Release notes: Alta Video 3.1.0 beta

Last modified: Thursday October 15, 2020.

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

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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 software version 3.1.0 beta
(Released to the Beta Upgrade channel)
October 15, 2020Alta Video: 3_1_201015_07800

What's new

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As part of the rebranding to Alta Video, all outbound connections from your video management system to the Alta Cloud are now made to https://aware.ava.uk and its subdomains.

In this release, Alta Video provides the following features:

Table 2 – New features — Aware video management system software release

FeatureDescriptionAdded in
Generate Heatmaps from recorded video

Alta Video now includes the ability to view heatmaps. These heatmaps show where people or vehicles have clustered together over the previous hour. Heatmaps are available in Video view and Map view.

See: Enable heatmaps in Video view and Enable heatmaps in Map view

Alta Video 3.1.0
Create a snapshot image from a video stream

You can now create a snapshot image from a video stream being displayed in Alta Video.

See Create a snapshot from the video stream

Alta Video 3.1.0
When creating Appearance rules, you can now exclude stationary objects.

By selecting Exclude stationary objects from Appearance rules, you can improve rule accuracy.

See Create rules for appearance

Alta Video 3.1.0
Show when a rule is impacted by camera issuesFrom the Rules tool, if one or more cameras that are linked to a rule experience issues (for example, the connection drops, or the GOP length is too long), the rules show a warning icon, and the Devices side bar gives details of the issue.Alta Video 3.1.0
Add devices using a .csv file

You can now add devices by importing a comma separated values (.csv) file containing details of your devices. You can also export the details of cameras connected to Alta Video.

See:
Create a camera import CSV file
Add cameras by importing a CSV file
Export configuration reports for devices connected to Alta Video

Alta Video 3.1.0
Configure multiple webhooks

You can now configure rules with multiple different webhooks as the actions when the rule is triggered.

See Create webhooks to send Alta Video notifications

Alta Video 3.1.0
Use space bar to pause/play videoWhen using Video view or when viewing video from Alarms, pressing the space bar now pauses or restarts the video.Alta Video 3.1.0
New appliance/connection issue options added

New options for setting rules to detect appliance and connections issues have been added in this release.

See Create rules for System issues

Alta Video 3.1.0
Create email notifications from templates

When creating email notifications for rules, you can now create email templates to add information relevant to the notification.

See Send email notifications for Alta Video rules

Alta Video 3.1.0
Create Shared links for notifications

In Rules, you can now define Shared links so that relevant people can see video of the event that triggered the rule.

See Create an External link to use with an Alta Video notification

Alta Video 3.1.0
New User permission for Upgrade

With the new permissions, only personal that have permission to upgrade Alta Video see the Upgrade banners.

See Create User groups

Alta Video 3.1.0
Exiting digital zoomIf you have used the digital zoom feature to zoom in on some displayed video, you can now click Exit zoom from the Zoom overview thumbnail to return to the original view.Alta Video 3.1.0
Webhook certificate checks

You can now define if you want Alta Video to ignore any HTTPS certificate errors when sending webhook notifications.

See Create webhooks to send Alta Video notifications

Alta Video 3.1.0
Smoke alarm detection

When using Avigilon Ava cameras, you can now detect Smoke alarm audio detections.

See Create rules for sound detection

Alta Video 3.1.0
Alta Video

Alta Video is now available as both an on-premise solution running on Alta Cloud Connectors, or as Alta Video, a virtual system running on the Avigilon Alta cloud.

See Introducing: Alta Video

Alta Video 3.0.0
Configure Rules for system events

Configure Rules to alert you about system-level events, such as HDD failures, or running low on disk space.

See:
Create rules for System issues
Create rules for Camera issues

Alta Video 3.0.0
Improved dewarp settings for panoramic cameras

Improvements have been made to the dewarp settings for panoramic cameras, particularly when wall-mounted.

See Set your preferred panoramic view

Alta Video 3.0.0
Improved configuration of Avigilon Ava cameras within Alta Video

Configure audio analytics and SSH for an individual Avigilon Ava camera from the side bar in Devices.

See Change camera settings in Alta Video

Alta Video 3.0.0
Automatic software update options changed

Configure your Alta Video to check either daily or weekly for updates, and when available, to install them on your Alta Cloud Connectors. You can also configure the time that they are installed.

Alta Video 3.0.0
View analytics stream

View the video stream currently being used for the analytics, to help pin-point any issues with the analytics from a camera.

See Improve video streams from problematic cameras

Alta Video 3.0.0
Ava re-brandingThe Vaion vcore video management system software has been re-branded to become Alta Video.Alta Video 2.5.0
Video view improvements

You can now drag a site onto a pane in Video view. The cameras from this site will then rotate based on the most interesting feed. This is particularly useful for clustered deployments where an Operator might only be interested in the camera feeds for one site.

See Create your Video views

Alta Video 2.5.0
Configure SSH and Audio Analytics for Ava cameras from Aware

Using the Aware Devices tool, select multiple Ava cameras and bulk configure Secure Shell (SSH) access, and the use of the Ava camera microphone arrays for audio analytics.

SeeChange camera settings in Alta Video

Alta Video 2.5.0
Browser compatibility — use the Microsoft Edge browser to view the Aware user interfaceIn addition to using the Chrome browser, you can now view the Aware user interface using the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser (version 79 or later). Alta Video 2.5.0
Video adjustments for devices

Use the improved Video adjustments dialog to tune the video feed from your cameras.

See Adjust camera video parameters from Alta Video

Alta Video 2.5.0
Panoramic view improvementsThe sensitivity of the zoom has been improved in the Globe panoramic dewarp view.Alta Video 2.5.0

Resolved issues

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These issues have been resolved in this release:

Table 3 – Resolved issues

ReferenceResolutionResolved in
Ava—311

A vulnerability has been resolved in the Alta Cloud.

Alta Cloud 12th October 2020
6528An issue where from Video view in Alta Video, you could not view reverse playback of recorded video has been resolved.Alta Video 3.1.0
5993An issue where, from Alta Video Cloud, Email notifications did not contain the image of the alarm occurrence has been resolved. Alta Video Cloud 3.1.0
5954 An issue with permissions that led to Users with Devices | View device information and Rules | Add/Edit rules permissions not being able to see the device list has been resolved. Alta Video 3.1.0
5689An issue where a clustered deployment might reboot if the connection between nodes failed has been resolved.Alta Video 3.1.0
5626An issue where the Counts retention settings were visible to users with only View Counts permissions has been resolved.Alta Video 3.1.0
5421

An issue where, when sending an email with a password reset link, you either needed Remote Access to be enabled, or to have correctly configured the External URL has been resolved.

Alta Video 3.1.0
4668An issue where, when attempting to replace a camera in Alta Video, any attempt to change the device credentials was not correctly actioned has been resolved.Alta Video 3.1.0
6475An issue where configuring System rules with When configured for specific Date and Time ranges did not function correctly has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.3
6517An issue where, in Video view, you could not use the reverse playback option has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.2
6359An issue where, when configuring Server issues rules, the Disk space rule triggered repeatedly if the disks filled up has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.1
6338An issue where recording for one or more cameras could stop has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.1
6147An issue where, when changing the layout in Video view, the existing panes were not shown immediately and appeared after a few seconds has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.0
5972An issue where, in certain circumstances, Alta Video could stop recording video from one or more cameras has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.0
6338An issue where recording for one or more cameras could stop has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.1
5972An issue where, in certain circumstances, Alta Video could stop recording video from one or more cameras has been resolved.Alta Video 3.0.0
6162An issue in the anomaly detection that could cause the system to run out of memory and restart has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.2
6079An issue where the Spherical dewarp lagged, especially for 4k streams, has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.2
6066An issue where recording could stop has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.1
6012An issue where, in systems with cameras configured with low bit-rates, recording could stop has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.1
6025An issue where newly added devices did not show in the user interface until you closed and reopened the Devices tool has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.0
5719

An issue where the date picker tool sometimes did not retain the dates you selected has been resolved.

Alta Video 2.5.0
5664An issue where, when applying a rotation to a panoramic camera, some views and operations are based on the original view, rather than the rotated image has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.0
5443 An issue where you could not upgrade a cluster if a node within the Appliance group was disconnected has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.0
4513An issue where, if you configured a counting area using multiple sources from the same camera, or multiple sources from an encoder, Alta Video showed all counts as being from a single source has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.0
6008An issue where all the third-party cameras connected to one server in a cluster stopped recording has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.0
5971An issue where, in a clustered server deployment, you could not export video from clustered servers other than the primary server has been resolved.Alta Video 2.5.0
5931

An issue where, when Users with the Operator Role used the Alta Video mobile apps (both Android and iOS), they did not receive notifications when rules triggered has been resolved.

Alta Video 2.5.0

Software releases might include minor bug fixes that are not listed in the Resolved issues table.

Known issues

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During testing, we have found the following issues in this release.

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

Table 4 – Known issues — Alta Video video management system

ReferenceIssue
6776Issue: On some systems, you might not be able to import a CSV file containing camera details.
6765Issue: When attempting to edit Anomaly settings for devices in Device groups connected to another appliance in a cluster, the edits are not correctly saved.
6753Issue: If a camera is configured with a device configuration that includes Don't record, you cannot override this setting by using the Manual record button in Video view.
6735Issue: When using Avigilon Ava cloud-native cameras, any system alarms or 123 Counts rules that are triggered do not include the thumbnail images in the email notifications.
6232Issue: When using the delete recordings function to delete all recordings including bookmarks, all the video and metadata are deleted, but the bookmark items themselves are not removed.
6033

Issue: When zooming into a panoramic camera on the Alta Video user interface in Chrome version 84, sometimes the zoomed view and area shown in the thumbnail do not match.

Workaround: Update to the latest version of the Chrome browser.

5817Issue: In Alta Video, you can rotate the view from an Avigilon Ava camera in 90° steps. However, from the Avigilon Ava camera software, you can only rotate the view in 180° steps. Attempting to apply rotations from both the Alta Video software and from the Avigilon Ava camera software can cause the camera rotation to become out of sync.
5739

Issue: When first viewing the Alta Video user interface in Chrome versions 84 or 85, some of the icons might not load correctly. This issue has been filed against the Chrome browser.

Workaround: Update to the latest version of the Chrome browser.

5461Issue: When searching for Gender, the results returned from Pano cameras feature a higher than desirable level of false-positive responses. As more test clips are added to the training models, this level of false-positive will improve.
5406

Issue: When requesting an RTSP stream, any camera view rotation that has been configured in Alta Video is ignored, and the stream uses the rotation settings from the camera.

See Local RTSP streams

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.