Enable ONVIF or Alta mode in Ava cameras

Last modified: Wednesday October 16, 2024.

Avigilon Ava cameras, by default, are set to Alta mode. In this mode, the camera can only be connected to Alta Video video management systems.

Avigilon Ava cameras can be configured into ONVIF mode, where the camera outputs ONVIF Profile S video streams that can be read by any ONVIF Profile S-compatible client.

If you have an Avigilon Alta cloud-native camera, and you want to use ONVIF (for example, to connect to a 3rd-party VMS), you will need to load the camera with Avigilon Unity firmware which is available from Avigilon technical support.

Cameras that have been placed into ONVIF mode can be re-configured back to Alta mode, where they connect to an Alta Video deployment, and provide the analytics, on-board storage, sound information, and the multiple video streams required by Alta Video.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have connected and logged in to the relevant camera. See Log in to the Alta camera software.
Ensure the camera has been removed from the deployment.

Task — Configure ONVIF mode

From the local user interface for the selected camera, select System.
Click Convert to ONVIF mode.
Click Convert.
After the camera has rebooted, enter and confirm the password.

When put into ONVIF mode, the user name needed to connect to the camera from the ONVIF Profile S-compatible client is onvifadmin. The password is the one you set when configuring ONVIF mode.

Task — Return the camera to Alta mode

Log on to the ONVIF mode camera using the user name admin and the password defined when putting the camera into ONVIF mode.
From the local user interface for the selected camera, select System.
Click Convert to Alta mode.
Click Convert.

When put back into Alta mode, the original Alta Video user name and password is re-applied and, if still registered, the camera reconnects to the previous Alta Video deployment.