to setup the network connection manually, click Scan to refresh the list of wireless access points within range of the device. Upon clicking the desired network, the SSID and relevant information will appear in the window below.
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SSID refers to the name of the wireless network the device is configured for. The field accepts up to 32 alphanumeric characters. The name must be exactly the same as the one used in the wireless access point or the connection will not be established.
Security Mode shows which type of security the network uses. The device supports three security methods:
None
WEP
WPA_PSK/WPA2_PSK
By default, the camera is set to Dynamic IP Address . If you wish to use a specific address, untick the box and enter in the desired address into the fields below.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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Video & Audio
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The Video & Audio section provides the options to adjust the video quality, configure the streaming details of the camera, which will be described in the succeeding pages.
The default settings of the camera are sufficient for most environments and the video adjustments are not necessary. The following sections explain the ways to configure the video quality or streaming details in case it is required to do so.
The [+] mark before Video indicates that the list can be expanded by clicking on it. Once expanded, the list can later be collapsed again by clicking on the [-] mark.
Camera Options
In general, the Camera Options submenu allows users to select the
Line Frequency of the camera.
Line Frequency is the function that adjusts the shutter speed options to match with the frequency of the artificial light source of a given country. For example, in Europe the light frequency (due to power supply frequency of lights) is 50Hz, which is 50 flashes per second. By setting the line frequency to 50Hz, the shutter speed options will be proportional with the light source frequency, such as 1/25s, 1/50s, 1/100s, etc.
It is necessary to have the camera ’s Line Frequency adjusted according to the power frequency of the light source to avoid flickering effect.
The natural light source (sun light) is a seamless flow of light – the Line Frequency setting does not matter for the cameras that are only exposed to natural light.
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Video
The submenu is also named Video , The Video section is divided into page tabs. The functionality of each tab is explained separately below.
Upon opening the Video submenu, the live view of the Stream 1 of the camera will appear. Since the camera is a dual stream device, users can select to view either Stream-1 or Stream-2 to see how the configurations look like.
Usually, Stream-1 is configured to be high quality video with maximum resolution and frame rate for recording purposes while Stream-2 is usually a moderate quality stream for live view purposes of the VMS, to reduce VMS computing power during video decoding of multiple channels.
Compression
The Compression section allows the user to define the compression settings of video streams 1 and 2. The purpose of compression is to reduce the bandwidth and VMS storage consumption.
Usually the stream 1 is configured to be the best quality stream for NVR recording purposes while stream 2 is configured to be with the basic quality for the live view of NVR or mobile device, to minimize the computing power of NVR used for video decoding.
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Parameters
Encoder Type
H.264 Profile
Resolution
Frame Rate
Video Bit Rate Mode
(only for H.264)
Video Max Bit Rate
(only for H.264)
Video Bit Rate
(only for H.264)
Description
There are two encoder types available: H.264 (High Profile) and
MJPEG.
This item is available only if the Encoder Type is H.264.
The H.264 Profile defines the video compression scheme: High
Profile , Main Profile , and Baseline . These schemes vary from least compressed, Baseline , to most compressed, High Profile . By default, the H.264 Profile is High Profile , which provides the most compression with the best video quality, but more computing power.
Some third-party video management system has longer latency or takes more time to decode High Profile compression scheme, in this case, you can select Main Profile or Baseline . In order to get the same video quality, you can select a higher bit rate with lower compression; this is the same as having a lower bit rate with a High
Profile. For example, a video on High Profile with 2M bit rate will have the same video quality as a video with Baseline Profile at 3.5M bit rate.
Depending on the camera model, the number of available resolutions may be different. The default resolution setting of the camera may not necessarily be the maximum resolution of the camera. If the user wants to use the maximum resolution, it is possible to do it here. The maximum possible resolution of the stream 2 will be smaller than stream 1.
Defines the amount of frames per second.
Under “Constant Bit Rate” mode (CBR), the camera keeps the stable bitrate regardless of the complexity of the scene. Under this mode, the video quality may vary if the bit rate value is set too low. It is easier to do storage and network bandwidth consumption estimations under this mode compared to Variable Bit Rate mode.
Under “Variable Bit Rate” mode (VBR), the camera will keep the video quality stable while the bit rate may occasionally go up or down, depending on the complexity of the scene.
Defines the upper limit of the bitrate (only available under CBR mode). The bitrate will be floating slightly under that limit. For example, if the limit is set as 2M, the bitrate will be floating around
1.6~2.0 Mbps.
If the Video Max Bit Rate is chosen as
“Unlimited”, then the “Video Bit Rate” selection box will appear that defines the bit rate level.
Under CBR mode, when Video Max Bit Rate is chosen “Unlimited”, the user can define the AVERAGE bit rate. For example, if the Video
Bit Rate is chosen 2M, then occasionally, the actual bit rate may go below or beyond 2M, but in the long run, the average bit rate will be very close to 2M. This mode allows the most accurate storage estimations, however, while planning the bandwidth, please consider
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Quality
GOP 1 I-frame
(only for H.264) the occasional peaks of bit rate.
H.264 Compression:
Under VBR mode, the bit rate will be floating while the video quality will be stable and follows the quality standard set by the user. The user can choose either “High”, “Medium” or “Low” quality. The higher is the quality level, the more bit rate the camera will use to achieve the target quality.
MJPEG Compression:
The user can define the quality with the numeric scale from 1 to 100.
The default MJPEG quality is 60. The higher is the quality level, the more bit rate the camera will use to achieve the target quality.
Under VBR mode it is possible to adjust the GOP length - that is the occurrence rate of I-frames. By default, there is one I-frame per second. For example, in case of 30fps, there will be 1 I-frame and 29
P-frames every second by default. When the GOP is changed to “1
I-frame per 5 seconds ”, then there will be one I-frame, followed by 149
P-frames. In case of the static scenes, long GOP can further minimize the bandwidth and storage consumption.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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Motion Detection
The section “Motion Detection” allows the user to configure the video motion detection system of the camera. Motion detection regions are based on Stream 1. By default, there are three (3) enabled pre-defined regions covering the whole camera view.
Click on “Setup” to adjust the motion detection regions or its parameters.
Microsoft Internet
Explorer browser is required to configure the motion detection regions.
There are three independently configurable motion detection regions in the camera. Each motion detection region has 6 configuration parameters:
Enabled or disabled
Location of the region
Size of the region
Sensitivity
Trigger threshold
Trigger interval
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Enabled or disabled
Although all 3 motion detection regions are enabled by default, each can be disabled and enabled individually. Look at the example:
Only the region 1 is enabled while 2 and 3 are disabled. The disabled regions disappear from the video display.
Note that the number of the motion detection region is written in the upper left corner of the region.
Location of the region
You can move the motion detection region anywhere on the field of view by dragging the top of the motion detection rectangle as shown on the image. The motion detection regions may even be overlapping if you like.
Size of the region
By dragging the lower right corner of the motion detection region you can change the size of the region. The maximum size of the region can even be as big as the whole screen.
Sensitivity
Sensitivity is the parameter that helps us distinguish actual moving targets (people, vehicles) from the slightly moving background, such as leaves of the trees waving in the wind. In order to avoid false alarms, we might want the camera be able to ignore small motion. The higher is the sensitivity level of the camera the smaller shift of the object is needed to trigger the alarm. For example, if the object within motion detection region has moved for about 1-3 pixels during two video frames, then such small motion will be discarded by camera if the sensitivity is low, and will still trigger an alarm if the sensitivity is high. In other words, you can think of sensitivity level as a reversed speed limit – the smaller is the sensitivity, the faster are the objects allowed to move without being detected.
The biggest challenge of motion detection configuration is to find the settings that do not produce false alarms and at the same time do not miss any actual intrusions. The rule of thumb is: the sensitivity should be as high as possible while not producing false alarms.
The default sensitivity level of the cameras is 70 (on a scale of 0-100) and it is a good setting for most standard cases.
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Trigger threshold
Look at the moving object entering the area of motion detection: although moving quite slowly, it caused motion activity – several pixel regions reported a motion that was faster than allowed “speed limit” of sensitivity (70).
The blue graph on the right side of the image shows how many percent of pixels within the motion detection region were considered as “currently in motion”. The activity panel itself is a timeline – for each moment of time you can see the height of the blue bars. You may notice that at certain moment the tallest bars in the activity graph reached about 25% (a quarter of the total height in activity panel) – it means, 25% of this motion detection area were filled with moving pixels at that moment.
By visual observation you can also see that the object standing inside the motion detection region indeed covers about 25% of its size.
What if the object is really small but moves rather fast (gets triggered by the current sensitivity level)? For example, we want to detect people but not the cat walking in the room. Although both people and cat may move with the speed that will trigger motion, they have different size of triggered pixels. For example, a human passing by the motion detection region will trigger 25% of pixels in that region while the cat would trigger only 2%. Since we want to have a real alarm in case of human or vehicle passing by while ignoring birds, cats, butterflies, mice, etc, we need a filter that can define how many percent of triggered pixels will be considered as a real alarm. This parameter is called trigger threshold . The default value of trigger threshold is 10%. It means, only the objects that are bigger than 10% of the motion detection region size and move faster than allowed by sensitivity level (70) will produce actual alarm.
How to choose the most optimal trigger threshold level? The rule of thumb, keep the trigger threshold as small as possible while not causing false alarms by the moving objects that are not humans or vehicles.
You can have different sensitivity level and trigger threshold level for each motion detection region.
In order to understand all of the above even better, please refer to the table below containing four
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The objects listed in each cell will trigger an alarm under given settings:
Low threshold (0-5%) High threshold (5-100%)
Low sensitivity
(0-65)
Big and fast
Small and fast
Big and fast
Big and fast
Big and fast
High sensitivity
(65-100)
Big and slow
Small and fast
Small and slow
Big and slow
The camera ’s default sensitivity is 70 and threshold is 10%. By these default values, only the rabbit and the turtle would trigger an alarm while the butterfly and the snail would be ignored by the motion detection system.
Important: Please remember that changing the size of the motion detection region has an impact on the threshold – the bigger is the size of the motion detection region the smaller should be the threshold value if you want the same object size to trigger motion. For example, if you increase the motion detection region to twice the previous size, please remember to reduce the threshold to half its original value (from 10% to 5%). On the other hand, changing the location of the motion detection region has no impact on threshold.
Trigger interval
The last configuration item is the trigger interval. It is the time period from the beginning of the triggered event during which the all motion activities are ignored by the camera. This is designed to avoid needless repetitive reporting of the same intrusion. Trigger interval 20 seconds would mean that when the even happens, camera will take certain one-time actions and ignore the continuing activity in the motion detection region for 20 seconds. When 20 seconds are over, the camera will produce a new alarm if there are still action in the motion detection region, and take actions again.
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There is one more item on the Motion Detection configuration page which was not explained above – the Profile of Motion
Detection . Think of them as Profile 1 (Runtime MD Profile) and
Profile 2 (Event MD Profile). It means that you can configure two independent groups of Motion Detection regions with at most 3 regions in each group.
Normally, the Profile 1 (Runtime MD Profile) is used as an active profile of the camera. However, in some cases it is possible to let the camera switch to Profile 2 by using the Event Handler system of the camera.
For example, you might want to have different motion detection parameters for day and night time.
Then the two profiles become really handy. In such case, remember to configure the motion detection parameters for both profiles before moving on to configure the event response system.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not Applied yet.
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Image
The section Image allows user to control certain parameters of a video frame.
Parameters
Video Flipping / Video
Mirroring
Brightness
Contrast
Saturation
Digital Noise
Reduction
3D Noise Reduction
Edge Enhancement
WDR
Defogging
Description
Check this box to flip the video up-down and left-right to achieve the
180-degree rotation effect.
Select the Brightness value (0~100). The higher the value, the brighter the image.
Select the Contrast level from the following options: Lowest, Low,
Medium, High, and Highest. The higher the level, the difference between light and dark areas becomes more prominent. Dark color becomes darker while light color becomes brighter.
Select the Saturation level from the following options: Lowest, Low,
Medium, High, and Highest. Saturation makes colors appear more vivid.
Select the Digital Noise Reduction option (OFF, 1~4). Digital noise reduction value reduces noise on the video (especially in low light) which makes the image look smoother and clearer.
Enable this feature for smooth and clear image. Disable this feature if the scene contains extreme details that may be smoothed over with
3DNR.
Select the Edge Enhancement value. The higher the value, the sharper the image.
Choose the WDR level from following options: Disabled, Low,
Medium, High, and Highest.
NOTE: WDR will be disabled and will not appear on screen if
Exposure Mode is set to “Manual”.
This feature provides a clear image even when the camera is installed in a foggy environment. Select the Defogging level: Disabled, Low,
Medium, High, and Highest. Wherein “Low” is ideal for a slightly foggy environment and “Highest” for the foggiest environment.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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The button “Restore image settings to default” is a quick way of restoring factory default image settings without needing to reset the whole camera to factory default.
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Exposure/White Balance
The section Exposure / White Balance allows the user to configure
Exposure (shutter, iris and gain control) and White Balance settings. In most cases, the default settings are sufficient and no adjustment is needed. Some options will only appear under certain
Exposure / White balance modes. Each mode is described in detail below.
White balance refers to the capability of the camera to understand what “true white color is”.
When the camera knows the true white color, then the rest of the colors will be accurate, too.
While human eye can easily adapt to different lighting sources (even mixed sources, such as sun light through the window and indoor lights turned on at the same time), the camera has to understand what is the dominant light source in given scene and what is the “white color” of such light source.
By default the camera is in auto white balance mode and attempts to recognize the light source and its color spectrum automatically and adjusts the image accordingly. This function works continuously in the background. It is re-evaluated for each frame, to make sure if there is any change in dominant light source (e.g. the user closes the curtains to block the sun light and turns on the indoor lights).
In most cases the auto white balance works perfectly and the user does not have to adjust anything! In some rare installation cases, especially when there are no white color objects in the field of view, and the light sources are mixed, the camera may have difficulty to identify the true white color to fine tune the rest of the colors.
In such cases, the installer can “help” the camera to understand the true colors by placing a white object (for example a piece of white paper) in front of the camera to cover the whole field of view and wait a few seconds – the auto white balance system will adjust the colors until the white paper will really look white on the display. At that moment, the user can freeze these white balance settings by pressing the Hold button. After pressing that button, the White Balance will switch from Auto mode to Manual mode, together with the color values captured at the moment of
Hold. The user can now remove the white object from the field of view, and the colors will stay
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For advanced users, there is also an option to switch from Auto mode to Manual mode of White
Balance directly and input the R Gain and B Gain values manually.
To simplify exposure settings, the camera firmware sets the “Slowest Auto Shutter Speed” to achieve two exposure control settings, namely:
Image Quality Priority
Frame Rate Priority
Select Image Quality Priority if users want to get a clear image of static objects but accept motion blur for fast moving objects in low light.
Select Frame Rate Priority if users do not want to have motion blur but accept noise on the image in low light.
For advance users, select Expert Settings to display and manually configure the exposure settings.
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In Auto Exposure Mode, you control the image brightness by configuring the AE Reference
Target and Slowest Auto Shutter.
AE Reference Target (Auto Exposure reference target) can be considered as the “Target
Brightness on Sensor ”. The camera will use several internal parameters to achieve best quality with reference to this. The higher this value, the brighter the overall scene, however, there may be more noise at night in such case. The range of AE Reference Target is 1~255.
The camera will automatically control shutter speed, auto iris (if available) and signal gain to achieve the target level set by the user. If the auto iris does not exist or is already opened to a maximum size, and the image is still darker than the user defined target, it will further slow down the shutter speed within the allowed range (set by user under Slowest Auto Shutter Speed) and increase the signal gain.
Slowest Auto Shutter Speed is the user defined threshold for slowest allowed speed of auto shutter. For example, if by default the shutter speed would vary between 1/5s ~ 1/2000s depending on the lighting conditions, then setting the Slowest Auto Shutter Speed to 1/30s would narrow down the auto shutter range to work between 1/30s ~ 1/2000s. The purpose of allowing user to define the threshold for slowest speed is to avoid motion blur caused by too slow shutter at night.
It is also important to know that very high shutter speed is not recommended for indoor solutions with artificial light that flashes with certain frequency, as it may produce flickering effect, regardless of Exposure mode.
In extreme low light conditions, the shutter speed is slown down to get more light into one image, but not slower than the user defined threshold.
If the exposure time extends beyond the interval between frames (too slow shutter), (i.e. 1/30 second), then the frame rate will be automatically reduced. Longer time in this value gives
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Exposure Mode - Manual
When the lighting conditions are stable 24 hours a day, the advanced users may consider using manual exposure mode, to further fine tune the image quality in order to fulfill the special project requirements. Please note that in most cases, it is highly recommended to keep the camera in
Auto Exposure mode and let the intelligent system of the camera find the best possible exposure settings instead.
In manual exposure mode, the user can directly manually adjust the signal Exposure Gain and
Shutter Speed .
NOTE: WDR is disabled in manual exposure mode (see Error! Reference source not found. on page Error! Bookmark not defined.
).
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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OSD/Privacy Mask
The section OSD / Privacy Mask allows user to do one of the two on-video operations:
Text Overlay or On-Screen Display (OSD) : This function allows users to add text, such as the camera name, date and time, or custom text, to the upper or lower left corner of the video.
Privacy Mask : This function covers up some sensitive areas of the video that should not be captured by the camera, such as manager ’s computer screen or bathroom entrance.
Text Overlay (OSD) Setup
This function allows users to add text, such as the camera name, date and time, or custom text, to the upper or lower left corner of the video. When enabled, the text will appear on both streams
1 and 2. The text is kept as small as possible and is not resizable.
The text can be read normally when the video is enlarged on the display to 1:1 ratio. The purpose of having the text so small is to provide sufficient legal evidence while blocking the smallest possible area of the video to avoid valuable video evidence being blocked by text overlay. The text will be embedded into the video and cannot be removed later upon playback or export.
In the example above, one region of text was enabled with red color and 0% transparency, located at top left corner and containing the text of “Office View“ together with current date. The date will automatically change every day, according to camera ’s date and time settings.
The result of the example configuration would look like this (Office View, 1:1 scale):
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%mm
%ss
%H
%C
%X
%N
Below is the list of characters with special meaning that can be used in the text field:
Parameters
%YYYY
%YY
%MM
%DD
%hh
Description
Year in four-digit format. For example, 2008
Year in two-digit format. For example, 08
Month in two-digit format. For example, 01 for January, 12 for December
Date in two-digit format. 01~31
Hour in two-digit format. 00~23. Note that only 24-hour indication is supported.
Minutes in two-digit format. 00~59
Seconds in two-digit format. 00~59 a hyphen, "-" a colon, ":" a slash, "/" show Camera Name (It might be truncated if exceeds max OSD length)
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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Privacy Mask Setup
Privacy Mask covers up sensitve areas of the video which should not be captured by the camera, such as manager ’s computer screen or bathroom entrance. Up to 4 independent regions can be configured. The adjustment of the privacy mask region can be done when a region is checked under “Setup“ column.
The privacy masks will be embedded into video and cannot be removed later upon playback or export.
You may resize and drag the region the same way as the motion detection regions: upper bar that contains the number of the region can be used for dragging the region across the video while the white box at the right lower corner of the privacy mask region can be used for resizing the region.
There are 4 pre-defined color options for privacy masks. If the user wants to use any other colors, please use URL commands to set up the privacy mask instead. To do that, please refer to the
Guide that explains the use of URL commands.
When switching back to live view, the privacy mask would look like this:
Please note that Privacy Masks will take effect on both streams 1 and 2.
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After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
NOTE: It may take several seconds to update the region location on video display after pressing
Apply!
On-Screen Graphics
On-Screen Graphics (OSG) is a new feature that allows placing custom image files on the top of the video as a layer. For example, it can be used as a watermark for security purposes, or a brand logo in the corner of the video image.
There is no interface within Web Configurator to configure On-Screen Graphics since it is a rarely used feature.
The URL commands can be used to complete the task instead.
The image that can be used as OSG has to be in YUV format (Image raster graphics) before uploading to the camera. There are several freeware converters available that convert images to
YUV format.
For example, one free trial version of YUV converter can be downloaded from Sunrayimage.com: http://www.sunrayimage.com/download/YUVTools_3.0_trial.zip
We do not guarantee the performance, terms of usage or availability of this product. The user has to read the terms of use first and proceed with installation if the terms are acceptable.
Please note that the image should not be larger than 640x480 pixels and should contain an even number of pixels. The image, once uploaded, cannot be resized. Therefore, please make sure that you have the image with the right size before uploading to the camera.
For example, we have the BMP logo with the size 204x106 that has been converted into YUV:
When the image is ready, upload it to the camera by the following URL command: http://192.168.0.100/cgi-bin/cmd/encoder?OSG_IMAGE
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Upon successful entry of user name and password, the following upload window will appear.
Browse for the yuv file in your computer that you had prepared and press Apply .
When done, use another URL command to configure its position: http://192.168.0.100/cgi-bin/cmd/encoder?OSG_CONFIG=
1,0,0,240,106,EB8080,4
... where the 7 parameters behind OSG_CONFIG mean following:
Parameter
Position
1
2
3
4
5
6
Description
7
1 means enabled, 0 means disabled
X position
Y position
Width of the image
Height of the image
YYUUVV value of the background color of the image that is to be blended
Transparency level: 0 means 0%, 1 means 25%, 2 means 50%, 3 means
75%, 4 means 100%
The result would look like this:
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Audio
The section Audio is available only for audio-supported models. The user interface for audio control looks as below:
Parameters
Audio In
Audio In Level
Audio Out Volume
Audio Format
Description
The option “Enabled” would activate incoming audio (either line in or built-in microphone). The option “Disabled” would turn off the incoming audio. In such case, the video stream is captured without audio.
Use this function to adjust the sensitivity level of audio input.
The audio out volume level can be adjusted in the scale of 0-100. It will influence the volume level of the speakers connected to the camera.
Shows the audio format: G.711U ( µ-law ).
To adjust the volume level of the speakers connected to the PC that runs the Web Configurator in order to hear the audio from the camera ’s microphone or line-in device, go to Live View page and use the audio controls there:
Audio Muted:
Audio level adjusted to the maximum:
This volume control appears in user interface only when the Audio-in function of the camera has been “Enabled”.
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System
The System menu provides the list of functions that help manage the camera. The [+] mark before System indicates that the list can be expanded by clicking on it.
Once expanded, the list can later be collapsed again by clicking on the [-] mark.
User Account
The section User Accounts allows the following user management tasks:
1.
Change the account name or password of the Root account that has a full access to the camera.
2.
Create up to 10 common users that only have an access for live view and PTZ control.
3.
Enable/disable the option of seeing the live view without needing user name and password
(anonymous login), which is especially convenient function for camera installers on the field.
For security reasons, account name and password is always required when entering Setup page of Web Configurator or when trying to access camera or change settings by URL commands.
After changing any of the items above, press Apply to save the changes. The Reset button undoes the changes that had just been made but not applied yet.
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System Info
The section System Info provides the full information about camera status, settings and log. This information is very helpful while doing the camera configuration, maintenance or troubleshooting.
The Server Report is a convenient way of exporting the full list of camera related information in a text format, so that it can be sent to the technical support team for faster service.
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Factory Default
original factory settings.
The section Factory Default allows the camera settings be reset to the
If you want to keep network settings and restore other settings to factory default, please select the first option. If you select the second one instead, all the settings would be removed during factory default. You will have to use factory default IP setting to connect to this camera.
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Firmware Upload
The section Firmware Upload allows remote upgrade or downgrade of camera firmware. The upgrade to newer version is usually done in order to gain new functions or fix existing bugs or limitations while downgrade to older version is used mostly for integration purposes where the newly purchased camera model comes with the newer firmware version than supported by a third party video management system of a given project.
The firmware image file can be downloaded from the website. It has the file extension “.upg”.
After pressing Apply button, it is possible to browse for firmware image file that has already been downloaded to the computer that has the Web Configurator running.
Click Browse to select the upload image file. Click the Apply button to start the upload.
Once the process is finished, you will get an “OK” message and system will reboot itself.
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Save & Reboot
The Save & Reboot section allows saving the settings and rebooting the camera remotely. This is critical because some settings might not take effect before save & reboot.
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Logout
Clicking this item allows you to log out of the IP device. Be sure to logout this IP device once you have completed all the tasks via Web Configurator.
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Troubleshooting
Although the default settings of the camera are ideal for 90% of the cases, there may be some rare cases when the settings need to be adjusted or the device has to be examined. The following section provides easy troubleshooting solutions for most cases. In some occasions, the unexpected symptoms may be the result of selecting the product that is not suitable for given environment.
For more detailed explanations and instructions of each situation, please refer to the complete
Troubleshooting Guide at http://www.acti.com/kb/detail.asp?KB_ID=KB20130130001
Image Quality Troubleshooting
Problem Solution
Motion blur
Blurry image
Increase shutter speed
Auto Focus: Refocus button; Manual focus: adjust manually
Too narrow DoF Reduce aperture size, widen the viewing angle, install camera farther from objects
Too narrow viewing
Vari-focal lens: widen the viewing angle; Zoom lens: press the zoom-out button; Fixed lens: replace it with wide angle fixed lens or choose another model with wide angle angle lens
Objects too small
Increase video resolution; zoom-in (zoom lens) or adjust lens to telephoto position
(vari-focal); Install the camera closer to target; Change to the lens with longer focal length; Change the camera model with higher resolution or longer focal length
Underexposed image
Use Auto Exposure Mode and increase AE Reference Target; set the Slowest Auto
Shutter Speed to slowest possible (1/5s); Add external light source to illuminate the area the camera is shooting
Overexposed image
Use Auto Exposure Mode and reduce AE Reference Target if necessary
Noise
Enable DNR; Enlarge the aperture; Lower AE Reference Target in Auto Exposure mode; Lower the Exposure Gain in Manual Exposure mode; Lower video resolution;
Add extra visible or IR lights
Blocking & mosaic Increase the bitrate
Wrong colors or color rolling
Manually correct the colors by using white paper “Hold” button in Auto White Balance mode; Adjust the camera’s position or viewing direction; Adjust the light source
Black image
Make sure there is sufficient light; Make sure the Day/Night Mode and IR LED Control are both in Auto mode; M ake sure that the “Switch from Day mode to Night mode” does
NOT have the most extreme value
– 100; Manual iris: open the iris by rotating the ring towards “O”; Remove the protective cap of the lens during installation
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IR light reflection
Make sure the dome or bullet cover is tightly mounted; Reduce the AE reference target in Auto Exposure mode; Reduce the Exposure Gain in Manual Exposure mode
Streaming Quality Troubleshooting
Frame Rate Too
Low at Night
In auto exposure mode, set the Slowest Auto Shutter Speed to be not slower than the interval of frames; In manual exposure mode, set the Shutter Speed to be not slower than the interval of frames
Latency
Jitter
Dropped Frames
Use dual stream (stream 1 for recording, stream 2 for live view); Lower the bitrate;
Lower the resolution (if acceptable for user); Check the cable quality; Make sure to use industrial grade switches and routers; Check the NVR server & client PC requirements from NVR manual
Use the NVR that has the video smoothening algorithm for live view and playback
Use the Playback function of NVR
– use frame-by-frame validation of jitter-looking sections, to see if any frames are dropped; To troubleshoot the data switch/router and
VMS computer, you may also ask for assistance from technical support team of camera manufacturer
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Copyright © 2015, ACTi Corporation All Rights Reserved
7F, No. 1, Alley 20, Lane 407, Sec. 2, Ti-Ding Blvd., Neihu District, Taipei, Taiwan 114, R.O.C.
TEL : +886-2-2656-2588 FAX : +886-2-2656-2599
Email: [email protected]
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