Digital Video Witness 5.1

This is a release document which will detail the features and changes made to the Digital Video Witness software.

Major New Features:
User Management (Username and Password security)
Improved Backup Scheme
Quick Burn – Fast Backup
Support for CoVi cameras thru PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom) controls
Improved Health Monitor

Improvements and Fixes
-Readjusted the PTZ menu layout to allow for more PTZ features
-Changed “Modem” setup to “Network setup”
-Many small adjustments made to GUI to improve overall look and get rid of glitches
-Various improvements and bug fixes to user management
-Camera name now appears as a tool tip over the camera buttons on the main screen of the client software.
-new Health Monitor indicates a failure of camera signal
-Added integration to POS software
-Product activation to prevent piracy and provide better technical support
-Online activation as well as offline to make activation as easy as possible
-Added option in Recording Setup tab to allow for frame rate to go to emergency levels when motion is detected; this allows for continuous recording with a variable frame rate
-Added Online Assistance and Help Manual Buttons
-Added Virtual Keyboard Support for setup screens
-Time buttons on search screens now function properly
-Changed various messages that contained misspellings or grammatical errors
-fix for XOS, if XOS is not shut down properly, DVW will automatically fix the video database
-Disabled COM port settings that were causing crashes

User Management
User management allows individual users to be created who can log on and access Digital Video Witness.  Each user created can be given its own set of permissions that grant the ability to access certain parts of the Digital Video Witness software.  For instance, a user named “Guest” could be created which would only be able to view live video, and not be able to access setup menus or search thru saved video.  A user named “Owner” could be given access to everything, including live video, search video, and setup screens.

To create a new user or edit a current one, click the Setup button on the main screen of DVW server and select the User Management tab.  From this screen, all functions of user management can be modified.

User logon information can be used to connect to DVW server thru the DVW client software, or web client.

The default username for a new installation of DVW is “admin” and the password is empty.

Improved Backup Scheme
Digital Video Witness has modified the backup process so that the destination of backup video can be modified more easily.  An AVI or JPEG backup now can be named exactly and stored in any location accessible by Microsoft Windows. 

In the backup dialog, clicking “Select Media” brings up an Explorer dialog where the location for the backup can be selected and a name can be entered.  After the other options have been chosen and the Backup button is pressed, a backup will be created to the selected file path and name.  The procedure for Time backup is the same, except that the backup will appear in the root directory of whatever drive is selected, in a folder named KDB.

Quick Burn
The Quick Burn feature allows a time frame that needs to be backed up to be selected visually from the search screen.  When viewing the search screen, right-clicking and dragging over the time bar will cause a time frame to be selected.  When a time frame is selected, the backup button will also turn red to indicate that a Quick Burn backup can be performed.  Clicking the red backup button will then bring up the backup dialog with the time frame selected already entered in.  If an AVI backup is going to be made, the cameras to be included should be selected on the search screen prior to clicking the red backup button.

Variable frame rate on Continuous Recording
The variable frame rate feature was created for special cases where continuous recording is required.  DVW can be setup so that it will continuously record at 1 frame per second, or whatever frame rate is acceptable, but then jump to the frame rate used for emergencies if motion is detected in the video.  This feature allows continuous recording to occur while not using a lot of hard drive space, but provides better video rates when needed.

The setup for this feature is located on the Recording Setup tab of the Setup menus.  A check box that says “Use emergency frame rate on motion” enables the variable frame rate feature.  Once motion is detected, the frame rate will jump to the level set for emergencies.

Health Monitor
The Health Monitor is has been updated to give a better synopsis of the Digital Video Witness DVRs that it is monitoring.  For instance, it will now report an error if a DVR is experiencing video signal loss.

Developer Info:
Revision number of the release code for the code repository is 612.