Release notes: Alta Video 1.4.1

Building on the basic object counting (available from Alta Video 1.2), Live object counting counts all the people and vehicle objects in the view of a camera, or in the view of selected groups of cameras.

See: Create live counts of objects in view

Configure areas with line crossing rules, to count the number of people entering and leaving areas.

See: Create counts of objects that cross a line

Download the count information from either your Objects in view counts or Line crossing counts as comma separated variable files.

See: Download historic object count information

You can now search for objects directly from the Video view or Map view tools.

See: How to: Quick search from Video view,
Quick search from Map view

To improve the accuracy of object placement in Map view, configure Advanced Field of View for your cameras.

See: Set camera fields of view

Search for audio detections that have been logged by Alta Video.

See: Search for audio detections from Avigilon Ava cameras

Configure automatic updates for your Alta Video video management system.

Backup your Alta Video configurations to vcloud. When needed, select the appropriate backup to restore to Alta Video.

Choose whether to upgrade a specific Avigilon Ava camera from the Stable upgrade channel, or from the Beta upgrade channel.

See: Select the Ava camera upgrade channel

The Avigilon Ava cameras range of devices include audio analytics and detection. This release adds support in Alta Video for Audio Rules, showing the audio events on Map view.

See: Create rules for sound detection

The visual design and work-flows for the timelines have been updated.

See: View live video or play back recorded video

You can now link directly from the Alta Video user interface to the Avigilon Alta docs documentation portal.

You are routed to the correct documentation portal; either the main https://docs.video.ava.uk portal if your Alta Video is on the stable track, or to https://beta.docs.video.ava.uk if your Alta Video is on the beta track.

To improve the accuracy of the line-crossing detection, changes have been made to the algorithm used for these detections.

See: How Alta Video detects line-crossing events
Create rules for line-crossing, and
Search for line-crossing

This release combines the live and playback features into a single pane.

You can also now choose to view bounding boxes on objects (people, and/or vehicles) detected by the Avigilon Alta analytics, and display a count of people and vehicles.

See: View live video or play back recorded video,
Enable additional information in Video view, and
Enable basic object counting in Video view

The ability to delete the data from a specific camera, perhaps in response to a privacy compromise or a breach of regulations, has been added into the Alta Video software.

See Delete recordings from a camera

The way that the Alarms tool handles long lists has been improved. Additionally, you can now use advanced search to more easily find specific alarms.

See:Alarms tool
How to: Review Alarms created by Alta Video

Alta Video 1.2 introduces the ability to configure webhooks to enable Alta Video to sent alerts using the communication or messaging tools of your choice.

See: Create webhooks to send Alta Video notifications

In the event of a camera failing, Alta Video now includes options to replace the camera, synchronize the video from the original camera, and to add the new camera on the Video view and Map view.

See: Swap out a broken camera in Alta Video

You can now define areas of a view where analytics should not be run.

See: Define areas without analytics

This release introduces fine-grained access permissions, so that you can define roles and decide which permissions are assigned to each role.

Using this feature, you can now define access on a per-site basis.

See: Users tool

From this release, you can apply a specific role to a group of users for specific sites or camera groups. This enables you, for example, to create an administrator role just for devices within a single office or region.

See: Users tool

Error logging has been improved so that more information useful in diagnosing issues is captured in the log files.

See: Download log bundles from your Alta Video deployments

You can now configure multiple NTP servers for use by your Avigilon Alta clusters, server groups, and servers.

You can now use Map view to track vehicles in the field of view of your cameras.

The choices of icons you want displayed on Map view has also improved.

See: View additional information on your Map view

This release includes improvements to the search bar used in the Devices tool, and Video view. These search bars now include a filter option enabling you to search for detailed information, for example, the Manufacturer, or the IP address of a camera.

See: Devices tool

If Alta Video does not receive suitable video streams from the cameras connected to it, the analytics might be degraded or not available. This release provides better feedback to users in this situation.

See: Alta Video Video stream requirements

To maintain compatibility with the widest possible number of third-party cameras, Alta Video can now rotate the video being supplied from the camera, to ensure the correct image orientation when displayed in Video view.

See: Adjust camera video parameters from Alta Video

This Alta Video release includes features to upgrade the camera software from Alta Video. You can also use the manual and auto-focus controls in Alta Video to change the Avigilon Ava camera focus.

See: Devices tool

Create clusters of Alta Cloud Connectors that work together to provide multi-site coverage.

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You can set the recording quality for important and unimportant occurrences based on specific values for resolution and frame-rate.

Enable Remote access to your Alta Video software, to access, manage and view video remotely.

Also, Link sharing (introduced in Alta Video Beta 2) can now be accessed remotely via the Alta Cloud.

Use the new user interface options to view panoramic cameras using different methods of dewarping the image seen from the camera.

From the Video view Playback layouts, you can now select 1 & 5, 3 x 3, or 4 x 4 layouts.

Alta Video now provides support for Axis cameras that use High Efficiency Video Coding (H.265) to allow recording using H.265 compression. Alta Video transcodes the stored stream into H.264 for playback from the Alta Video user interface.

This release introduces system level alerting, informing users of important system events, such as Alta Video starting up, being shut down and being upgraded.

Native support for Vivotek cameras is now included.

When viewing live camera feeds in Video view, you can now select from the existing 2 x 2 or 1 & 3 layouts, or use the new 1 & 5, 3 x 3, or 4 x 4 layouts.

From Video view playback, the Search tool, or Alarms, you can now create and share links to video clips. When the recipient receives the link, they can access the relevant video clip using direct network access to Avigilon Alta Alta Video.

Back up your Avigilon Alta configurations, and restore them to recover your Avigilon Alta Alta Cloud Connector to a known working state.

If, when you have your Alta Cloud Connector configured to operate in DHCP IP Mode, if DHCP fails, the server now falls back to using the link local address (as specified in RFC 3927).

Map view improves the timeline, making it easier to identify when alarms and events occur.

The Devices tool includes improvements to the user interface for the timeline.

Usability improvements have been made to the Configuration and Credentials work-flows.

The anomaly detection in Alta Video Beta 1 has been updated to include detections relating to the 'time of day' and 'day of week'.

Anomalies now also trigger events in the Alarms tool.

The first-time configuration work-flow simplifies setting up your Alta Cloud Connectors.

This release includes the addition of tooltips to help identify the icons used in the user interface.

Improvements to the Search tool include a new timeline design, and similarity search for vehicles.

Improvements to the Add Devices work-flow. When configuring new cameras, there are now user interface elements to allow the trusting of camera certificates.

Users can now edit their own profile, and change their password.

This release now includes background anomaly training.

Improved exporting of video clips from the Video view Playback.

From Map view, you can now add floorplans and position camera and other icons. This change makes setting up the Map view more streamlined.

The Search tool has been updated with new similarity search features, and with the new export from search features.

This release provides the ability to configure Alta Video to communicate with an email server, so that Alta Video can send email notifications.

Rules can now be configured to send email messages as an action.

You can now import information from the Search history, to quickly define a new rule.

The Devices tool now automatically detects available camera protocols and uses the appropriate protocol.

The Alta Video Dashboard provides a convenient place in the user interface to access all the tools and features of your Avigilon Alta Alta Video software.

See Dashboard for more information.

Add, configure, and manage your cameras from the Devices tool.

Create camera groups to help you organize your cameras in meaningful ways (by site, by floor, by wing) that are relevant to the areas you are protecting.

Use configuration profiles to apply common settings relating to the video quality, recording strategy and retention policies, and easily apply them to cameras in your installation.

Preview each of your cameras, to verify that you have chosen the correct camera when making adjustments.

For the proof of concept program, use passive mode to use your existing cameras in parallel between the Avigilon Alta video management system, and your existing VMS, without having to change camera profiles or other parameters.

See Devices tool for more information.

TheAlta Cloud Connectors can be configured to connect to one or two networks, and can be configured to use either static addressing, or DHCP. Use the provided tools to set the Alta Cloud Connector hostnames.

Set up the certificates that you need to control access to your Avigilon Alta video management system, either using self-signed certificates, or generate certificate signing requests and then upload the signed certificates to your Alta Cloud Connectors.

The Video view provides the mechanism to monitor your connected cameras.

Create and save the layouts and views that best suit your environment and your operators.

Preview each camera before dragging it to the Video view to pin it in your chosen location.

Use dynamic rotations so that the Avigilon Alta analytics shows the camera views with the most interest, or set up manual rotations to pin several cameras to a single pane, and rotate through them.

See Video view for more information.

From the Video view, use Playback to review the feeds from your cameras. With anomalies and events shown in the timeline, you can easily pin-point the areas of interest.

Maximize the pane you are viewing, and use the digital pan and zoom to see the detail you need. Adjust the playback speed and direction to view and find exactly what you are looking for.

When you have found the video clip you need, export one or more clips for use as evidence.

See Video view for more information.

Add and remove Users from the Alta Video user interface, and select the roles (either Administrator or Operator) for each user.

See Users tool for more information.

Upload your floor plans and site maps to the Sites tool, so that Alta Video can display the Map view of your site.

Add the locations of your cameras, together with their fields of view, to enable Smart Presence in Map view. Also add important details, for example, the locations of fire exits, first aid equipment, and fire extinguishers.

Link several site maps so that you can move between one area and another in Map view.

In Map view, click a camera icon to preview its feed, and see where people are on your site, and track them within the view of a single camera.

See Map view for more information.

Create Rules for people and for vehicles, including rules for appearance, line crossing and loitering.

Set areas of interest on your camera views, and define the schedules when each rule is active. (For example, you might configure a rule to only be active outside of your standard working hours for your site.)

Choose to be notified when rules are triggered, and have alarms pop up in the user interface when they are triggered. You can also configure your rules so that they have to be acknowledged by your operators in order to dismiss them.

See Rules tool for more information.

Create Search for people and for vehicles, including searching for appearance, line crossing and loitering.

Select the cameras of interest, and set areas of interest on your camera views and define the times within which you are searching. When you find results that are of interest, use the Similarity search tools to further refine your search.

See Search tool for more information.

View the list of Alarms that have been triggered either by the Avigilon Alta analytics or by the rules you have created. Choose individual alarms or events to see the details, including video playback in the details sidebar.

If configured, you can require that alarms and events are acknowledged by your Operator, ensuring that they are not missed. You can also view and add to the logs and comments for each alarm or event.

Maximizing the alarm or event opens the combined video and map view, showing the detail and the location of the event. You can then choose to export evidence from the maximized alarm or event.

See Alarms tool for more information.

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Issue: Due to a race condition, the Automatic SW update option might result in your Alta Cloud Connector failing to update when new versions of the software are released.

Workaround: Manually update your Alta Cloud Connector by selecting the Servers | Server group settings | Latest firmware | Update option when you see the New Alta Video version message appear.

Issue: When configuring line crossing counts, if the line is drawn to the edge of the camera view, the line sometimes disappears when you attempt to edit the line position.

Workaround: Ensure that you do not draw the line crossing lines right to the edge of the camera view.

Issue: If you only have one Alta Video user set up, and you move that user into a new User group that has no permissions, you will be signed out of Alta Video, and then will be unable to make any changes to users or permissions.

Workaround: Ensure that you always have at least one Administrator user that has full permissions.

Issue: When you have configured several Alta Cloud Connectors as a cluster, any pop-up notifications that should appear for each cluster node are only shown on the master appliance.

Workaround: All alarms and events are correctly listed in the Alarms & Events dialog.

Issue: In certain testing environments, especially in smaller rooms where low lighting levels, shelving, rack-systems, cables, and other hard edges are in close proximity to the cameras, the Avigilon Alta software might display false vehicle detections.

Issue: If third-party cameras do not support the multiple streams or the GOP profiles required by the Avigilon Alta Alta Video video management system, these incompatibilities might impact the accuracy of the Avigilon Alta analytics.