Release notes: Alta Video 2.1.3 beta

Last modified: Friday July 24, 2020.

Learn about new features and any issues found in testing for the Alta Video software 2.1.3 beta.

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About this release

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The Alta Video software provides the features for your Alta video security systems.

Table 1 – Software release details

Release labelRelease dateSoftware build number
Alta Video video management system software
version 2.1.3
(Released to the Stable Upgrade channel)
May 28, 2020Alta Video: 200528_06209

What's new

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This release includes the Avigilon Alta Alta Video video management system 2.1.3 software. In this release, Alta Video provides the following features:

Table 2 – New features — Alta Video video management system software release

FeatureDescriptionAdded in
GET HTTP method added to webhooks

You can now use the GET HTTP method when configuring webhooks to send notifications to third-party applications.

See Create webhooks to send Alta Video notifications

Alta Video 2.1.1
Audio snippets for Avigilon Ava cameras alarms

You can now choose to record short snippets of audio at the point of each sound detection, and to download and listen to these snippets.

See:
Cameras for Alta Video
Set Alta camera settings locally
Create rules for sound detection

Alta Video 2.1.0
Improvements to panoramic views

The default view in Video view and Map view now features improved dewarping and the ability to zoom in and pan around the field of view of panoramic cameras.

See Set your preferred panoramic view

Alta Video 2.1.0
Manual device stream configuration

When third-party cameras do not give the correct stream configurations as requested by Alta Video, you can now manually specify stream requirements.

See Improve video streams from problematic cameras

Alta Video 2.1.0
Set loitering time in rules

When setting up a loitering rule, you can now configure the time an object has to be present before the rule triggers.

See Create rules for loitering

Alta Video 2.1.0
Anomaly detection settings

This release gives more visibility and control over the anomaly detections from each camera.

See Configure anomaly settings for your cameras

Alta Video 2.1.0
Setting default routes

For Alta Cloud Connectors that use multiple network interfaces, you can now define which interfaces to use for packet routing.

Alta Video 2.1.0
User creation and management improvements

You can now lock and unlock user accounts, and have new options for enforcing password changes using different methods.

See Manage Alta Video user access

Alta Video 2.0
Loud noise detections added

Augmenting the existing glass break detections, you can now configure rules to detect unspecified loud noises.

See Create rules for sound detection

Alta Video 2.0
Upgrade multiple Avigilon Ava cameras

When you have Avigilon Ava cameras connected to your Alta Video video management system, you are notified when a new version of the Avigilon Ava cameras software is released. Clicking the notification banner opens a dialog that enables you to select the Avigilon Ava cameras to upgrade.

See Upgrade your Ava cameras from Alta Video

Alta Video 2.0

Encrypted upgrade packages

Software upgrade packages for Alta Video are now encrypted by Avigilon Alta, to ensure that they cannot be altered before being installed.

Alta Video 2.0

Ability to export video clips from more tools in Alta Video

Alta Video already lets you export video clips from the Video view and Map view tools; now you can export video from the Devices, the Alarms and from the Search preview tools.

See Export video clips from Alta Video

Alta Video 2.0
HDR and IR controls for Avigilon Ava cameras

This release incorporates support for the Avigilon Ava cameras HDR and IR settings, embedded in the Alta Video user interface.

See Adjust camera video parameters from Alta Video

Alta Video 2.0
Counting rules

Create rules that trigger on Count areas, to gain intelligence about the physical areas you monitor, and to receive notifications when your pre-defined criteria are met.Alta Video

See Create rules for Counts

Alta Video 1.5
Bookmark video clips and edit shared links

Bookmark video that needs further analysis, or that needs to be brought to the attention of your colleagues. You can also edit any links that you have shared with others, and Administrator users can monitor and if needed, delete shared links.

See:
Saved clips tool
Bookmark video clips
Edit Saved Clips

Alta Video 1.5
View estimates of the storage used in your Alta Cloud Connectors, and the storage used by each camera

Monitor the total storage used across your Server groups, and the storage used by each camera.

Alta Video 1.5
Disable inactive channels on encoders or multisource devices

When using an encoder or multisensor device, you might want to disable one or more channels.

See Enable or disable channels for encoders or multisource devices

Alta Video 1.5
Add Fire alarm pull station icons to Map view

In Map view, the available informational icons have been expanded to include Fire alarm pull stations.

See Link your site maps and add extra information markers

Alta Video 1.5
Objects in view counting

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

Alta Video 1.4
Line crossing counting

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

Alta Video 1.4
Download count information as .csv

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

Alta Video 1.4
Carry out quick searches from Video view and Map view

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

Alta Video 1.4
Avigilon Ava cameras installationTo install Avigilon Ava cameras, you do not need to preconfigure credentials.Alta Video 1.4
Configure Advanced Field of View cones in 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

Alta Video 1.4
Search for audio detections

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

See: Search for audio detections from Avigilon Ava cameras

Alta Video 1.4
Automatic updates for Alta Video

Configure automatic updates for your Alta Video video management system.

Alta Video 1.4
Backup and Restore Alta Video from vcloud

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

Alta Video 1.4
Select the upgrade channel for each Avigilon Ava cameras device

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

Alta Video 1.4
Audio support for Avigilon Ava cameras

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.

The microphones are part of the cover of the Avigilon Ava cameras; if the cover is not correctly fitted, the Avigilon Ava camera cannot receive or process audio.

See: Create rules for sound detection

Alta Video 1.3
Improvements to timelines

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

See: View live video or play back recorded video

Alta Video 1.3
Link to Avigilon Alta docs added to the Alta Video user interface

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.avasecurity.com portal if your Alta Video is on the stable track, or to https://beta.docs.video.avasecurity.com if your Alta Video is on the beta track.

We recommend that you only use the Beta upgrade channel for test systems. All productions systems must be on the Stable upgrade channel.

Alta Video 1.3
Supportability improvementsTo enable the Support team to better support your Avigilon Alta products, improvements have been made the log files created by Alta Video, including adding timestamps to the log bundles, and introducing variable packet capture (pcap) capture lengths.Alta Video 1.3
Updates to the line-crossing algorithm

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

Alta Video Beta 1.2
Enhancements to the Video view

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

Alta Video Beta 1.2
Option to delete data for a camera

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

Alta Video Beta 1.2
Improvements to the Alarms tool

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 Beta 1.2
Support for webhooks

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

Alta Video Beta 1.2
Tools to enable a camera to be easily swapped

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

Alta Video Beta 1.2
Area masking for analytics

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

See: Define areas without analytics

Alta Video Beta 1.2
Visual indication for upgrade statusWhen upgrading the Alta Video software, you are now shown a progress indicator so you can monitor the progress of the downloading and installing of the Alta Video upgrade package.Alta Video Beta 1.2
Map view now includes a timelineAlta Video now includes a timeline on Map view.Alta Video Beta 1.2
Improved logging featuresThis release includes improvements to the way information about the health of your Alta Video video management system and your cameras are collected.Alta Video Beta 1.2
User permissions

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

Alta Video 1.1
Assign roles to sites or camera groups

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

Alta Video 1.1
Improved Alta Video logging

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

Alta Video 1.1
Improved NTP settings

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

Alta Video 1.1
Improvements to Map view

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

Alta Video 1.1
Improved search options

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

Alta Video 1.1
Improved user interface feedback for camera stream and analytics

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

Alta Video 1.1
Video stream rotation

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

Alta Video 1.1
Avigilon Ava camera support

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

Alta Video 1.0
Clustering of Alta Cloud Connectors

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

Alta Video 1.0
First time experienceSee important information about the Alta video security systems the first time you log into Alta Video.

Alta Video 1.0

Retention period improvementsThe settings to enable you to better configure how your video is stored and retained have been improved.

Alta Video 1.0

New Firmware available notifications Administrator users are notified when new versions of the Alta Video firmware are available.

Alta Video 1.0

Camera credentials improvementsYou can now add notes to each set of camera credentials.

Alta Video 1.0

Digitally-signed exportsWhen you export video and metadata, the files are digitally-signed (watermarked) so that you can prove they have not been tampered with.

Alta Video 1.0

Encryption of exported filesWhen you export video or metadata, or send links to recorded video, you can choose to apply AES-256 encryption so that only those authorized can view the recordings.

Alta Video 1.0

Secure LDAPUse secure LDAP when importing users using your LDAP servers.

Alta Video 1.0

Resolved issues

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These issues have been resolved:

Table 3 – Resolved issues

ReferenceResolutionResolved in
Avigilon Alta—267A vulnerability has been resolved in the Alta Video software. Alta Video 2.2.0
4930An issue where, especially on systems with big storage disks and many cameras, the disk cleanup process could erroneously clean newly written files after a system startup has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.2
4926An issue where, if you used the zoomed dewarp features on a panoramic camera and then pinned that camera in Video view, the dewarped view was incorrectly displayed has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.2
4779An issue where any backups taken before an Alta Cloud Connector was factory reset could not be restored after the factory reset has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.1
4764An issue where, in clustered deployments, the anomaly settings could only be altered for devices connected to the node you logged into has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.1
4404An issue where you could not export a counts .csv file across an Alta Cloud Connector cluster link has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.1
4215An issue where, if you created a count rule on a system that included clustered Alta Cloud Connectors, the rule, when triggered showed as ongoing on all appliances even after being acknowledged or viewed has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.1
3467An issue where, if you saved a video view, but did not make it public at that time, you were unable to later edit the settings has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.1
4359An issue where, when a Loud noise rule triggered, in Map view the directional sound detection icon was not correctly displays has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.0
4288An issue where, in some rare circumstances, the communications between the individual Alta Cloud Connectors in a cluster were repeatedly sent, which caused high bandwidth usage and impacted features that required inter-Alta Video communications has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.0
2477, 4372An issue where, if you had configured several Alta Cloud Connectors as a cluster, pop-up notifications that should have appeared for each cluster node were only shown on the master appliance has been resolved.Alta Video 2.1.0
4713An issue where the Alta Video first-time setup wizard (seen when configuring a new server, or following a factory-reset) caused an error that prevented you from creating a new user has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0.2
4558An issue where the Alta Video timelines displayed hatchings to indicate that no video was recorded, even when recordings were available has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0.1
4528An issue where you could not download the backup file when using the vcloud gateway to store backups for your Alta Video has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0.1
4481An issue where the group camera permissions get forgotten when rebooting Alta Video has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0.1
4438 An issue where Alta Video could not get video from a 2N Verso Intercom camera has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0.1
4398An issue where you could not download the Counts .csv file when using the vcloud gateway to access your Alta Video has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0.1
4138 An issue where the second stream from some cameras (including Vivotek FD8162 cameras) was being cropped has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0.1
4104An issue where, after carrying out a factory reset, Alta Video incorrectly calculated the available storage has been resolved.Alta Video 2.0
Avigilon Alta—262 A vulnerability has been resolved in the Alta Video software. Alta Video 1.5.2
4178An issue where operators with some modified Roles observed a User Interface loop with multiple errors when sharing bookmarks has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
4175An issue where attempting to upgrade Alta Video from version 1.2 to version 1.5 sometimes failed has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
4184An issue where you could not create a shared link, resulting in a spinner and error being displayed, has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
4143An issue where, if you set the Shared link Disable date, and then edited the date you'd set, the system defaulted back to the original date has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
4139An issue where passwords were not correctly converted from ASCII to Unicode, causing passwords with certain characters to fail, has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
4133An issue where the Field of View button in the Map view Information Layers dialog did not toggle the Field of View cones on the maps on and off has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
4132An issue where the count summary for vehicles was incorrectly displayed in the 123 Counts | Line crossing side pane has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
4066, 4082Issues where, irrespective of permissions and roles assigned to a user, all users could see the Export icon has been resolved. Alta Video 1.5.1
3888An issue where Alarms show as ongoing, even after being acknowledged and dismissed, has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5.1
Avigilon Alta—260 A vulnerability has been resolved in the Alta Video software. Alta Video 1.5.1
4020An issue where Automatic SW update did not always update your Alta Cloud Connector has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5
3784An issue where, if an object of interest was located near the edge of the video pane, you could not select the object to carry out a quick search has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5
3398An issue where you could move the only Administrator user into an user group with only Operator roles has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5
3753An issue where, when configuring line crossing counts, if the line was drawn to the edge of the camera view, the line sometimes disappeared when you attempted to edit the line position has been resolved. Alta Video 1.5
3286An issue where, when configuring Count areas, adding a second camera resulted in the camera being misaligned has been resolved.Alta Video 1.5
Avigilon Alta—257 A vulnerability has been resolved in the Alta Video software. Alta Video 1.4.2
Avigilon Alta—254 A vulnerability has been resolved in the Alta Video and vcloud software. Alta Video 1.4.1
3240An issue where deleting cameras from Alta Video was not reflected in Map viewhas been resolved.Alta Video 1.4
2662An issue where the Alta Video user interface repeatedly warned about degraded analytics being detected has been resolved.Alta Video 1.4
2316An issue where Alta Video was limited to only maintaining a list of the last 100 alarms and events has now been resolved. The user interface now shows results in a paged layout.Alta Video 1.3
2818An issue where, when viewing Video view, if you moved to another browser tab and then returned to the Alta Video tab, all thumbnail views froze, and no video was displayed has now been resolved.Alta Video 1.1.1
2768An issue where renaming a map in Map view caused all the cameras to appear to be removed from the map until you manually refreshed the browser has been resolved.Alta Video 1.1.1
2736An issue where users could not log in to Alta Video after having their details synchronized using LDAP over TLS (LDAPS) has been resolved.Alta Video 1.1
2584An issue where Alta Video intermittently lost connection to the Avigilon Alta remote access vcloud service has been resolved.Alta Video 1.1
2537An issue where existing Map view thumbnails were displayed in low resolution after upgrading the software from Alta Video Beta 3 to Alta Video 1.0 has been resolved.Alta Video 1.1
2526Issues where temporary stream conditions from some third-party cameras caused Alta Video to incorrectly report warnings even though analytics were functioning correctly have been resolved. Alta Video 1.1

2404, 2582

An issue where, if you attempted to export or link less than four camera views, the export or link did not work has been resolved.Alta Video 1.1
2499An issue where Alta Video incorrectly calculated time based on UTC rather than local time has been resolved.Alta Video 1.1
2259An issue where, when playing back video from some higher resolution cameras, the video intermittently stopped, paused, and then start playing again has been improved.Alta Video 1.1
1320An issue where, after setting a new hostname, a restart was required, but there were no notifications in the user interface, has now been resolved.Alta Video 1.1
2547An issue where, on upgrading from Alta Video Beta 2 to Alta Video 1.0 RC1 without first upgrading to Alta Video Beta 3, resulted in you being unable to view Devices or to view or search video due to the user permissions being incorrectly updated, has been resolved.Alta Video 1.0
2500An issue where, when using the Date & Time setting in Rules, the time was incorrectly set has been resolved.Alta Video 1.0

Known issues

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During testing, we have found the following issues in these releases.

These software versions have been extensively tested on the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system, using the Chrome browser.

Table 4 – Known issues — Alta Video video management system

ReferenceIssue
4765

Issue: In a clustered setup, if you edit any device settings from an Alta Cloud Connector other than the one to which the device is connected, you cannot immediately see the changes.

Workaround: Refresh the screen to see the updated information.

4675

Issue: In some circumstances, when viewing the Alta Video user interface, users are being logged out of the interface.

Workaround: Logging back into the Alta Video user interface enables the user to continue with their tasks.

4668Issue: When attempting to replace a camera in Alta Video, any attempt to change the device credentials are not correctly actioned.
4513Issue: If you configure a counting area using multiple sources from the same camera, or multiple sources from an encoder, Alta Video currently shows all counts as being from a single source.
4307

Issue: When trying to view too complex a Video view layout on a PC with insufficient hardware specification, a significant delay in live video may be experienced. This situation is exasperated when using cameras that provide fewer than three concurrent video streams, as higher than optimum resolutions and frame rates are then used for the viewing live video.

Workaround: Using PCs with higher hardware specifications (especially with better GPUs) reduces the delay experienced. Also, simplifying the Video view layout, and using a 2nd PC to display some of the Video views will further reduce the delays.

4113Issue: If an object in a camera view is already being tracked when a counting rule becomes active, that object is not included in the rule count.
3748Issue: On occasion, the Avigilon Alta analytics might briefly detect a single object as multiple objects. If this situation occurs near a line crossing count, the count could trigger on the erroneous multiple objects, leading to an incorrect count being shown.
3708Issue: When carrying out similarity searches, if you have many results and add and remove thumbnails, the user interface can become unresponsive, with spinner icons displayed instead of video.
3646Issue: On somethird-party PTZ cameras, Avigilon Alta Alta Video does not recognize and calibrate the zoom features.
266Issue: In clustered Alta Cloud Connector installations, you cannot export video from secondary clustered nodes.
GeneralIssue: 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.