Avigilon

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Avigilon

 

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Native Integration Available

This integration requires a Class 2 License and a Device Server. Please contact your account manager for more details. Steps to configure your device can be found here.

Native Integration: Supported Features

  • Live Video

  • PTZ

  • Audio Transmit

  • Alarms
  • Get Config

Native Integration: Requirements

Version Requirements

  • ACC Enterprise Edition with Avigilon Control Center Version 5.8, 6 or 7
  • ACC Standard Edition with Avigilon Control Center Version 5.8, 6 or 7

Note: ACC Core Edition is not supported

 

License Requirements

 Avigilon ACC 'Control Center' License

 

Network Requirements

From

To

Port

Use

Device Server

Avigilon ACC Server(s)

38880/38881 TCP

Commands

Device Server

Avigilon ACC Server(s)

51000 UDP & TCP

Video

 

Permission Requirements

Requires a valid ACC user login that has client access to all required cameras and systems

Native Integration: Device Setup

In Avigilon

Camera Streams set to H.264 - SureView Response only permits video encoded as H.264 to be streamed from cameras and video systems.

On the Device Server

Install DirectX version 9

    • To install the needed DirectX version 9 use the following Installer. The installer downloads a 93 Mb file during install.
    • If an Online Install If that is not an option, the full file can be downloaded separately for offline install

In SureView

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 Avigilon is an advanced integration and must be configured using the using advanced "Device Setup" page and the "Device Configuration" feature.

Once the fields are completed based on the advise below, use the Get Configuration button to automatically populate the Avigilon Cameras into SureView.

Field Value
Title The friendly name of the Avigilon Server you are connecting to
Area The Area/site that the Avigilon devices/cameras will be added to
Type Avigilon Control Center Version 6 or 7 Select "Avigilon V6"
Avigilon Control Center Version 5 Select "Avigilon V5"
Ops Link The name of your connected SureView Device Server
Host The local IP or Host address of the Genetec Directory Server where the Sureview Router service is installed (from the perspective of the SureView Device Server
Port The Base Port of the ACC (See Troubleshooting)
Username The username used to log into the ACC client
Password The username used to log into the ACC client
Device Indexes/Device Identifiers The connection string for the Area, this will be automatically populated by the Get Configuration feature (So leave blank during initial setup)

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Additional Configuration Notes

Camera Streaming

SureView Ops Ops only permits video encoded as H.264 to be streamed from cameras and video systems.  Please ensure that the Avigilon Camera Streams are set to H.264 within the Avigilon Software.

If a different stream type has been selected it can cause unexpected issues within the SureView Camera stream such as a camera failing to stream any video or the camera stream starting but cutting out after a short time.

My device is using too much bandwidth

The Avigilon has been updated with optimized CPU usage on cloud servers, and this is achieved using built in Bandwidth Limitation. In order to manually set the limit for this, you will need to add the following config setting into the Sureview Device Service worker config file (Inside the Sureview install folder on the SureView Device Server , open "/DeviceServer/DeviceWorker.exe.config").

<appSettings>
<!-- The value to restrict the bandwidth of Avigilon devices in bytes per second (Bps), 0 is unlimited, default or null is 1MBps -->
<add key="AvigilonBandwidth" value="131072" />
</appSettings>


If the value is set as '0' then the bandwidth will be unrestricted, however if this value is not included in the config file then the default value of 1 Megabit per second is used.


Configuring my ACC base port 

To discover your ACC servers base port, or to adjust it. Navigate to the machine/server hosting the ACC server. Open up the Avigilon Control Center 5 Admin Tool. Under the settings tab select Network. This will open up the Network dialog that will show what ports the ACC is using.FindControlPort.png

What camera resolutions are supported in the Integration by default?

By using the camera quality setting in Sureview you can request different camera quality from Avigilon. The following describes the corresponding resolution settings

Highest = 4CIF [704x576]
High = DCIF [528x384]
Medium = CIF [352 x288]
Low = SCIF [256x192]
Lowest = QCIF [176 x144]

These values can be modified upon request - please engage with your SureView engineer to modify these settings. 

Setting the video pixels against each quality setting
Inside the Device.Worker.exe.config (on the SureView Device Server) add a quality setting and pixel ratio for those you wish to override.

The key should bee added between <appSettings> and </appSettings>

Highest, High, Medium, Low, and Lowest are the available options. Only one override per quality settings.

Examples:

<add key="AvigilonV6_PixelQuality_HighestQualityPixel" value="1920x1080" />
<add key="AvigilonV6_PixelQuality_HighQualityPixel" value="1280x720" />
<add key="AvigilonV6_PixelQuality_LowestQualityPixel" value="180x100" />

 

The format above must be followed in order for the override to take place, otherwise the existing defaults will be used. The values added into value must be integers and be separated by a single 'x'.

An addition option has been added to use the native camera resolution as the base for our quality settings instead of the default CIF values. To enable it add the following to the DeviceWorker.exe config
<add key="AvigilonV6_UseCameraImageSize" value="true" />

 

Passthrough Video (For packages 1.4.32043.0 or newer !)
To enable pass through add the following to the DeviceWorker.exe config
<add key="AvigilonV6_PassThroughEnabled" value="true" />

This will enable pass through for ALL Avigilon cameras. If you wish to disable passthrough for a specific camera add

 ;Passthrough=false 

to the end of the CameraExtraValue.

Notes :
Currently the Passthrough video DOES NOT allow setting of the stream resolution, we can only use what is given to us. As such changing the camera quality setting has no impact at the moment as it is just the full resolution video we are being given.

The  AvigilonV6_UseCameraImageSize also has no impact on the pass through stream, this only applied to the standard JPG video.

Passthrough for pre-alarm/playback
By default, the avigilon will fall back to transcoding for pre-alarm due to performance and stability issues. to switch passthrough back on for prealarm/prealarm the following key needs to be added to the DeviceWorker.exe.config in the appsettings section:

<add key="UsePassThroughForPlayback" value="true" />

Adding timestamp overly to prealarm
If a customer is having issues surrounding the clips being returned from Pre-alarm or Playback, you may want to turn on the overlaying of the timestamp on the pre-alarm clip. This will be added by the Avigilon SDK, not by us, but may allow you to identify timezone or time offset issues when it comes to differences between Sureview and the 3rd party system.

To turn on this setting the following attribute will need to be added to the DeviceWorker.exe.config in the appsettings section:

<add key="Avigilon_OverlayTimeOnPlayback" value="true" />

 

Sureview is not playing live video from Avigilon ACC or Video is streaking

In certain networking scenarios, especially when NAT is involved, the integration might need to be switched to a "WAN" mode where the network connection reverts to a more specific nature. This is configurable within the Filter Options of the Device Setup field by adding:

networkConnection=WAN;

 

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Live view doesn't work with 'Failed to Initialise SDK....' error

Try the following to clear the error

  1. Make sure Direct X 9 or above is installed on the Sureview server that is running the integration

  2. Reboot the SureView Device Server

  3. Reinstall the Avigilon integration

Some device workers are not closing correctly

Update the device worker config (on the SureView Device Server) and add the following within the <runtime> section:

<legacyUnhandledExceptionPolicy enabled="1"/>

This ensures 3rd party errors don't prevent the device worker from closeing down cleanly.

Sureview is not playing live video from Avigilon ACC

In certain networking scenarios, especially when NAT is involved, the integration might need to be switched to a "WAN" mode where the network connection reverts to a more specific nature. This is configurable within the ExtraValue field by adding a "wan" option 

Camera will not connect [Failed to login : ErrFailure]

  1. Verify that the Sureview user account is able to login and has sufficient privilege's. Note that Avigilon user names are case sensitive.

  2. Verify the version of Avigilon installed on SureView Device Server and Selected Device Type in SureView

    1. Avigilon V5 - Supports Avigilon ACC5

    2. Avigilon V6 - Supports Avigilon ACC6 and ACC7

Debugging
Setting <add key="AvigilonV6Cam.SaveFrames" value="true" /> in the device worker will save the first 50 bytes to data to disk.

 

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