Camera Setup

Each camera can be configured independently. To start, you need to tell XtraSense which camera you'd like to configure. The selected camera will be brought offline until you save or cancel changes. You cannot bring a camera offline when recording on the camera is in progress.

To specify a camera name to be displayed under camera preview window. If you didn't specify any name, a default name consists of "Camera" and the camera number will be used. For example, "Camera 0" will be used for the first camera.

Select Analog Camera tab if you are using USB or normal analog CCTV cameras. Select IP Camera tab if it is a network IP camera.

IP camera's network IP address. You may refer to camera's manual to find out how to set an IP address.

This is the path to the still picture of the camera. XtraSense does not read the video stream directly from camera. Instead, it reads the still frames at a high speed (limited by network bandwith and camera HTTP server response time) and join them locally as video. So the path must point to the still frame. For example, on Axis IP camera, you should use http://192.168.1.1/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi instead of http://192.168.1.1/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi.To find out the path by camera maker/model, click "List" button. You can edit the list to add your own URL.

If you are using normal CCTV camera + video capture card, you need to specify which capture device the selected camera is connected to. If your capture device has more than one port, please also specify which port the camera is connected to. For example, if you have two four-port video capture cards installed and your camera is connected to second card's third port, you need to select the second item in the video device list and select number 2 in the port list (because the port number starts from 0 to 3 for each card).

If you are using USB cameras, you can see your USB camera name is displayed in the video device list.

You need a realtime capture card in order to make use of all ports on the card(at same time). Otherwise XtraSense will only take input from one of the ports. A realtime capture card has independent video digitizing hardware for each port so that you can access all ports at same time. It will also display itself as multiple devices in the video device list. For example, a 4 port realtime capture card will appear as 4 independent video capture devices instead of one video device with 4 ports.

A non-realtime capture card has multiple video input ports sharing one piece of digitizing hardware. The manufacturer's software usually use port scan technique to access all ports one by one at a very short interval to simulate a realtime board. In order for XtraSense to access all ports on a non-realtime card, you need to have special video driver installed just like the MultiCam driver for EureCard Junior 4 card. However, it is not recommended for system with more than 4 cameras. What the special driver does is to switch between ports at regular interval which will cause significant delay when there are many cameras connected.


A 4 port realtime capture card has 4 independent video processing chip	A 4 port non-realtime capture card has only one video processing chip shared by all ports using port switching

Enable audio capturing on selected camera. You need to have an audio device attached.

Change video quality. Estimated video recording length will be calculated based on selected encoding bit rate (default 96 Kbps). This setting has no effect if you choose any video codec other than Xvid MPEG-4.

By default, XtraSense will use XviD MPEG-4 Codec to encode all videos. It is recommended not to change this setting as XtraSense has been optimized for this codec to generate video with minimum size and maximum quality. You can configure the codec by clicking button "OPTIONS".

You can disable a camera in XtraSense if you need to disconnect that camera from capture card. If you disconnect a camera without disabling it, you will get black screen or noise on preview window.

To enable motion detection on current camera on program start. You can also arm a camera by clicking on the "ARM" button below camera's preview screen. However, the setting will not be saved.

If you have a FTP server configured in System Setup->Remote page, you can have XtraSense upload video frames from current camera to specified remote folder at a regular interval(every 5-10 seconds). The pictures uploaded will be in jpg format and names after camera ID by default. For example, video frame from camera number 1 will be saved as file cam1.jpg. If you would rather create a new file for each frame uploaded, check the "create new file" option.

Set the motion detect sensitivity. The value should be adjusted respectively for each camera according to the environment and lighting condition. Set sensitivity lower will help to reduce false alarm especially at night when the video has more CCD noise due to insufficient illumination. Your current motion level is indicated by the blue bar. Motion will be detected if the blue bar reaches the track pointer.

To exclude certain areas from motion detection. For example, it is necessary mask a spinning fan out of motion detect area.

You can define up to 10 rectangular areas to be excluded. The masking area will be covered with green net.

To define a masking area, click and hold mouse left button on preview screen to start the top left corner of the area. Move mouse cursor with left button held to draw a green rectangular net. Release the button to set bottom right corner of masking area..