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
To receive notifications about new software releases and vulnerability advisories, subscribe at Avigilon Alta - Software updates and security advisories.
About this release
(back to top)The Alta Video software provides the features for your Alta video security systems.
Release label | Release date | Software build number |
---|---|---|
Alta Video video management system software version 2.1.3 (Released to the Stable Upgrade channel) | May 28, 2020 | Alta Video: 200528_06209 |
What's new
(back to top)This release includes the Avigilon Alta Alta Video video management system 2.1.3 software. In this release, Alta Video provides the following features:
Feature | Description | Added 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. | 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: | 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. | 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. | 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. | Alta Video 2.1.0 |
Anomaly detection settings | This release gives more visibility and control over the anomaly detections from each camera. | 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. | Alta Video 2.0 |
Loud noise detections added | Augmenting the existing glass break detections, you can now configure rules to detect unspecified loud noises. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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 | 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. | 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. | 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. | Alta Video 1.4 |
Line crossing counting | Configure areas with line crossing rules, to count the number of people entering and leaving areas. | Alta Video 1.4 |
Download count information as .csv | Download the count information from either your | 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, | Alta Video 1.4 |
Avigilon Ava cameras installation | To 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 | Alta Video 1.4 |
Search for audio detections | Search for audio detections that have been logged by Alta Video. | 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 | Backup your Alta Video configurations to | 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. | 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. | Alta Video 1.3 |
Improvements to timelines | The visual design and work-flows for the timelines have been updated. | 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 improvements | To 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 | 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, | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | Alta Video Beta 1.2 |
Area masking for analytics | You can now define areas of a view where analytics should not be run. | Alta Video Beta 1.2 |
Visual indication for upgrade status | When 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 timeline | Alta Video now includes a timeline on Map view. | Alta Video Beta 1.2 |
Improved logging features | This 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. | 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. | 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. | 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. | 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 experience | See important information about the Alta video security systems the first time you log into Alta Video. | Alta Video 1.0 |
Retention period improvements | The 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 improvements | You can now add notes to each set of camera credentials. | Alta Video 1.0 |
Digitally-signed exports | When 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 files | When 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 LDAP | Use secure LDAP when importing users using your LDAP servers. | Alta Video 1.0 |
Resolved issues
(back to top)These issues have been resolved:
Reference | Resolution | Resolved in |
---|---|---|
Avigilon Alta—267 | A vulnerability has been resolved in the Alta Video software. | Alta Video 2.2.0 |
4930 | An 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 |
4926 | An 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 |
4779 | An 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 |
4764 | An 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 |
4404 | An 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 |
4215 | An 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 |
3467 | An 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 |
4359 | An 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 |
4288 | An 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, 4372 | An 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 |
4713 | An 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 |
4558 | An 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 |
4528 | An issue where you could not download the backup file when using the | Alta Video 2.0.1 |
4481 | An 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 |
4398 | An issue where you could not download the Counts .csv file when using the | 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 |
4104 | An 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 |
4178 | An 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 |
4175 | An 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 |
4184 | An 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 |
4143 | An 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 |
4139 | An 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 |
4133 | An 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 |
4132 | An 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, 4082 | Issues 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 |
3888 | An 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 |
4020 | An issue where | Alta Video 1.5 |
3784 | An 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 |
3398 | An issue where you could move the only Administrator user into an user group with only Operator roles has been resolved. | Alta Video 1.5 |
3753 | An 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 |
3286 | An 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 | Alta Video 1.4.1 |
3240 | An issue where deleting cameras from Alta Video was not reflected in Map viewhas been resolved. | Alta Video 1.4 |
2662 | An issue where the Alta Video user interface repeatedly warned about degraded analytics being detected has been resolved. | Alta Video 1.4 |
2316 | An 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 |
2818 | An 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 |
2768 | An 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 |
2736 | An 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 |
2584 | An issue where Alta Video intermittently lost connection to the Avigilon Alta remote access | Alta Video 1.1 |
2537 | An 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 |
2526 | Issues 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 |
2499 | An issue where Alta Video incorrectly calculated time based on UTC rather than local time has been resolved. | Alta Video 1.1 |
2259 | An 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 |
1320 | An 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 |
2547 | An 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 |
2500 | An issue where, when using the | Alta Video 1.0 |
Known issues
(back to top)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.
Reference | Issue |
---|---|
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. |
4668 | Issue: When attempting to replace a camera in Alta Video, any attempt to change the device credentials are not correctly actioned. |
4513 | Issue: 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. |
4113 | Issue: 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. |
3748 | Issue: 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. |
3708 | Issue: 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. |
3646 | Issue: On somethird-party PTZ cameras, Avigilon Alta Alta Video does not recognize and calibrate the zoom features. |
266 | Issue: In clustered Alta Cloud Connector installations, you cannot export video from secondary clustered nodes. |
General | 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. |