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BriefCam VMS Integration Guide

Motorola Solutions Avigilon Integration

Last Updated: 3 minute read
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Integration Summary

VMS Partner 

Product 

Version 

Last Tested BriefCam Version 

Integration Level 

H.265 Support 

Motorola Solutions 

Avigilon Unity 

8.7

2025 R1 SP1

Integration for on-demand and real-time (L2)

No

Motorola Solutions 

Avigilon Control Center 

7.14

2024 R2 HF4

Integration for on-demand and real-time (L2)

No

Motorola Solutions 

Avigilon Control Center 

7.12

2023 M1

Integration for on-demand and real-time (L2)

No

VMS SDK

  1. Prior to the plugin installation, install the relevant Avigilon SDK.

    • For Avigilon 7.12 and 7.14, you need SDK version 6.14.22.6.

    • For Avigilon Unity 8.7, BriefCam is using the WebEndpoint API instead of the VMS SDK. Therefore, no SDK installation is required.

  2. Install the Avigilon SDK on the BriefCam server.

  3. If the On-Demand processing server and/or Real-Time processing server is installed on a dedicated machine, also install the Avigilon SDK on the On-Demand processing server and/or Real-Time processing server.

Post-Installation Step for BriefCam 2025 R1 SP1

After installing the Avigilon plugin, you need to replace the installed BriefCam.VideoNative.dll file with a newer version.

  1. Download the newest version of the file by clicking here.

  2. Unzip the downloaded file.

  3. Copy the new BriefCam.VideoNative.dll file and save it to: BriefCamServerInstallationFolder/plugins. When prompted, allow it to replace the existing file.

  4. Restart all BriefCam services.

Recommended Configuration for Avigilon Cameras in Avigilon Control Center (ACC 7.12 and/or 7.14)

To improve the Avigilon plugin’s performance with Avigilon cameras, it is recommended to:

  1. In Avigilon Control Center:

    1. Set the Format field to AVE.

    2. Set the Stream Mode field to Dual Mode.

  2. In the BriefCam Administrator Console:

    1. Change the maxProcessingTaskLengthInMinutes environment setting to 30.

    2. Restart the Processing Service.

This change breaks the on-demand videos into smaller chunks (of 30 minutes instead of 4 hours by default), improving the amount of processing that is done in parallel, which leads to better resource utilization and improved performance. However, this change has several side effects:

  • There will be a warmup at the beginning of every chunk. The warmup is a short processing period that learns the video characteristics and calibrates BriefCam's Machine Learning engine. The warmup consists of the learning of the background, size, speed, and proximity geometry, which need to be learnt in each video chunk. The warmup period usually lasts for the first few minutes of the processed chunk.

  • Persons in the beginning of a chunk will not have the geometry information that accurately places them in the scene. Therefore, they cannot be used in the Proximity filter.

  • Size and speed filters applied on objects appearing in the beginning of a chunk may show incorrect measurements.

  • Objects that appear in two consecutive chunks, could be identified as two separate objects.

Known Limitations

  • For L1 integrations, the VMS supports fetching only one file at a time, which may result in slower retrieval performance. Therefore, it is recommended to reduce the fetching workers by changing the Fetching.NumberOfWorkers environment setting from 2 to 1.

  • Motion cameras are not fully supported, as we currently have no reliable way to determine the actual time within the exported video. This results in incorrect timestamps being displayed to the user.

  • In Avigilon Control Center (ACC 7.12 and/or 7.14) integrations, slow processing was observed when working with 4K cameras. This is because of slow decoding due to the proprietary format.

  • In Avigilon Control Center (ACC 7.12 and/or 7.14) on-demand scenarios:

    • Although the processing is reported to be completed successfully, occasional frames may be dropped and indicated in the logs.

    • In certain scenarios, the fetching of videos is slow. To solve this issue, define additional parallel workers or reduce the camera resolution. For additional information, see the Recommended Configuration section above.

  • Support for the H.265 format is done per request. If you want to use the H.265 format with this VMS, please contact BriefCam's support.

See also: VMS Integration IssuesVMS Integration Issues