The purpose of this document is to provide technical details for various new features in the Ocularis 4.0 release. Topics in this Document Ocularis Mix and Match Architecture... 1 Ocularis Critical Camera Failover... 2 Audit Log... 5 License Changes Related to CURRENT... 9 Synchronized Playback... 9 Ocularis Client Setup Changes... 9 Push to Talk... 10 Increased Encryption Strength with Database Exports... 11 Kinetic Timeline Changes... 11 General Changes... 11 Issues Fixed... 12 Known Issues... 12 Ocularis Mix and Match Architecture Ocularis Mix and Math Architecture allows you to hybridize your Ocularis environment with different Ocularis recorders under a single Base. The only restriction is that a hierarchical rule applies where the Ocularis Base license dictates which recorder models may be included. Cameras licenses purchased must be the same as the Ocularis Base model or lower. For example: with Ocularis CS you can add licenses for RC-C, RC-I and RC-P but not RC-L or RC-E. In addition to a mix of Ocularis recorders, Ocularis 4.0 includes the ability to include non-ocularis recorders by means of including certain cameras with embedded NVRs. This version includes cameras supported by the Axis Camera Companion. Figure 1 Mix and Match Recorders The example shown in Figure 1 shows an Ocularis CS Base with RC-C, RC-I and RC-C recorders as well as an Axis Camera with embedded NVR. Any camera imported here can be configured with Ocularis and displayed in a view. Cameras in Ocularis Client appear the same to operators; unless a camera is named accordingly, users will not otherwise know on which recorder a camera is associated. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 1
Ocularis Critical Camera Failover Never lose sight of vital areas with Critical Camera Failover. This feature works by automatically switching a camera feed to an alternate backup camera if the connection to the primary camera is compromised. The alternate cameras can be a: o o o o Duplicate camera on a redundant recorder Duplicate camera on a different recorder Different camera on the same recorder Or any combination of the above With an adjustable delay, Critical Camera Failover can take place in as little as 2-3 seconds. It works anywhere live video is displayed in Ocularis Client and will even work if the Ocularis Base becomes unavailable. Administrators identify cameras as critical and assign the backup camera in Ocularis Administrator. Multiple cameras can be assigned as backup for a single primary camera. When the communication to the critical camera is disrupted for the duration configured, Ocularis Client switches the displayed stream from the lost camera to the designated backup. Operators are alerted with an on-screen message and orange status icon. The streaming information for the camera pane also identifies by name that the displayed stream is a backup for the primary camera. When the connection to the primary critical camera is restored, the view will automatically revert back to it. This feature provides operators with seamless visibility to critical areas of view. TO CONFIGURE CRITICAL CAMERA FAILOVER From the Ocularis Administrator: Right-click the critical camera you wish to configure and select Properties. In the Camera Properties pop-up, click the Define button next to Critical Camera Failover. Access Camera Properties Camera Properties Pop-Up In the Critical Camera Failover Editor, expand the camera folder(s) to expose the list of available failover cameras. Drag-anddrop cameras from the list on the left to the area on the right. If you choose more than one camera, the order listed will be the order used in the failover. Drag-and-drop cameras within the list to reorder them. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 2
Figure 2 Drag and Drop to create failover cameras list When finished configuring the camera s failover list, click Save. Then click OK. HOW DOES IT WORK? If the primary live camera stream fails for any reason, the next camera in the list will be displayed in its place in Ocularis Client. This could be in a view pane or on a map or video wall. If that camera fails then the next camera (in order) will appear. In the example above, if Camera 1 fails, Camera 2 will be displayed. If Camera 2 fails, Camera 5 will display. Then if Camera 5 fails, Camera 3 is displayed. Ocularis Client monitors the camera stream and if it determines that the stream is no longer there, it will switch to the next camera in the list. The amount of time to wait to determine if the stream is live is controlled by the Attempt Failover after field when you configure the failover cameras. The more critical the camera, the shorter duration to use in this field. When a failover camera is displayed in a view, there is a Failover Camera overlay message that appears in the view pane to notify you that the stream has changed. By default, the overlay is displayed for 10 seconds and then disappears. This time may be modified in the Client Setup of Ocularis Client. The failover camera name is shown in the image bar of the pane along with an orange status light. Also, when you use the mouse to display the pane s streaming information, you ll see a message that the video is a failover for the primary camera. Lastly, during the time that the failover camera is displayed, Ocularis Client continues to check the primary camera stream. If the primary camera stream is restored, the video from this camera will be returned to the display. CONFIGURATION IN OCULARIS CLIENT Select the Views Client Setup option in Ocularis Client to configure the failover message. In the Video tab, change the seconds parameter in the Show Message for 10 seconds field. Select 0 to have the message appear on the screen and not fade away. Figure 3 Configure Failover Message On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 3
Example In our example, Camera 1 is configured as critical with failovers defined in Figure 2. In the view below, Camera 1 is displayed in the upper right pane of the view. Figure 4 View with video from a Critical Camera Based on the settings in the Attempt failover after field of the Critical Camera Failover Editor, Ocularis Client monitors Camera 1 and if the stream from this camera is lost for 5 seconds, the view pane will be populated with the next camera in the list (Camera 5). Figure 5 Failover camera displayed in upper right pane If you position the mouse over the orange pulsing icon in the image bar, the streaming information for that pane will identify that it is a failover camera and the camera name for which it is covering. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 4
Figure 6 Streaming Info Once the stream for Camera 1 resumes, the pane will return back to that camera stream. Audit Log Ocularis 4.0 includes the ability to track and audit actions performed by all Ocularis Client users. 1. Ocularis contains a new database to contain audit log information called VSAudits. 2. The default size limit for this database is 3.5 GB. 3. Only the latest (most recent) 5,000 records are visible inside the Ocularis Administrator. To view records older than that, export the Audit Log and use a third party tool (such as Microsoft Excel) to view the exported.csv file. 4. The actions which are tracked in the Audit Log are passed from Ocularis Client to the Ocularis Bases using Message Queuing. If Ocularis Clients in your installation connect externally through a firewall, make ure to forward port 1801 inbound to the Ocularis Base. CONFIGURE THE AUDIT LOG Auditing is done system-wide and includes all users of Ocularis. Only the user admin can configure the settings for the audit log. By default, the audit log is not enabled and only the user admin can turn it on. To Configure Audit Log Settings Figure 7 Configure the Audit Log 1. In the Logs Tab, select the Configure node. 2. Make changes to the Configure settings shown. a. By default, auditing is off. Check the Enable Audit Log box to enable. b. Audit log data will be retained for the Log Duration unless size restrictions are met. c. Storage Size is the maximum size of the log database you want to dedicate for audit logging. 3. Click the Save button. VIEWING THE AUDIT LOG Administrators can view entries of the audit log via the Logs tab in Ocularis Administrator. Group Administrators can view data from users within their own group and the user admin can view all entries in the log. Search criteria are available to filter the log and an export function allows for the data to be exported and saved. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 5
To Query the Audit Log 1. In the Logs Tab, select the Monitor node. 2. Select any desired Filter criteria. 3. Click the Search button. Filter Criteria Search Results area Figure 8 Logs Tab AUDIT LOGGING REAL WORLD SCENARIOS The following are just a few real-world examples of how audit logging might be used by system administrators. Find out who is unsuccessfully trying to login to the client Scenario: You want to determine if anyone is trying to gain unauthorized access the system or if your own users are having difficulty with system access. From the Logs Tab of Ocularis Administrator: 1. Click Clear to reset the search criteria 2. Select the Unknown Group (which shows all unsuccessful login attempts) 3. Select the Action Type of Authentication 4. Click Search From the example below, you can see that user guard1 from 192.168.60.79 tried unsuccessfully to login at 12:08 PM and several times later that day Figure 9 Unsuccessful Logins Find out who moved the camera Scenario: A PTZ camera was moved from its home position and as a result a critical incident was not recorded. Here is how to use the Audit Logging functionality to find who moved the camera. From the Logs Tab of Ocularis Administrator: 1. Click Clear to reset the search criteria 2. Select a Start Date/Time that is a few minutes shortly before the camera was known to have been moved On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 6
3. Select the /OpticalPTZ Action Type 4. Click Search From the example below, you can see that starting at 2:04:59, the guard1 user started moving the Receptionist 2.0 camera. Figure 10 Who moved a PTZ Find out what was being viewed when an incident occurred Scenario: The security guard is supposed to be viewing certain key cameras at all times. At 2:01 PM there was an unauthorized entry via Back Door 3. Was this camera being viewed at that time? From the Logs Tab of Ocularis Administrator: 1. Click Clear to reset the search criteria 2. Set a Start Data/Time that is a few minutes shortly before the incident 3. Select the security guard user account from the User drop down list 4. Click Search From the example below, you can see that at 1:59:03 the guard1 user changed cameras from the Back Door 3 camera to the Receptionist 2.0 camera. Therefore, we now know that the guard was not watching when the unauthorized entry occurred. Figure 11 What was being viewed from camera Find out who exported a specific segment of video Scenario: A sensitive incident was captured on camera, and the System Administrator wants to check to see who might have exported this incident. From the Logs Tab of Ocularis Administrator: 1. Click Clear to reset the search criteria 2. Select the BrowseExport Action Type 3. Select the possible time frame in which the export might have been done. It may be necessary to view ALL times after the incident occurred. 4. Click Search Examine the Start Time and Stop Time in the Description for each Export to see if the incident has been exported and by whom. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 7
If there are numerous results listed, it is recommended to Export the retrieved Audit Logging activity and use Microsoft Excel to search all results. To Export Audit Log Results 1. Query the log with the desired filters. 2. Click the Export button. The Audit Log Export screen appears. Figure 12 Who exported video Figure 13 Audit Log Export pop-up The pop-up identifies the criteria used as a filter. The default path and filename is presented: c:\users\<pc Name>\Documents\AuditExport.csv 3. To change the name or location of the exported file, click the ellipsis button. 4. Use standard Windows methods for choosing an alternate path and file name. 5. Click the Save button. 6. When the export is complete, a message Export Successful appears at the bottom of the pop-up. 7. Click Close. Note: The data exported is based on the filter criteria and will be inclusive of all records that meet the criteria. About Exported Search Results Search results on the screen are limited to the newest 5,000 records but if there are more records, these will all be included in an exported search. The order of the data in the.csv export is static. If you changed the order of columns in your audit log display, this order will not be reflected in the exported file. Use a third party application that supports.csv files to modify the column order. When you click the Export button, the query to the database is made again based on the criteria listed under Filtered By. It does not simply export results you might have on the screen. The search results in an export include the most up-to-date results from the database at the time the user clicks the Export button. Therefore, these results may differ from those which may have been displayed on the screen due to the fact that the Export query was made after the initial Search query. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 8
License Changes Related to CURRENT The OnSSI CURRENT expiration date field has been added to the Ocularis License Activation application and the About Tab of Ocularis Administrator. The CURRENT expiration date must be valid in order to upgrade to this or any future major versions of Ocularis. Being up-to-date on your OnSSI CURRENT subscription (i.e. software upgrade plan) is required to upgrade to Ocularis 4.0. The installation process will validate this and only allow you to proceed with the software installation with a valid CURRENT plan. Contact OnSSI Sales if you have any questions on CURRENT. Ocularis Administrator will display a notice when the organization s CURRENT subscription is within 90 days of expiring. CURRENT expiration will not affect the functioning of the software. Figure 14 CURRENT Expiration Notice Synchronized Playback In prior releases, when playing back recorded video for a multi-pane view in Browse Mode, Ocularis Client would play all recorded video for the selected ( primary ) video pane. The surrounding non-selected panes would also play video during the times when the primary pane showed video. However, if the primary pane had a gap in recorded video, the surrounding panes would not play their video, even if this video existed. The primary pane controlled when video is displayed. With Ocularis 4.0 you can override this behavior. It is now possible to view ALL recorded video from all cameras in Browse Mode, regardless of which video pane is selected. For example: if you want to spot when a certain person walked in any of a school s hallways, as long as you know the approximate time frame, you can playback the video and see any and all recorded video that occurred on all displayed cameras. To enable this option, in the Client Setup screen, check the Synchronous Playback checkbox under the Video Tab and click Save. Ocularis Client Setup Changes The settings configurable by a user in Ocularis Client have undergone several updates in this release. Access to these parameter settings are still based on privileges set on Ocularis Base. Users with privileges can access these settings by selecting the Ocularis Client Views menu Client Setup. 1. There is a new tab called Display containing screen related options and assorted other settings. a. The new Auto-Hide option will automatically hide the menu bar at the top of the screen 5 seconds after the mouse moves away from it. b. The Push To Talk feature now requires the holding down of the microphone icon when talking to the camera via Ocularis Client. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 9
2. In the Video tab, a new setting for Synchronous Playback was added. Display Tab Video Tab 3. Significant changes have been made to how the Client Setup updates are applied. Previously, it was necessary to log off or shut down Ocularis Client entirely after any changes were made under Client Setup. In general, this step is no longer necessary, except for the following: The following requires the Ocularis Client user to Logoff and Login to take effect: Show Snapshot Overlay checkbox Changes to which Screens are enabled Enabling or Changing a Video Wall setting Video Quality: Maintain Quality in Browse Mode The following requires a Client Shutdown and Re-launch to take effect: Push to Talk Language changes Detection of a newly installed Joystick This feature allows Ocularis Client users to speak through a supported camera by a simple click-and-hold operation on the camera pane s microphone icon. The standard click-on and click-off option is still available. Figure 15 Push To Talk On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 10
Increased Encryption Strength with Database Exports When exporting video using database format with Ocularis Client, the level of encryption for the video has been increased in Ocularis 4.0 to either 128 or 256 bit encryption. Encryption area: 128 bit AES 256 bit AES Kinetic Timeline Changes Figure 16 Database Encryption The Kinetic Timeline used when browsing recorded video, has undergone numerous changes to the interface to improve the user experience. The Kinetic Timeline now shows: o how much video has been buffered and ready to play (backwards or forwards) o an arrow to indicate the time of video being displayed o an improved visual for a marked video segment for export General Changes Optimization improvements have been made to significantly reduce the time to login to Ocularis Client. This is particularly noticeable in large enterprise systems. Improvements were made to the error messages displayed when licensing Ocularis Base. Errors displays are now more helpful and descriptive. In Ocularis Base, it is now possible to add a Recorder that has no cameras added to it. Previously, this would result in the following error: All Sources for this server have been detected. Server not added. Check Master/Slave configurations. On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 11
In Ocularis Client, all users in a User Group, can view Bookmarks created by any other user in that User Group. In Ocularis Client, the Speaker Icon stays enabled when switching from Browse to Live mode. Issues Fixed Scheduling of Actions (such as weekend or Holiday scheduling) now works properly. (Ocularis Administrator) Fixed an issue where the recorder could not be refreshed inside the Ocularis Administrator when numerous events were streaming in from the Recorder(s). Snapshots inside Ocularis Administrator would not appear until the Default Group had rights to all cameras. Fixed an issue where the video frame rate would drop when the mouse was moved. (Ocularis Client) Fixed an issue where the H.264 Frame Skip checkbox did not work properly. (Ocularis Client) Fixed an issue where Audio Alerts on events would not work if the client was part of a video wall. (Ocularis Client) Fixed a issue where the blank screen would not repopulate if it was cleared using the Clear option from the Circular Control Menu. (Ocularis Client) When the microphone in Ocularis Client was enabled, the video would pause for 3 seconds. Fixed a problem with relative positioning cameras not working with PTZ Keyboard Shortcuts. (Ocularis Client) Known Issues In order for the search criteria drop-down lists in the Logs Tab to be the most up-to-date you must close and then relogin to Ocularis Administrator. Audit Logging does not track when a user maximizes a view pane, controls a video wall, performs an action on a blank screen pane or uses the alert manager. (Ocularis Client) Audio is not supported using Synchronous Playback. (Ocularis Client) Audio is not supported for cameras with embedded NVRs. (Ocularis Client) Ocularis Client may display a stopped working message if you Shut Down or Log Out while a Negotiating message is displayed for a camera pane trying to connect to a camera with embedded NVR. 0000005052014003--004.0.0.49 On-Net Surveillance Systems Inc. One Blue Hill Plaza, PO Box 1555, Pearl River NY 10965 T 845-732-7900 www.onssi.com page 12