Navigating your cameras and views

Hotspots (explained)

A hotspot A particular position for viewing magnified and/or high quality camera images in XProtect Smart Client views. lets you view magnified and higher quality video from a selected camera in a dedicated view item in a view. Hotspots are useful because you can use a low image quality or frame rate A measure indicating the amount of information contained in motion video. Typically measured in FPS (Frames Per second). for cameras in the regular view items of the view and a high image quality or frame rate for the hotspot. This saves bandwidth on your remote connections.

There are two types of hotspots:

• Global hotspots, which display the selected camera regardless of whether the camera is in the main window or in a secondary display
• Local hotspots, which only display the selected camera of the local display

It is a good idea to have a hotspot in one of the larger view items of a view, for example, the large view item in a 1+7 view.

Use hotspots

• When you click a camera in a view, the hotspot view item updates with video feed of that camera
• The title bar displays the hotspot icon:

When you view live or recorded video, you can double-click a hotspot (or any view items with cameras in a view) to maximize it. When you do this, the video in the hotspot is displayed in full quality, regardless of your image quality selection. If you want to make sure that the selected image quality also applies when maximized, in Setup mode, in the Properties pane, select Keep when maximized.

Carousels (explained)

A carousel is used for displaying video from several cameras, one after the other, in a single view item in a view. You can specify which cameras to include in the carousel as well as the interval between camera changes. Carousels are displayed with the carousel icon on the toolbar: .

Fisheye lens cameras cannot be included in a carousel.

You can maximize a carousel by double-clicking the carousel view item. When you do this, video from cameras included in the carousel is by default displayed in full quality, regardless of your image quality selection. This default cannot be overridden for carousels.

You can use digital zoom and PTZ Pan-tilt-zoom; a highly movable and flexible type of camera. controls from a carousel if the camera supports this. When you use the PTZ or digital zoom controls that appear, the carousel pauses automatically.

Use carousels

If any of your views contain carousels A particular position for viewing video from several cameras, one after the other, in a view in XProtect Smart Client., this icon will appear in the title bar next to the camera name: .

Requirements

• Carousels must be configured before you can use them. See also Add carousels to views.
• In the Settings window, Default for camera title bar must be set to Show.

Steps:

1. In live mode, open a view that contains a carousel. When you hover over the view item, this toolbar appears: .
2. The carousel starts automatically. To pause it, click the Pause button.
3. To shift to the next or previous camera in the carousel, click the Previous camera or Next camera button.
4. Additional actions available in the toolbar:
   • Jump to the place on the smart map A map functionality that uses a geographic information system to visualize devices (for example, cameras and microphones), structures, and topographical elements of a surveillance system in geographically accurate, real-world imagery. Maps that use elements of this functionality are called smart maps., where the camera is located
   • Start search from the camera currently in focus, in a new window
   • Create snapshot
   • Copy to clipboard

You can maximize a carousel by double-clicking the view item with the carousel. Video from cameras included in the carousel is by default displayed in full quality, regardless of your image quality selection.

Digital zoom (explained)

Digital zoom lets you magnify a portion of a given image so you are able to have a closer look at it. It works both in live and playback mode.

Digital zoom is a useful feature for cameras that do not have their own optical zoom capabilities. Using digital zoom will not affect any recording of the video. Recording will still take place in the regular format of the camera.

For non-PTZ Pan-tilt-zoom; a highly movable and flexible type of camera. cameras, digital zoom is enabled by default. If you enable or disable digital zoom on one camera, all cameras in your view are affected. For PTZ cameras, this setting only applies to one camera at a time.

When you export video data, you can choose to export the regular images or the digitally zoomed images in the AVI A popular file format for video. Files in this format carry the .avi file extension. or in the JPEG An image compression method, also known as JPG or Joint Photographic Experts Group. The method is a so-called lossy compression, meaning that some image detail will be lost during compression. Images compressed this way have become generically known as JPGs or JPEGs. formats. When you export in the XProtect format, this is unavailable because the recipient can use digital zoom on the exported recordings. If you print an image on which you have used digital zoom, the digitally zoomed area of the image will be printed.

See also Export settings.

Use digital zoom

Requirements

To enable digital zoom, on the camera toolbar, click More and select Digital zoom.

Steps:

1. Click and drag inside the image to zoom. The area you select is highlighted by a dotted line. When you release the mouse button, the zoom will take effect.

   

2. To move to other areas of the image while maintaining your zoom level, in the overview frame, drag the highlighted area to the required position.

   

3. To adjust the zoom level, click inside the image and use the scroll wheel on your mouse.

4. Click the Home icon inside the virtual joystick to return to the normal zoom level.

   

Virtual joystick and PTZ overlay buttons (explained)

If your views include fisheye cameras or lenses, or PTZ Pan-tilt-zoom; a highly movable and flexible type of camera. devices, you can navigate the images by using the virtual joystick or the PTZ navigation buttons that may appear inside the image. See also PTZ and fisheye lens images (explained).

The virtual joystick:

If you do not want the camera toolbar to pop up when you hover over the view item, press and hold the CTRL key while moving the mouse.

Views and shortcuts (explained)

You can use keyboard shortcuts to select views if the views have been assigned numbers. You assign numbers to the views in setup mode. See also Setup mode (overview).

Using keyboard shortcuts to select a view only works if you are using a numeric keypad.

Example

If you have assigned the number 1 to a particular view, you select the view by pressing * + 1 + Enter.

Keyboard shortcuts (overview)

In live or playback mode, a number of keyboard shortcuts allow you to navigate within and between views.

You can also assign custom shortcut key combinations for particular actions in XProtect Smart Client. See also Keyboard settings.