About Central-Support

Question   Why the Live view shows ‘Authentication failed’ in Video Security App?   Scenario: DIVAR IP 5000 ALL IN ONE Mixed Bosch cameras with Firmware 7.82 BVMS 11.0 where there is a User group named “Viewer” with the option of Video Playback unchecked from Operator Client everything is fine because the users can see Live video but no playback but when trying to use Video Security App with that user, the Live video shows error "Authentication failed"   Answer   The VRM and port 443 is blocking the Live view authentication when the Video playback is unchecked.   Therefore, this works as designed. Short explanation: VSC connects directly to the VRM after authentication hand off using the BVMS credentials configured. VRM is the sole provider of video through the single configured port that VSC uses to connect. When live view is requested, you are actually seeing the last recorded frames. You are NOT being redirected to the camera since VRM has no method of tunneling live view through itself to a remote client.   VRM user groups does not have the same granularity as BVMS If playback is not allowed, then VRM will not allow access hence you cannot even login. This is by design and cannot be changed due to the architecture.   Using a single port connection via SSH with Operator Client is the only current viable solution if the end user wishes to connect remotely and to impose restrictions on playback. Remember that the SSH service must be manually installed if it was not during a previous installation or upgrade.               Useful documentation for remote connection: DIP_aio_5000_Installation_Manual (page 30) 0_Operation_Manual (page 30) ... View more

Question   What are the symptoms in BVMS Operator Client if Time synchronization is wrongly set?   Answer   Recording timeline show date 1.1.2000 (or any other strange date) Recordings are shown in timeline later/earlier than real time Clock symbol is shown in the Operator client logical tree   4      Instant Playback does not work   5     Several camera timelines do not show the same recording start time (e.g. 1h difference in start of recording) although you know for sure the continuous recording of all cameras was started at the same time   What to do? Verify the time synchronization setting of your system. Please make sure all servers, workstations and cameras do have exact the same time. Good to know: 1. Synchronization is critical to every video surveillance system! à Video data used as evidence on court Stop recording or recording gaps can occur Difficult Troubleshooting in different log files of the BVMS components 2. The time synchronization of all components must be configured before installation 3. All cameras synchronize by default with the BVMS MS (Time synch uses the SNTP protocol over UDP port 123) 4. All NTP settings on every Server/Workstation/Storage need to be manually configured by administrator   5. Where a central NTP server is available, all Server/Workstations should be synchronized against it (including the BMVS Management Server). When there is no dedicated NTP Server available, the BVMS MS can be used instead. 6. Cameras: Whenever a central NTP Server is available the recommendation is that also cameras should synchronize against it. How to synch the cameras with a central NTP server (instead of the Management Server)? → Configuration Client: Settings → Options: Add the IP-Address of the NTP server Where can you configure NTP server for cameras/encoders in BVMS≥11? 7. SNTP Troubleshooting for a camera needed? How to find out whether the problem is on the camera or on the NTP server or on the network? Camera web page: Service → Logging → “Debug logging” → Type “time syslog_dbg” to check the detailed camera ← → SNTP server communication activities: Client request send? To whom? Answer received?    Useful:   How to configure time services in a BVMS version ≤ 10.1 environment? Is it possible to disable the time synchronization function of BVMS? Where you can check the Network Time Protocol (NTP) connection from Bosch IP cameras? How to configure the NTP Server? ... View more

Question   What does the User Name column indicate in the BVMS Operator Client LogBook?   Answer   The LogBook is a container for logging all events in Bosch Video Management System. Using the LogBook, you will be able to see all the actions which are processed by the users/ operators/ Admin : for example, if they deleted video or if a camera was pulled up, or if video footage has been exported, if alarms have been accepted and so on. All of these will be recorded and saved in the LogBook.   In general, the User Name column has a value for events, that are related to specific user actions in BVMS.   The screenshot below shows a list of Motion alarms, that are actually generic and not generated by specific user, but by a camera.     To see which user accepted/ processed alarm, you should look for example for "Alarm State" events instead — there, you would see a specific user name indicated.     ... View more

Question   What parameters to set in BVMS on a new Stream Quality profile?   Answer   With the image encoding interval you configure the interval at which images are encoded and transmitted. If 1 is entered, all images are encoded. Entering 4 means that only every fourth image is encoded, the following three images are skipped → this can be particularly advantageous with low bandwidths. ℹ️ The lower bandwidth the higher this value should be to achieve best-quality video.   The encoding engine gets for example 30 frames from the Sensor as input. Required output for the live view or recording is 15 frames. How to achieve this? Set the parameter Image encoding interval to 2. The Encoder will skip every second frame from the sensor and deliver a H.264 encoded stream with 15 frames only. This is a very important topic because participants tend to provide the required frame rate as value of the parameter Image encoding interval and that results into 2 fps in our example. Other VMS and camera vendors do have a configuration parameter called fps or ips.  Image encoding interval: 1= full frame rate as given in Codec settings 2= 50% of fps given in Codec settings For quick frame rate calculations the formula is: FPS / IPS = 30/Image encoding interval For 60 fps cameras -> calculate with 60 Example: We want to receive only 15 fps for recording: Encoding chip fps/ ips input: 30 fps (not H.264 yet, RAW format) Encoding chip output (Image encoding interval =2): 15 fps/ips in H.264 coded format used for recording of this camera   Example with Image encoding interval = 2: 1.Check the Camera “Sensor Mode” (FPS) in the Camera settings (Initialization) 2.Take the “Image encoding interval” form the BVMS Stream Quality settings 3.Calculate: “Sensor mode FPS” divided by “Image encoding interval value” = Stream frame rate Group-of-Pictures (GOP): Depending on whether you place higher priority on having the lowest possible delay (IP frames only) or using as little bandwidth as possible, you choose IP, IBP or IBBP. I-Frame = Intra frame the full image is encoded P-Frame = Predictive frame only the part of the image that is changing is encoded B-Frame = Bi-Directional frame only the differences between previous and next frame are encoded   B-Frames reduce bandwidth and storage usage as they are smaller in size than P-Frames (predictive frames). have references to previous (frames generated before the B-Frame) and to following frames (frames which will be generated after the B-Frame) B-Frame impact on Live stream: A bit of latency can appear as B-Frames can use both previous and forward (future) frames for reference For latency critical scenes the “IP” GOP structure should be configured When configuring a very low frame rate e.g. 5 fps use the “IP” GOP structure only to reduce latency B-Frame impact on playback: Saves bandwidth and storage space. Since decoding latency is not important in the replay, there is no big impact on forward playback. B-Frame impact on DSP B-Frame adds more load on the DSP of the camera, as it has to reference the previous frame and the next future frame.   ℹ️  Note: GOP selection is not available on some cameras. B-frames are only supported by cameras up to a resolution of 1080 p and from firmware 6.40  I-frame Distance: This parameter allows you to set the intervals in which the I-Frames are coded.   An entry of 1 indicates that I-Frames are continuously generated An entry of 2 second image is an I-Frame and 3 only every third image etc. The I-Frames in between are coded as P-Frames   Frame Quality Level:  Here you can set a value between 0 and 100 for both the I-Frame and the P-Frames. The lowest value results in the highest quality and the lowest frame refresh rate The highest value results in the highest frame refresh rate and the lowest image quality The lower the available transmission bandwidth, the higher adjust the quality level to maintain high quality of the video ✔️  It is recommended to check the IPS result on the camera web page “dashboard” after configuration has been activated in BVMS (new CPP13/14 cameras do FPS base frame rate balancing dependent on settings and camera resource. Therefore, the FPS can be lower as expected when not checking/ verifying). GOP: B frames should be avoided in Live view and PTZ as they result into live video latency   Camera firmware features supported in BVMS ≥ v9.0 BVMS ≥ v9.0 supports the following camera parameters which are relevant for a lot of bitrate saving on H.264 and H.265 codec: Group of pictures (GOP) related: ‒ GOP structure B-frames: IBP and IBBP ‒ Long GOP: up to 255 Intelligent streaming related: ‒Bitrate optimization: Maximum quality, High quality, Medium, Low bit rate, Minimum bit rate, OFF ‒Averaging period: fixed setting to 24h/1 day ‒Maximum bitrate: new recommended values available in default BVMS profiles ‒Target bitrate: new recommended values available in default BVMS profiles   Stream Qualities Bitrate optimization refers to the priority given towards image quality or bitrate reduction. The “High quality” or “Maximum quality” provides less or no bitrate saving, but a good to excellent picture. “Low bitrate” and “Medium bitrate” save more bandwidth, but the resulting image may provide less details. Averaging period is set to 24h/1day by default and is not visible in the configuration user interface of BVMS (as the value is fixed and can not be changed). Maximum bit rate defines the highest allowed bitrate. Target bit rate defines the average bitrate assuming the  “Averaging period” parameter is set. Note: Related to network bandwidth and storage calculation you have to consider additional optional Kbps on top of the (Maximum/target) video bitrate described above:  Metadata for IVA or Motion+: ~150 Kbps per Stream;  Audio: ~150 Kbps (G.711) or 640 Kbps (L16)  If you want to learn more about BVMS - Policy based recording, Intelligent streaming, Camera capabilities and platforms or Stream Management, please check out this article.   Other useful articles: How to create a new Stream profile with own parameters in BVMS? Which is the recommended I-Frame distance when using 3rd party Software or Bosch-VSG? How to setup RTSP-Multicast by use of SDP file? Where can you find/ change the frame rate & Firmware settings of Bosch cameras?   ... View more

Cause Blurred image and chromatic aberrations of AUTODOME inteox 7000i camera image The image quality from the AUTODOME 5000i IR camera seems to be better than the AUTODOME inteox 7000i camera image   Solution Both cameras are very different from each other especially according to the bubble. The AUTODOME IP 5000i IR camera has a flat surface screen where the image will not be changed since it is not a bubble The AUTODOME inteox 7000i has a bubble. These curved bubbles will give some image distortion. Also because it is one piece, all light around the bubble will be shattered through the bubble material. Also, it is very important to keep this bubble clean. (What can be used to clean the bubble of my Bosch AutoDome?) Note: An IK10 bubble will lose more sharpness than the acrylic one. The images will never be the same between these two models since the lens of the IR model is looking through a flat surface, not a bubble.   To improve the image quality of AUTODOME inteox 7000i please do the changes below: Change the sharpness from 7 to 13: Change the Max Gain level from 59 dB to 38 dB. Also, make the adjustments below and save them as a Custom Scene mode and name it as "Recommended". These settings improve the Sharpness, WDR range, and reduces "hot spots" on white objects or highly reflective surfaces. They will not eliminate the chromatic aberrations. These are caused by the lens/bubble combination, and it is not possible to get rid of these. Gamma changed to 2 Black Line Enhancement changed to OFF Auto-Iris Level reduced to 8 Now to compare the difference, you can easily change between Standard and Recommended. Standard: Recommended: Standard: Recommended:   ... View more