Configure Alta Video deployment settings

Last modified: Wednesday July 10, 2024.

Keeping your Alta cloud-based video security systems up-to-date is important to ensure you have the latest security patches, bug fixes, and newest features installed. Alta Video automatically updates using the maintenance period you define.

When Avigilon Alta releases new versions of Alta Video or the Alta camera software, the Dashboard shows a banner for all users with access to the System tool. Clicking the banner opens the update dialog.

Prerequisites

Only Administrators and users with a role assigned the View system settings permission can access the Alta Video System tool.

Task — Open the System tool

  1. Log in to Alta Video as an Administrator.
  2. Click New tool, then select SystemSystem.

Task — Check the software version

  1. The currently installed software version is displayed on the main Deployment pane.

    To view the full Alta Video software build number, hover over the three-digit friendly version name.
  2. (Optional) If a software update is available, click Update available to immediately start a manual upgrade, or wait until the next configured Maintenance period for an automatic software update.

    Updates can take several minutes to apply, and your cameras might stop recording for a period during this time.

General

Task — Set the language for system generated emails

Set the language used for Alta Video generated email messages. See Manage language preferences in Alta Video for more information.

  1. From Deployment, select Settings.
  2. Select General.
  3. Select your Language for system emails.

Task — Enable or disable automatic password rotation

By default, Alta Video automatically rotates the passwords for Avigilon Alta cameras and Alta Cloud Connectors. To modify this behavior:

  1. Select General.
  2. Enable or disable Automatic password rotation.

Task — Enable or disable Wi-Fi for the deployment

Some cameras — for example, Avigilon Ava Flex cameras — include the ability to connect using Wi-fi to your network. Ensure Wi-Fi connectivity is enabled for your Alta Video deployment to use Avigilon Ava Flex cameras connected using Wi-Fi.

Only enable Wi-Fi if you are adding Wi-Fi enabled devices to your Alta Video deployment.

  1. Select General.
  2. From Allowed Connections, check that Global Wi-Fi & Bluetooth settings is enabled.

Task — Choose the default playback location

For devices in locations with low network bandwidth, remotely viewing or exporting video from the Avigilon Alta Cloud backup might give better performance than attempting to playback or export the information from the device. Choose to use either the information stored on the device, or information that has been backed up to the cloud. Users can overrule this setting, see Edit My profile.

When selecting Backup, and depending on your backup configuration, playback or exported video might not include all video. For example, if you only back up Interesting video, any periods of Uninteresting video are not present.

  1. Select Bandwidth usage.
  2. From Preferred playback location, select either:
    • Device
    • Backup
  3. Click Done.

Task — Set default deployment measurement units

You can choose the default currency format and units of measurement for sensors in the deployment. Individual users can override these settings in the Alta Video Timestamp & Measurement settings in their user profile. Emails and Webhooks sent from the deployment always use the default units.

  1. From Deployment, select Measurement units.
  2. Set the default Temperature and Pressure units.
  3. Configure the default currency formatting.

Task — Configure your preferred Maintenance period

  1. From Deployment, select Maintenance period.
    The Maintenance period dialog is shown.

    Normally, updates for Alta Video and Alta cameras are rolled out to customer deployments over the course of a few days. This means that your deployments might not upgrade on the day the software release is announced.

    The full roll out for each release can take between one and two weeks to reach all deployments. However, the updates always follow the configured maintenance period for your deployment. For example, if your deployment is configured to update weekly, overnight on a Tuesday, then your deployment will update on either the first or second Tuesday following the release.

  2. Configure your preferred maintenance schedule using the available options.
    Once configured, your deployment uses the schedule to check for new software versions for Alta Video cloud and your Alta cameras, and if new versions are available, updates the relevant components.
  3. Click Done.

Task — Select the Upgrade channel for your Alta Video cloud deployment

Avigilon Alta releases fully-tested software to the Stable upgrade channel.

However, for test or proof-of-concept systems, if enabled by your Avigilon Alta sales partner, you can test the newest features being developed by Avigilon Alta. This beta software is released to the Beta upgrade channel.

We recommend that the Beta upgrade channel is only used for test systems — production security systems should update from the Stable upgrade channel.

  1. From Deployment, select Software and select the required software Upgrade channel.
    If Stable is the only option available, your deployment does not have the Beta upgrade channel enabled for upgrades to your deployment. Contact your Avigilon Alta sales partner if you need access to beta features for testing purposes.
  2. If enabled by your Avigilon Alta partner, select your preferred Upgrade channel, either Beta, or Stable.
  3. Click Done.

Task — Configure the use of person attributes per site

Alta Video can use Face search to find video footage of a specific face, and person attribute recognition to search for people with specific attributes (gender, clothing). The use of these features requires Alta Video to store biometric data. To comply with regional privacy and data protection laws, you have to specifically enable face and person attribute analytics for sites that are located in regions that allow the use of such analytics. For more information on where Alta Video stores data, see Alta Video data residency.

  1. From Deployment, select ANALYTICS, choose Custom custom analytics settings.
  2. Choose the video analytics to use for each site:
    1. None — Person detection only (no biometric data storage)
    2. person attributes recognition — Use and store person attribute biometric data (age, gender, clothing, accessories, etc).
    3. person attributes recognition + facial recognition — Use and store facial and person attribute biometric data.

Logs

To assist the Avigilon Alta Support team with troubleshooting any issues you have with your Alta cloud-based video security solution, download the log files from Alta Video and attach them to the support case that you raise.

Task — Download Alta Video logs

  1. Select Logs.
  2. Click Download.
    The log files are downloaded to the default download location on your computer.

    Two sets of zipped files are downloaded. One contains information relating to cameras and Cloud Connectors (if applicable) attached to your deployment, and the other contains information relating to the Alta Video user interface.

Backup cameras

When your Alta Video deployment is configured to back up your video data, you can check the current status of the backups.

Task — Check backup status

  1. Select Backup cameras.
  2. Click View backup status.
    The Backup status dialog is shown.
    You can sort the table by clicking on the column headings.
  3. Click Close.
  4. Click Done.

Task — Change the backup schedule

  1. To set a default backup schedule:
    1. Click Change schedule from the DEFAULT BACKUP SCHEDULE area.
    2. Define your preferred options for the bandwidth to be used, and the schedule to be followed.
    3. Click Done.
  2. To set a custom backup schedule for a specific site:
    1. Scroll to the backup settings for the relevant site.
    2. Select Use custom settings.
    3. Click Change schedule.
    4. Define your preferred options for the bandwidth to be used, and the schedule to be followed for the selected site.
    5. Click Done.
  3. Click Done.

Bandwidth usage

You can monitor the bandwidth usage of your deployment from the Settings tool. Limiting the number of cameras on each site that can simultaneously receive software updates allows you to moderate the bandwidth Alta Video uses.

Task — Set the camera update limit

  1. Select Bandwidth usage.
  2. If required, set the Default site limit
  3. To set limitations for individual sites, click Edit limitation per site.
    1. From the Limit drop-down, select if a site uses the Default limit or a Custom limit.
    2. For a custom limit, set the maximum number of cameras to simultaneously receive camera updates.
  4. Click Done.

Audit logs

Task — View audit logs

  1. Select Audit logs.
  2. Select View logs.
  3. Choose to view either Configuration logs or Viewer logs.

    Configuration logs are limited to the last 90 days of data, or 100,000 entries.

    Viewer logs are limited to the last 90 days of data, or 1,000,000 entries.

  4. Use Search Search to search for particular words, for example, the name of a rule, or a change to the time-ranges, that appear in the audit log.
  5. To view audit logs from a specific time frame, use the From and To time fields.

    To view the details for an individual Audit log entry, double-click the entry.

Task — Download audit logs

  1. Click Download logs for either CONFIGURATION LOGS or VIEWER LOGS.
  2. Choose whether to download:
    • All Audit logs.
    • The Last (days) of Audit logs.

      Specify the number of days to download.
    • Audit logs Older than (days).

      Specify the number of days to download.

      Configuration logs are limited to the last 90 days of data, or 100,000 entries.

      Viewer logs are limited to the last 90 days of data, or 1,000,000 entries.

  3. Click Download.

    The selected Audit log is downloaded in JSON format.
  4. Click Done.

Task — Delete audit logs

  1. Scroll down and click Delete logs for either CONFIGURATION LOG or VIEWER LOGS.
  2. Specify the age of audit logs to be deleted:

    Delete Older than (days).
  3. Click Delete.

    The selected audit logs are permanently deleted.
  4. Click Done.

Measurement units

Task — Set default deployment measurement units

You can choose the default currency format and units of measurement for sensors in the deployment. Individual users can override these settings in the Alta Video Timestamp & Measurement settings in their user profile. Emails and Webhooks sent from the deployment always use the default units.

  1. From Deployment, select Measurement units.
  2. Set the default Temperature and Pressure units.
  3. Configure the default currency formatting.

Metadata retention

To enable many of the Alta Video features, for example, Search, your Alta Video deployment saves the metadata from the analysis of your video stream. Define how long Alta Video retains the different classes of metadata for your system.

Task — Configure metadata retention

  1. Select Metadata retention.
  2. For each type of metadata (Alarms, Events, Counts, Access control, POS information, and License plates), specify the number of days to retain the data.

    For Alarms and Events, it is possible for the metadata to be retained for longer periods than the video data. This could lead to you not being able to view the video from an alarm, if the metadata has been retained and the video has been removed.

    Alarms and Events metadata is automatically pruned when there are more than 100,000 alarms or events.

  3. Click Done.

DMP association

DMP association allows a designated partner to receive errors and other important notifications from your deployment. Access the DMP association tab to see who is associated with your Deployment Management Portal. For more information about DMP association, see How to: Enable or disable DMP access.

Audio

In cases where you do not want to use all the audio capabilities of the Alta video security solution, you can restrict the audio capabilities either across your entire deployment, or from specific cameras.

Task — Set the global microphone capabilities

  1. Select Audio.
  2. Select your required audio settings from the Globally limit microphone capabilities dropdown.

    The options are:
    • Unrestricted — all audio features are available to all suitable devices attached to your deployment (default)
    • Allow recording of audio snippets — you can configure Alta Video to record a few seconds of sound when a rule triggers.
    • Analytics only — the audio rules are available from Alta cameras, but they do not include any recorded sound snippets.
    • Microphones disabled — no audio features are available from your Alta Video deployment.

    This setting overrides all other audio feature settings across your deployment.

  3. Click Done.

Licenses

Alta Video deployments use licensing to control and manage your connected devices. For more information about the types of licenses available for your Alta Video deployment, see How to: View the licenses being used by Alta Video.

Task — View in-use licenses

  1. Select Licenses.

    The quantities and types of currently in-use licenses are shown.
  2. Click Done to close the Deployment settings dialog.