About the Surveillance Viewer

The Surveillance Viewer component provides two types of pre-configured viewing options that you can use to show multiple cameras on a single monitor connected to the a computer that is on your video network.

The Surveillance Viewer component is located on the videoDriver palette, as shown in Figure 16 Surveillance Viewer on the videoDriver palette.



Figure 16  Surveillance Viewer on the videoDriver palette

Graphic

You must add this component anywhere under your station and it automatically searches for all cameras in the station and presents them in a panel on the left side of the Surveillance Viewer or in an option list at the top left corner of the Playback Viewer. You can then drag cameras to the viewer grids, as desired. Selected cameras display video automatically in the section where you drag them. To view a single camera, click on the desired camera grid area and the default view of the camera (typically the Video Playback view) displays.

Types of Surveillance Viewer properties

The Surveillance Viewer has the following properties.

In addition to the common properties (mentioned in About the Video Framework hierarchy), following is a list of the unique Video Surveillance properties:

  • Aspect Ratio defaults to the camera’s aspect ratio. When you drag the camera output around the driver preserves the aspect ratio.

    Frame Rate

    This property provides three options: High, Medium, and Low. The underlying video driver interprets these options.

  • Resolution

    The three options are: High, Medium, and Low. The underlying video driver interprets these options.

  • Compression

    Compression allows you to reduce the bandwidth that is required for transmission of video images. Compression relates to the quality of the image that is filling the specified resolution (as set in the Resolution property value field). The higher the compression, the lower the bandwidth requirements. However, over-compression can result in degraded video images. The four options are: None, High, Medium, and Low. The underlying video driver interprets these options

  • Video Stream Fox

    The options provided here allow you to stream video using the Fox network (true) or, if possible, using the local network that sends video directly from the camera to the viewer (false). See Types of common video driver properties for more details about Fox streaming.

  • Layout

    This option list allows you select one of several view orientations that provide a way to include one or more cameras on the selected view. This includes several layout options and a picture-in-picture option.

  • Camera1 (through Camera16)

    These are the properties that specify the Ord location of cameras in your station that are assigned to the Surveillance Viewer. From the property sheet view, it is possible to add and remove these Ord strings manually. However, they are set for you automatically when you drag a camera into a grid from the Surveillance Viewer view. If no camera is set for a Camera property , the field should contain a ‟null” value.