Settings in XProtect Smart Client

Specify how windows in XProtect Smart Client react when you click the Maximize button.

To avoid that the Windows taskbar is covered when you maximize a window, select Maximize as normal window.

Specify how the XProtect Smart Client displays camera-related error messages. These can be displayed as an overlay on top of the camera image or on a black background, or hidden completely.

If you Hide the camera error messages, there is a risk that the operator overlooks that the connection to a camera has been lost.

Specify how the XProtect Smart Client displays server-related message texts. These can be displayed as an overlay on top of the camera image or on a black background, or hidden completely.

Select whether to show or hide the camera title bar. The title bar displays the name of the camera and the colored indicators signifying events, detected motion, and video recordings.

You can override this setting on individual cameras by adjusting camera properties for the camera(s) in setup mode.

Specify whether to show or hide the current time and date (of the computer running the XProtect Smart Client) in the title bar.

Specify what to show if there are empty view items in views, for example, you can select a logo or have just a black background displayed.

Specify the thickness of the border between view items in views.

Specifying a default quality of video viewed in XProtect Smart Client is only relevant if you are viewing JPEG streams. If you are viewing other codecs like H264 and H265 and reduce the quality, you will increase the bandwith, CPU, and GPU usage when re-coding to JPEG.

Note that image quality also affects bandwidth usage. If your XProtect Smart Client is used over the internet, over a slow network connection, or if for other reasons you need to limit bandwidth use, image quality can be reduced on the server by selecting Low or Medium.

You can override this setting on individual cameras by adjusting camera properties for the camera(s) in setup mode.

Select a default frame rate for video viewed in the XProtect Smart Client.

You can override this setting on individual cameras by adjusting camera properties for the camera(s) in setup mode.

If you require very smooth display of live video, without any jitter, it is possible to specify a video buffer.

Video buffering can significantly increase memory usage for each camera displayed in a view. If you do need to use video buffering, keep the buffering level as low as possible.

Specify a default PTZ click mode for your PTZ cameras. Options are click-to-center or virtual joystick. You can override this setting on individual cameras by selecting a different default PTZ click mode for the camera.

Specify in which screen mode the main window of XProtect Smart Client opens after you have logged in. Options are Full screen, Maximized, Window and Last.

Specify whether you want to restore the windows and tabs left open when you last logged out of XProtect Smart Client. Options are:

• Last: Always restore all windows and tabs you had open when you logged out of XProtect Smart Client.

• None: Never restore the windows and tabs you had open when you logged out of XProtect Smart Client.

• Ask: When logging in, you are asked if you want to restore your XProtect Smart Client windows and tabs from last session.

Specify whether you want the mouse pointer to be hidden after a period of inactivity. You can specify how much time you want to elapse before hiding the mouse pointer. The default option is after 5 seconds. Options are:

• Never
• After 5 seconds
• After 10 seconds
• After 20 seconds
• After 30 seconds

If you move the mouse after a period of inactivity, it is enabled immediately.

Specify whether you want the snapshot feature to be available or unavailable. A snapshot is an instant capture of a frame of video from a camera at a given time.

Specify the path indicating where you want your snapshots to be saved to.

The ability to play back recorded video from individual cameras while in live mode.

The ability to view and use overlay buttons in live mode for activating speakers, events, output Data going out of a computer. On IP surveillance systems, output is frequently used for activating devices such as gates, sirens, strobe lights, and more., moving PTZ Pan-tilt-zoom; a highly movable and flexible type of camera. cameras, clearing indicators from cameras, etc.

Live and Playback > Bookmark

Select whether you want to add quick or detailed bookmarks from the view item toolbar or through ready-made overlay buttons in live or playback mode. Enabling or disabling this option in playback mode controls whether or not the corresponding button is enabled on the Search tab.

Depending on your user permissions, access to adding bookmarks from some cameras may be restricted.

Live and Playback > Print

The ability to print in live or playback mode. Enabling or disabling this option in playback mode controls whether or not the corresponding button is enabled on the Search tab.

Live and Playback > Bounding boxes

The ability to show bounding boxes on live video in live mode or on recorded video in playback mode on all cameras. Bounding boxes are used for, for example, tracking objects.

The bounding box feature is only available if connected to certain surveillance systems and to cameras that support metadata. Depending on your user permissions, access to bounding boxes from some cameras may be restricted.

The ability to play back recorded video from individual cameras independently in playback mode, where all cameras in a view otherwise by default display recordings from the same point in time (the playback time).

The ability to add new or edit existing overlay buttons in setup mode. To add overlay buttons, the Overlay buttons list must be set to Available (you manage this on the Panes tab in the Settings window).

The ability to edit video buffering is part of the camera properties in setup mode. To edit video buffering, the Setup tab's Properties pane must also be made available (you manage this on the Settings window's Panes tab).

See Configure how to play back gaps between recordings.

Select the path that you want to export to.

Select whether you want to cover areas with privacy masks A blurred or solid color that covers an area of the video in the camera view. The defined areas are blurred or covered in live, playback, hotspot, carousel, smart map, smart search, and export modes in the clients. in the exported video.

The privacy masks that you add here only apply to the current export and for the selected video. The export may already include video with privacy masks configured by your system administrator. These privacy masks are configured in Management Client > Devices > camera > Privacy masking.

Select whether or not you can export in the media player format.

Select whether you want video texts to be optional, required or unavailable when you export in the media player format. With video texts, the user can add overlay text on the exported recordings.

Select whether you want codec A technology for compressing and decompressing audio and video data, for example in an exported AVI file. configuration to be available or not when you export in the media player format. The codec properties depend on the selected codec. Not all codecs support this option.

Select whether or not you can export in the XProtect format.

Select whether you want project comments to be optional, required, or unavailable when you export in the XProtect format.

Select whether you want device comments to be optional, required, or unavailable when you export in XProtect format.

Select whether or not you can export still images A single static image..

Specify whether Milestone Map Service can be used as a geographic background. If you select Unavailable, XProtect Smart Client does not display it as an option.

To use a different tile server (see Change OpenStreetMap tile server) than the one specified by your system administrator, enter the server address here.

Specify whether to create a location when a user adds a custom overlay A user-defined, graphic element that users can add to a smart map, for example to illustrate a floor plan in a building, or to mark borders between regions. A custom overlay can be an image, a CAD drawing, or a shapefile.. For more information, see Adding, deleting, or editing custom overlays.

Enter or edit the private cryptographic key that you generated for the Bing Maps API.

Enter or edit the client ID that you generated for the Google Static Maps API.

Enter or edit the private cryptographic key that you generated for the Google Static Maps API.

If you are using Google Maps as your geographic background, files are not cached.

Smart map saves to the cache folder on your local computer so that it can load faster. Use this setting to specify how often you want to remove the cached files.

By default, when you select a search result, video in the preview area is paused at the event time. To make it start playing automatically, select Yes.

By default, when you preview video from a search result, the video sequence is played back only once. To make it loop, select Yes.

Select from the list of available joysticks.

There are three axes:

• X-axis (horizontal)
• Y-axis (vertical)
• Z-axis (the depth or zoom level)

Select to change the default direction the camera moves in when you move the joystick. For example, select to move a PTZ camera to the left when you move the joystick to the right and move down when you move the joystick towards you.

Select to use a fixed rather than a relative positioning scheme (moving the joystick moves the joystick-controlled object based on the object's current position).

Select the function for an axis:

• Camera PTZ Pan
• Camera PTZ Tilt
• Camera PTZ Zoom
• No action

Test the effect of your selections. When you have selected a function for the axis you want to test, move the joystick along the required axis to view the effect, indicated by a movement of the blue bar.

Specify the dead zone for the joystick's pan and tilt functions. The further you drag the slider to the right, the larger the dead zone becomes, and the more you will have to move the joystick handle before information is sent to the camera. Dragging the slider to the far left disables the dead zone (only recommended for high-precision joysticks). Use the Axis setup preview to test the effect of your dead zone settings.

Specify dead zone for the joystick's zoom function. The further you drag the slider to the right, the larger the dead zone becomes, and the more you will have to move the joystick handle before information is sent to the camera. Dragging the slider to the far left disables the dead zone (only recommended for high-precision joysticks). Use the Axis setup preview to test the effect of your dead zone settings.

The name of the button.

Select one of the available actions for the required joystick button.

If relevant, specify a parameter for the command or action. For example, if you want to specify the window and view item for the Copy the selected camera view item parameter, enter 2;1 to have the camera copied to the floating window (window 2), in the first view item (view item 1).

Verify that you are configuring the right button, press the corresponding button on the joystick. The relevant button will display in blue in the Preview column.

Enter the key combination you want to use as a shortcut to a particular action.

Select to define how you want to apply the shortcut:

• Global: On all of the XProtect Smart Client tabs
• Playback mode: Only on tabs with views
• Live mode: Only on tabs with views
• Setup mode: Only in setup mode

Select a command category and then select one of the associated commands. If you want all your views listed to allow you to create keyboard shortcuts for individual views, select the Views.All category.

Some commands only work when the keyboard shortcut is used in certain contexts. For example, a keyboard shortcut with a PTZ Pan-tilt-zoom; a highly movable and flexible type of camera.-related command will only work when using a PTZ camera.

If relevant, specify a parameter for the command or action. For example, if you want to specify the window and view item for the Copy the selected camera view item command, enter 2;1 to have the camera copied to the floating window (window 2), in the first view item (view item 1).

Start video playback some time before the alarm was triggered. This is useful when, for example, you want to see the moments before a door was opened.

When this check box is selected, the selection in the alarms list will change to the most recent list item when a new alarm is triggered. If the check box is not selected, the selection in the alarms list will stay unchanged when a new alarm is triggered.

Specify whether you want alarms to play sound notifications.

Specify whether you want desktop notifications for alarms to be displayed. They will only appear when XProtect Smart Client is running.

Your system supports multicasting of live streams from recording servers to clients. If multiple XProtect Smart Client users want to view live video from the same camera, multicasting helps saving considerable system resources. Multicasting is particularly useful if you use the Matrix functionality, where multiple clients require live video from the same camera.

Multicasting is only possible for live streams, not for recorded video/audio.

Enabled: is the default setting. In the XProtect Management Client, the recording servers and cameras must also have the functionality enabled to make multicasting from servers to clients available.

Disabled: multicasting is not available.

Controls if hardware-accelerated decoding is in use. The load on the CPU is high in a view with many cameras. Hardware acceleration moves some of the CPU load to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). This improves the decoding capability and performance of the computer. This is useful, mainly if you view multiple H.264/H.265 A compression standard for digital video. Like MPEG, the standard uses lossy compression. video streams with a high frame rate A measure indicating the amount of information contained in motion video. Typically measured in FPS (Frames Per second). and a high resolution.

Auto is the default setting. It scans the computer for decoding resources and always enables hardware acceleration if available.

Off disables hardware acceleration. Only the CPU processes the decoding.

Controls how many decoding threads are used to decode video streams. This option can help you improve performance on multi-core computers in live as well as playback mode. The exact performance improvement depends on the video stream. This setting is mainly relevant if using heavily coded high-resolution video streams like H.264/H.265—for which the performance improvement potential can be significant—and less relevant if using, for example, JPEG or MPEG-4. Note that multi-threaded decoding generally is memory-intensive. The ideal setting depends on the type of computer you use, the number of cameras you need to view, and on their resolution and frame rate.

Normal means that no matter how many cores your computer has, it will only use one core per view item with a camera.

Auto is the default setting. Auto means that the computer uses as many threads per view item with cameras as it has cores. However, the maximum number of threads is eight, and the number of threads actually used may be lower, depending on which codec A technology for compressing and decompressing audio and video data, for example in an exported AVI file. (compression/decompression technology) is used.

Advanced users can manually select the number of threads used, with a maximum of eight. The number you select represents a maximum; the number of threads actually used may be lower, depending on the codec (compression/decompression technology).

This setting affects all view items with cameras, in all views, in live as well as playback mode. You cannot specify the setting for individual view items with cameras or views. Because this setting may not be equally ideal for all of your view items with cameras and views, we recommend that you monitor the effects and, if required, re-adjust the setting to achieve the optimum balance between performance improvement and memory use.

Controls if adaptive streaming is in use. The load on the CPU and the GPU is high in a view with many cameras. Adaptive streaming enables XProtect Smart Client to automatically select the live video streams with the best match in resolution to the streams requested by the view items. This decreases the load on the CPU and the GPU and thereby improves the decoding capability and performance of the computer.

Disabled is the default setting. No automatic stream selection is done.

Enabled scans the XProtect system configuration for available streams and selects the best matching ones for the selected view.

Even though adaptive streaming can be enabled when only one stream is available, you must have at least two streams per camera with different resolutions to take advantage of adaptive streaming.

This setting affects all views in live mode.

Interlacing determines how an image is refreshed on a screen. The image is refreshed by first scanning the odd lines in the image, then scanning every even line. This allows a faster refresh rate because less information is processed during each scan. However, interlacing may cause flickering, or the changes in half of the image's lines may be noticeable. With Deinterlacing, you convert video into a non-interlaced format. Most cameras do not produce interlaced video, and this option will not impact quality or performance of non-interlaced video.

No filter is the default setting. No deinterlacing is applied, so the characteristic jagged edges may show up in images if objects are moving. This is because the even and odd lines of the full image are weaved together to compose the full resolution picture. However, these are not captured at the same time by the camera, so objects in motion will not be aligned between the two sets of lines, causing the jagged-edge effect. Performance impact: None.

Vertical stretch top field: This option only uses the even lines. Each odd line will be “copied” from the previous (even) line. The effect is that jagged edges do not appear, but this is at the expense of reduced vertical resolution. Performance impact: Less expensive than the No filter option because only half the number of lines will need post-processing.

Vertical stretch bottom field: This option only uses the odd lines. Each even line will be “copied” from the following (odd) line. The effect is that jagged edges do not appear, but this is at the expense of reduced vertical resolution. Performance impact: Less expensive than the No filter option because only half the number of lines will need post-processing.

Content adaptive: This option applies a filter to areas of the image where jagged edges would otherwise show up. Where no jagged edges are detected, the image is left untouched. The effect is that jagged edges are removed and full vertical resolution is preserved in the areas of the image where no jagged edges are perceived. Performance impact: More expensive than the No filter option because the total CPU cost per decoded and rendered frame is increased by around 10%.

View the settings and performance level of the video stream in the selected view. This is helpful when you must verify settings or diagnose a problem.

Select between these options:

Hide: No video diagnostics overlay. Default setting.

Level 1: Frames per second, video codec, and video resolution.

Level 2: Frames per second, video codec, video resolution, multicast, and hardware acceleration status.

Level 3: Debug level. Mainly for system administrators to troubleshoot or optimize system performance.

Change the time zone, for example if the time that is displayed in the camera title bar does not match your current time. Select a predefined time zone or a custom time zone:

• Local: The time zone of the computer running the XProtect Smart Client

• Server time zone: The time zone of the server

• UTC

• Custom time zone: If you want a particular time zone, select this option and then select from the list of available time zones in the Custom time zone field.

If you have selected Custom in the Time zone field, you can select any time zone known by the computer. This is useful if two users in different time zones need to view an incident—having the same time zone makes it easier to identify and establish that they are watching the same incident.

Select A4 or letter format for your PDF reports. You can create reports of events.

Select a font to be used in your PDF reports.

Logging (for technical support)

Enable the logging of application events, for example when alarms are triggered. This is mainly to help technical support troubleshoot issues that may occur in XProtect Smart Client.

There are three different log files:

• ClientLogger.log
• MIPLogger.log
• MetadataLogger.log

The logs are located here on the machine where XProtect Smart Client is installed:

C:\ProgramData\Milestone\XProtect Smart Client\Logs.

These logs are different from the System logs in XProtect Management Client.