Create a shortcut to your External viewers

Last modified: Wednesday October 19, 2022.

Often, it is useful to provide a monitor that shows visitors to your premises that they are being recorded on a security system.

This is achieved in Alta Video by creating a link to the required external view, and then pointing the monitoring system to the URL created.

If you are configuring several devices to show the feeds from your Alta Video deployment, you can create the shortcut on one device, and then copy it to the other devices.

You configure each device to show the relevant camera view by creating multiple External viewers in Alta Video, and then entering the one-time password corresponding to the required view into the relevant device.

Prerequisites

  • Install the device and screen that you want to use to display the video streams.

    Risk of serious injury and damage to equipment!

    As the screens for displaying video information are often mounted at ceiling height, ensure you follow all local and national safety guidelines for overhead working when installing the equipment. Also ensure you are using suitably-rated fixings and safety devices.

  • Ensure you have already configured Alta Video to create the External viewer and that you have the External viewer URL and one-time password available on the device you want to use to monitor the camera streams. See Create an external video viewer
  • Ensure that Google Chrome is installed on all monitoring devices, if this browser is to be used to display your external views.
    Alternatively, use Microsoft Edge, which is included with your Microsoft Windows installation.

Task — Create a shortcut using the Microsoft Edge browser

This task assumes that the monitoring device is using the Microsoft Windows operating system.

  1. Create the shortcut:
    1. Right-click on the desktop and select New | Shortcut.
    2. Click Browse and select the path to the Microsoft Edge browser.

      In typical Windows installations, the Microsoft Edge browser is located at: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe"

    3. Click Next.
    4. Type a name for the shortcut, for example, Aware viewer.
    5. Click Finish.
  2. Edit the shortcut:
    1. Right-click the newly created Aware viewer shortcut and select Properties.
    2. Edit the Target to add the path to the external viewer that you copied when creating the external viewer in Alta Video.

      "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" "https://<example-deployment>.aware.avasecurity.com/externalViewer"

    3. Click Apply.
    4. Click OK.
    5. Log out of the Alta Video user interface (if open) and close all running instances of the Microsoft Edge browser.
  3. To open the External viewer, double-click the shortcut.
    The browser opens.
  4. (First use only) Enter the one-time password (OTP) generated by Alta Video Click Open.

    You need to create one external viewer in Alta Video for each external device. If you want to have multiple screens displaying the same view, then a separate Alta Video external viewer with a unique OTP must be created for each display.

Task — Create a shortcut using the Google Chrome browser

  1. Create the shortcut:
    1. Right-click on the desktop and select New | Shortcut.
    2. Click Browse and select the path to the Google Chrome browser.

      In typical Windows installations, the Google Chrome browser is located at: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"

    3. Click Next.
    4. Type a name for the shortcut, for example, Aware viewer.
    5. Click Finish.
  2. Edit the shortcut:
    1. Right-click the newly created Aware viewer shortcut and select Properties.

    2. Edit the Target to add the path to the external viewer that you copied when creating the external viewer in Alta Video.

      "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "https://<example-deployment>.aware.avasecurity.com/externalViewer"

    3. Click Apply.
    4. Click OK.
    5. Log out of the Alta Video user interface (if open) and close all running instances of the Chrome browser.
  3. To open the External viewer, double-click the shortcut.
    The browser opens.
  4. (First use only) Enter the one-time password (OTP) generated by Alta Video Click Open.

    You need to create one external viewer in Alta Video for each external device. If you want to have multiple screens displaying the same view, then a separate Alta Video external viewer with a unique OTP must be created for each display.

Task — Run external video in kiosk mode

Running the external video view in a browser that uses kiosk mode ensures that the chosen external video view is shown full-screen, without any of the browser controls visible (including the URL bar and the URL of your external video view).

To run a browser in kiosk mode from a shortcut, make sure that there are no other instances of that browser currently running.

If there is a running instance of the browser already open, the external video view will open as a new tab in the existing browser instance, not as a new window in kiosk mode.

To run the external video view in kiosk mode for your chosen browser, edit the shortcut to include the --kiosk switch:

For Microsoft Edge:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --kiosk "https://<example-deployment>.aware.avasecurity.com/externalViewer"

For Google Chrome:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --kiosk "https://<example-deployment>.aware.avasecurity.com/externalViewer"