The following steps are required to configure this system to work with Sureview.

Before you begin

Before you configure your Avigilon system to work with Sureview make sure you have the following:

• Avigilon Control Center Server (Integration connects via Control Center NOT direct to Avigilon Cameras) Version 5.8, 6 or 7
• ACC Enterprise or Standard Editions - the ACC SDK used by this integration supports [Note: The ACC core edition is not supported by this integration]
• DirectX version 9 must be installed on servers running the Avigilon integration.
  • Newer versions of DirectX do not provide the needed DLL files for Avigilon and DirectX version 9 as a standalone installer will not install on Server versions newer than 2008.
  • To install the needed DirextX version 9 information into newer server editions use the following Installer found from Microsoft. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=35
  • It downloads a 93 Mb file during install. If that is not an option, the file can be downloaded separately for offline install at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7087
• Clustered Setup. ACC version 5 onwards allows the merging of multiple servers into a cluster, however it is recommended that you do not do this as you will have far more control in Sureview over the Get Config. The following is an example of a non-clustered setup:
• List the Alarm Types you want to use.
  All Alarm Names in Avigilon will become Alarm/Event Types in Sureview when they are received. You should use a standard list such as "Person Detected", "Object loitering" etc. Avoid using specific names like "Front Door Alarm 1".
• Attached footage requires the SureView SMTP Alarm Receiver version 1.0.4.1 or higher and the Avigilon ACC Server software v5.10 or higher

Pre-Alarm Recording vs Attached Footage

For alarm footage, you can set Sureview to record footage from before the alarm ("PreAlarm"), or you can set up the Avigilon to attach it to the alarm itself ("Attached").

• PreAlarm Recording requires the ACC server to be set to continuously record. Attached footage does not need this.
• There is a significant delay before recorded footage is available from ACC, PreAlarm recording will step backwards to find the newest available footage, it does this in 15 second incriments up to 6 times for a total of 90seconds. This means that if the newest footage available is older than 90 seconds no pre alarm will be received. This also means that it will begin earlier than the PreAlarm for other devices. This is typically 30 seconds before the time of the alarm. Because of this, we recommend  that if you have PreAlarm set up, you should set the recording to be at least 40 seconds long to ensure the time of the event is covered. For Attached footage, you do not need to do any setup on the Sureview side.
• PreAlarm footage will contain analytic bounding boxes. At this time, attached footage does not.
• Attached footage will use less Sureview server resources as it does not need to connect out to the device.

IMPORTANT - Avigilon v5 Database Updater. When Installing the Avigilon v5 Service, the user will be asked if they wish to update all your Avigilon v5 servers to conform with SureViews Digital Input methodology.The Avigilon v5 service uses a new method for organising and referencing digital inputs, because of this it is beneficial that all previously received digital input alarms are sorted.

The Application will locate any Avigilon v5 servers that have received digital inputs in the past and add them to their own section in the sync'd devices list (Extra Value). This will allow the receiver service to more accurately distinguish digital inputs and reference them. All setup alarm responses/actions will still point to the correct digital input.

• The database must be updated before the application is run. By running this application the user also agrees that they are happy for their Sureview database to be updated.

Control Configuration

Alarm Email Setup

In the Avigilon software, you will first need to set up the Central Station Notification details. You will need to know the external address of your server that the device will be sending its alarms to – if you are using other devices that alarm in via SMTP then it will be the same address. You will also need the unique email address assigned to this device, in the format Sxx@Sureviewalarms.com, where xx is a number. This information can be found in the Setup Summary report for the site the device has been added to.

Open the Avigilon Control Center Client, and navigate to Setup. With the server selected on the left, you should see a section on the right marked External Notifications. If you see Email instead, then you may be using a version that is before 5.6 and therefore not compatible.

Click this and a new window will be shown. This should have three tabs, the third of which will be Central Station Monitoring. Ensure “Enable Central Station Monitoring” is checked. Enter the email from the Setup Summary report into the Recipient and Sender email addresses. Enter your server’s host into the SMTP Server field.

If you have version 5.10 or higher, you will see additional options for attaching video to the alarm. You can attach a single frame of video, or a full video clip.

Once these details have been entered, click OK.

Now that the Avigilon server has been set up with the details of how to alarm to your station, you will need to set which alarms should trigger this notification. Click Rules.

 

The new window may have some rules already set up, but click Add regardless.

 

In the next screen, you will need to check each alarm type that you wish to send an alert to your central station. You can check as many as you would like, and if you want to restrict it to only certain devices on this server, you can do so by clicking the blue text at the bottom.

 

Once you are satisfied, click Next.

On the next page, make sure “Send notification to Central Monitoring Station” is checked.

 

Click Next.

On the next page, you can specify that a digital input must be in a specific state for alarms to trigger. Leaving this section blank will always send the alarm.

 

Click Next.

Name the alarm, and if you wish to, set a schedule. Then click Finish. (N.B. The use of "&" in alarm names is known to cause issues with Avigilon Sending these alarms)

 

You have now successfully set up the event types to send alerts to your central monitoring station. At this stage, alarms will be received, but some may not match with those configured in setup, as we need to tell Avigilon which input number each camera uses.

You will need to repeat the following steps for each camera.

Click the camera name on the left

 

On this screen, click General

 

You will see a new window appear that has a field for Logical ID. In this box, enter the input number you would like Sureview to use for any alarms triggered by this camera.

 

Click OK.

Repeat those steps until each camera has the correct Logical ID.

You are now finished – alarms from this device will now be raised correctly to Sureview.

 

Event Type Setup

The Avigilon v5 Control Center software has a large list of alarm types that it sends through to Sureview. Liaising with customers provided the insight that most of these alarm types are not wanted. Due to this, only on a new install of the Avigilon v5 (integration and/or receiver) all the event types are set to ignore and match exact alarm except the following:

Database Lost	System Server Lost Connection
Digital Input On	Storage Low Disk Storage
Device Tamper	System Hardware Error
Device Video Signal Lost	Device Disconnected
Device Analytics Start	*Custom Alarms* - added when received
Alarm Triggered
System Server Disconnected

All other event types (alarms) are available and can be set to be received. To set up any event types you wish to receive or ignore in the Event Type Configuration tab on the System page of Sureview.

Analytic Alarm Setup

Analytic alarms in the ACC are defined by the rule names set by the user. As this is user defined we are unable to add every alarm type to Sureview on install, as we cannot know what the user will define. Because of this, every new alarm that Sureview receives will be added to the system and can then be referenced accordingly.

To set up the rules in the ACC software:

Navigate to the setup page



Select the analytic camera



Select Video Analytics Configuration



In the Avigilon control center client dialog select add

In order to add an individual Avigilon device into Sureview you can use either GetConfig or Sync

 

To use Getconfig go to Device Setup and added a device. Then press "Get Device Conffiguration" after entering the IP/Host, Port and Username after saving the device details.  This will get a list of cameras, alarms, and outputs.  You will then be able to confirm the cameras and save the inforation that is returned., then click 'Get Config'.

 

Then add a Sync Entry to bring in the cameras, alarms, and outputs.

 

 

To use Eithe GetConfig or Syncc, enter the device details (host, port, username and password), and any Filter Options that are needed.

serverFilter=""
cameraFilter=""
outputFilter=""

My device is using too much bandwidth

The Avigilon has been updated with optimized CPU usage on cloud servers, and this is achieved using built in Bandwidth Limitation. In order to manually set the limit for this, you will need to add the following config setting into the Sureview Device Service worker config file (Inside the Sureview install folder, open "/DeviceServer/DeviceWorker.exe.config").

<appSettings>
<!-- The value to restrict the bandwidth of Avigilon devices in bytes per second (Bps), 0 is unlimited, default or null is 1MBps -->
<add key="AvigilonBandwidth" value="131072" />
</appSettings>

If the value is set as '0' then the bandwidth will be unrestricted, however if this value is not included in the config file then the default value of 1 Megabit per second is used.

 

My ACC base port is incorrect

To discover your ACC servers base port, or to adjust it. Navigate to the machine/server hosting the ACC server. Open up the Avigilon Control Center 5 Admin Tool. Under the settings tab select Network. This will open up the Network dialog that will show what ports the ACC is using.

 

Sureview keeps receiving New Event Type Added alarms

When a unknown/new alarm is received by Sureview, the alarm is automatically added to the alarm type list and referenced accordingly. Whenever this update occurs a alarm is triggered to inform the user that a new alarm type has been added. This alarm is the "New Event Type Added".

My device is running with a high CPU

There is a known issue in a previous version of this integration where the CPU usage of the Avigilon integration can be higher than the accepted range that our integrations are tested against. Please ensure you have version 1.0.4.1 or higher of this integration that has improved CPU utilization.

Please note CPU however this depends upon camera quality, bandwidth and the number of frames per second that the device is sending.

What camera resolutions are supported in the Integration by default?  (Packages prior to 1.4.32043.0)

By using the camera quality setting in Sureview you can request different camera quality from Avigilon. The following describes the corresponding resolution settings

Highest = 4CIF [704x576]
High = DCIF [528x384]
Medium = CIF [352 x288]
Low = SCIF [256x192]
Lowest = QCIF [176 x144]

 

Setting the video pixels against each quality setting
Inside the Device.Worker.exe.config add a quality setting and pixel ratio for those you wish to override.

The key should bee added between <appSettings> and </appSettings>

Highest, High, Medium, Low, and Lowest are the available options. Only one override per quality settings.

Examples:

<add key="AvigilonV6_PixelQuality_HighestQualityPixel" value="1920x1080" />
<add key="AvigilonV6_PixelQuality_HighQualityPixel" value="1280x720" />
<add key="AvigilonV6_PixelQuality_LowestQualityPixel" value="180x100" />

 

The format above must be followed in order for the override to take place, otherwise the existing defaults will be used. The values added into value must be integers and be separated by a single 'x'.

 

Passthrough Video (For packages 1.4.32043.0 or newer !)

To enable pass through add the following to the DeviceWorker.exe config
<add key="AvigilonV6_PassThroughEnabled" value="true" />

This will enable pass through for ALL Avigilon cameras. If you wish to disable passthrough for a specific camera add ;Passthrough=falseto the end of the CameraExtraValue.

An addition option has been added to use the native camera resolution as the base for our quality settings instead of the default CIF values. To enable it add the following to the DeviceWorker.exe config
<add key="AvigilonV6_UseCameraImageSize" value="true" />

Notes :
Currently the Passthrough video DOES NOT allow setting of the stream resolution, we can only use what is given to us. As such changing the camera quality setting has no impact at the moment as it is just the full resolution video we are being given.

The new AvigilonV6_UseCameraImageSizealso has no impact on the pass through stream, this only applied to the standard JPG video.

 

Passthrough for pre-alarm/playback

By default, the avigilon will fall back to transcoding for pre-alarm due to performance and stability issues. to switch passthrough back on for prealarm/prealarm the following key needs to be added to the DeviceWorker.exe.config in the appsettings section:

<add key="UsePassThroughForPlayback" value="true" />

 

Alarms are not creating alarm responses in Sureview

For Avigilon SMTP alarms you will need to add a value into the SMTP Receiver Service to allow all new Digital alarms to be added into Sureview as they are received.

The value to be added is:

<add key="AddUnknownDigitalInputs" value="true" />

 

Attached alarm footage is not playing at the correct speed

Please contact SureView Support and arrange for the update of your SMTP alarm receiver service to 1.0.4.1 or higher.

Presets Not Matching

The starting count for presets within Avigilon begins at 0. When adding presets in SureView, the first preset input should be added as 0.

Example:

Device Preset Input	Sureview Preset Input
1	0
2	1
3	2
4	3
5	4

 

Attached alarm clips are not playing in SureView

Due to an issue in ACC version 6.4.0, the central station notifications were being sent incorrectly. This has been resolved by Avigilon in version 6.4.2 and above, so please update your system to this version. For Avigilon ES devices, you will need to update to firmware version 1.4.4.44 to get the same fix.

 

Live view doesn't work with 'Failed to Initialise SDK....' error

Try the following to clear the error

1. Make sure Direct X 9 or above is installed on the Sureview server that is running the integration
2. Reboot the Sureview server
3. Reinstall the Avigilon integration

Some alarms are not being received from my ACC

The use of an ampersand in alarm names (&) is known to cause issues with the Avigilon system sending alarms to Sureview. Please remove this from the alarm name.

 

Some device workers are not closing correctly

Update the device worker config and add the following within the <runtime> section:

<legacyUnhandledExceptionPolicy enabled="1"/>

This ensures 3rd party errors don't prevent the device worker from closeing down cleanly.

 

Sureview is not playing live video from Avigilon ACC or Video is streaking

In certain networking scenarios, especially when NAT is involved, the integration might need to be switched to a "WAN" mode where the network connection reverts to a more specific nature. This is configurable within the Filter Options of the Device Setup field by adding a "networkConnection=WAN;" option

 

Camera will not connect [Failed to login : ErrFailure]

1. Verify that the Sureview user account is able to login and has sufficient privilege's. Note that Avigilon user names are case sensitive.
2. Verify the version of Avigilon installed on server vs Integration. v5 integration (for example) is incompatible with ACC 7

Debugging

Setting <add key="AvigilonV6Cam.SaveFrames" value="true" /> in the device worker will save the first 50 bytes to data to disk.

 

Receiving IPC Port Error when performing actions

When the below error is showing when trying to perform any actions against the Avigilon system:

Error communicating with worker, likely the worker has unexpectedly closed: Failed to read from an IPC Port: The pipe has been ended.

This is due to the Avigilon SDK requiring actions to be performed as an actual user rather than a local service. Update the DeviceService to run as a user rather than LocalSystem/LocalService.

 

Adding timestamp overly to prealarm

If a customer is having issues surrounding the clips being returned from Pre-alarm or Playback, you may want to turn on the overlaying of the timestamp on the pre-alarm clip. This will be added by the Avigilon SDK, not by us, but may allow you to identify timezone or time offset issues when it comes to differences between Sureview and the 3rd party system.

To turn on this setting the following attribute will need to be added to the DeviceWorker.exe.config in the appsettings section:

<add key="Avigilon_OverlayTimeOnPlayback" value="true" />