Mobotix MxEasy User Manual

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The HiRes Video Company

MxEasy User Manual

HiRes Video Innovations

The German company MOBOTIX AG is known as the leading pioneer in network camera technology and its

decentralized concept has made high-resolution video systems cost ecient.

MOBOTIX AG • D-67722 Langmeil • Phone +49-6302-9816-103 • Fax +49-6302-9816-190 • sales@mobotix.com

03/2010

Free-of-Charge Software Download: www.mobotix.com > Support > Software Downloads

Current Manual PDF: www.mobotix.com > Support > Manuals

MxEasy: Point & Shoot

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Notes and Copyright

Download the latest version of this manual and other manuals for MOBOTIX products as PDF ﬁles from www.mobotix.com (Support > Manuals).

All rights reserved. MOBOTIX, MxControlCenter,and MxEasy are internationally protected trademarks of MOBOTIX AG. Microsoft, Windows and Windows Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, OSX and Bonjour are trademarks of Apple Inc. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other brand names mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective owners. Copyright © 1999-2010, Langmeil, Germany. Information subject to change without notice!

Further Information: www.mobotix.com

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Contents

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CONTENTS

1 Introduction To MxEasy 6

1.1 General Information 6

1.2 Sample Scenarios 8

1.2.1 House With Two Cameras 8

1.2.2 Gas Station With Four Cameras 9

1.2.3 Hotel With Nine Cameras 9

1.3 Setting Up A Video Surveillance System– Overview 11

2 System Installation 14

2.1 System Requirements 14

2.2 Power Supply And Network Connection Of Cameras 14

2.2.1 Power Supply When Connected Directly To A Computer 15

2.2.2 Power Supply And Network Connection With A PoE Switch 15

2.3 Installing MxEasy 16

2.3.1 Installation On Windows Computers 16

2.3.2 Installation On Mac OSX Computers 16

2.3.3 Installation On Linux Computers 16

3 Getting Started 18

3.1 Using MxEasy For The First Time 18

3.1.1 Searching MOBOTIX Cameras 18

3.1.2 Selecting And Adding New Cameras 21

3.1.3 Adding Remote Cameras Using DynDNS 25

3.2 Elements In The Program Window And Program View Modes 30

3.2.1 Areas Of The MxEasy Program Window 31

3.2.2 Program View Modes 34

3.2.3 Size Of The Program Window 41

3.3 Displaying Live Images And Monitoring Alarms 43

3.3.1 Switching The Displayed Cameras 44

3.3.2 Alarm Display 44

3.4 The Most Important Camera Views And Image Settings 45

3.4.1 Camera Views 45

3.4.2 Image Settings – Formats, Quality, Frame Rate, Hemispheric Settings, Recording 47

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3.5 Image Sections And Digital Zoom Functions (PTZ) 50

3.5.1 Zooming The Image Section 50

3.5.2 Panning And Tilting The Image Section 51

3.5.3 Digital Zoom In MxEasy And In The Camera 51

3.6 Setting Up Alarms And Recordings 53

3.6.1 Operation Modes Of MxEasy 53

3.6.2 Alarm Planner 54

3.6.3 Setting Time Periods 55

3.6.4 Setting The Recording Mode 56

3.6.5 Selecting The Alarm Sensors 57

3.6.6 Setting Up Alarm Notiﬁcations 60

3.6.7 Assigning Settings To One Or More Cameras 61

3.7 System Shuto- Privacy Mode 62

3.8 Playing Back And Evaluating The Recordings 65

3.9 Creating Users And Passwords 67

4 Advanced Operation 70

4.1 Saving, Printing And Exporting 70

4.1.1 Saving Snapshots 70

4.1.2 Printing Snapshots 70

4.1.3 Exporting Video And Audio Data 71

4.1.4 Export Options 73

4.1.5 Playing Back Exported Audio/Video Data 75

4.2 Saving And Restoring Settings 76

4.2.1 Creating And Loading Backups 76

4.2.2 Storing The Backup Folder 77

4.2.3 Replacing The Backup Folder 77

4.3 Using The Door Intercom 78

4.4 Adjusting Additional Image and Exposure Settings 79

4.5 Bandwidth Management 81

4.6 Network Environments: Camera Access From Dierent Locations 83

4.6.1 Overview 83

4.6.2 Deﬁning And Editing Environments 84

4.6.3 Selecting An Environment And Changing The Network Data 85

4.7 Recording Targets- SD Cards And File Servers 87

4.8 Adjusting The Default Program Settings 88

4.8.1 ‘General’ Tab 89

4.8.2 ‘Connections’ Tab 90

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4.8.3 ‘Behavior’ Tab 90

5 Advanced Features 92

5.1 Camera Management 92

5.1.1 Adding Cameras 92

5.1.2 Working With The Current Camera- Renaming, Editing And Removing 92

5.1.3 Working With The Camera List 93

5.2 Camera Settings 95

5.2.1 Overview 95

5.2.2 Audio Settings 96

5.2.3 LED Settings 96

5.2.4 Connection Settings 97

5.2.5 Time Settings 98

5.2.6 VoIP Settings For Phone Calls 99

5.2.7 E-Mail Settings 99

5.2.8 SD/USB Settings 100

5.2.9 Camera Information 101

5.3 Setting Up A Global User For All MOBOTIX Cameras 101

5.4 Customizing The User Interface 102

5.4.1 MxEasy Skins 102

5.4.2 Displaying Tool Tips 103

5.5 Custom Alarm Sounds 103

5.6 Software Update 104

5.7 Resetting The Cameras From The Privacy Mode 106

A Further Information 108

A.1 Components Of A MOBOTIX System 108

A.2 How Can I Expand My MOBOTIX System? 109

B Access Rights For User Access Levels 112

B.1 Button Functions 112

B.2 Menu Command Functions 113

C MOBOTIX Glossary 116

Index 122

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MxEasy User Manual: Introduction To MxEasy

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1 INTRODUCTION TO MXEASY

Congratulations on your decision to select video security products from MOBOTIX. MOBOTIX

oers you intelligent, high-resolution camera technology

Made in Germany

. The MxEasy

software provides you with full control of your video security system.

1.1 General Information

MOBOTIX are pleased to introduce you to the concepts and ideas behind MxEasy. In the following chapters we will guide you through the simple installation of the program onto your PC, Mac or Linux system, inform you how to integrate your MOBOTIX cameras into

the system and even give you some examples of how MxEasy can give a professional Video Management System view of some SOHO (small oce, home oce) & business applications.

What Is MxEasy?

MxEasy allows you to quickly and eciently conﬁgure and control a video security system of up to 16 MOBOTIX cameras, making it the perfect choice for all small and mid-sized surveillance systems. The program automatically ﬁnds all available MOBOTIX cameras (even in non-administered newtworks) and carries out the initial conﬁguration for the selected cameras. You are not required to have an in-depth knowledge of network technology.

Main window

Menu bar

Image bar with camera/event windows

Tool Tips for MxEasy

elements

Info bar 1

Info bar 2

Toolbars

Dynamic toolbar

Status bar

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General Information

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Once the cameras are integrated into the system, you can use MxEasy to comfortably control the most important functions of the connected cameras. Virtual zooming, panning and tilting in the live image is just as easy as activating manual or scheduled recording times. This way, it makes no dierence whether you choose to monitor the screen constantly or just occasionally check up on the most recent events.

The video data recorded by the cameras can then be viewed and exported in dierent

formats (e.g. MxPEG, AVI with dierent codecs) as required.

Easy Operation

To keep MxEasy simple and easy to use, camera operation has been streamlined to

include only the absolute necessities. MxEasy is easy to understand and simple to use, so the risk of operating errors is minimal. The buttons are marked with easy-to-understand symbols and descriptions of each button (“tool tips”) are displayed automatically. All other control elements are intuitive to use. In addition, the user interface has been optimized for mobile devices and touch panels.

If any problems occur, you can quickly and easily undo any incorrect settings using the automatic conﬁguration backup feature.

Security

MxEasy provides you with four dierent access levels (

guest, user, owner, administra-

tor

), allowing people with dierent levels of authorization to access the camera images.

This makes it possible to install MxEasy on several computers at the same time without

causing access-related conﬂicts. Optional HTTPS encryption (using certiﬁcates generated by the camera or created by the administrator) helps you to prevent unauthorized users from accessing MxEasy.

Operation Modes

The dierent operation modes allow for easily adjusting MxEasy to the current application

scenario. The Switched O Mode does not record anything, but still transmits the live images. The Alarm Planner Mode detects alarms and starts recording according to the times and the alarm sensors speciﬁed in the weekly schedule. The Alert Mode records the audio/video data of all cameras controlled by MxEasy.

In addition, you can trigger the Manual Alarm in case of an alarm, which records the audio/video data of all cameras for a speciﬁc time. The Privacy Mode is used to guarantee absolute conﬁdentiality. For this purpose, MxEasy changes the passwords on all attached cameras and thus eectively prevents all attempts to access the cameras.

Why MxEasy And Not MxControlCenter?

MxEasy is the perfect choice for all small and mid-sized video security systems using cameras connected in a network. MxEasy has fewer functions than the professional video management software MxControlCenter, because, as its name implies, MxEasy

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is specially developed for ease of use. All of the main features of the MOBOTIX software are available in MxEasy.

Note

When planning your MOBOTIX system, make sure to note that with MxEasy you can integrate and manage up to 16 cameras. For larger video security systems, we recommend that you use MxControlCenter (www.mobotix.com under Support >

Software Downloads > MxControlCenter

1.2 Sample Scenarios

The following examples are possible ways to use MxEasy. They contain information about

the required components and setup for the individual scenarios:

• House with two cameras

• Gas Station with four cameras

• Hotel with nine cameras

The application scenario and the components required to set up the system will be described

for each of the examples.

For more information on the individual components of a complete surveillance system, see

Appendix B.1, System Components

in the MOBOTIX product descriptions and the

manuals of the individual camera models at

www.mobotix.com.

For a brief overview of all important steps for installing and conﬁguring this type of surveil-

lance system, see

Section 1.3, “Setting Up A Video Surveillance System– Overview”

. These

steps are described in more detail in Chapters3 to 5.

1.2.1 House With Two Cameras

This scenario consists of two MOBOTIX cameras that guard the entrance and the rear of a house. When the homeowner is away for the weekend, these cameras use integrated video and infrared motion detectors to detect unwanted movements around the house.

In the case of an alarm, the video sequences are recorded in the cameras. In addition,

this triggers a call to the homeowner's cellular phone and sends the images to the homeowner via e-mail.

MxEasy is the user interface in this example. Using this software, the user can conveniently and easily set up and operate their MOBOTIX cameras.

Required Components

• 1 x MOBOTIX Q24M (entrance)

• 1 x MOBOTIX D24M with L22 lens and Outdoor Wall Mount (rear of house)

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Sample Scenarios

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• 2 x MOBOTIX NPA-PoE-Set

• Switch with at least four ports

• Network patch cables

• Computer installed with a Windows, Mac OSX or Linux operating system

• Conﬁgured DSL router registered with a VoIP provider (required for telephone and e-mail notiﬁcation and external access via DynDNS)

1.2.2 Gas Station With Four Cameras

In this scenario, a gas station is guarded using a MOBOTIX system. The video sequences

are recorded in the cameras.

Two cameras record the events at the pumps, the camera in the shop records any unau-

thorized access, and the camera above the register records the entire cash register area.

The cameras are set up to record video and audio data at a continuous rate of 2 frames

per second during business hours. This

continuous recording

is deactivated outside of

the opening hours. If motion is detected (using a video motion window), the camera will record at a higher frame rate for a speciﬁed period of time and send e-mails to predeﬁned recipients. Dierent opening times can be set for the cash register and the shop areas of the gas station.

In the event of a dangerous situation, continuous recording at a higher frame rate and other actions (e.g. a telephone call) can be triggered by clicking Manual Alarm.

Required Components

• 1 x MOBOTIX Q24M-Sec (cash register area)

• 2 x MOBOTIX D24M-Sec (pumps)

• 1 x MOBOTIX M24M-R16 (shop)

• 1 x PoE switch for supplying power to four cameras

• Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units for supplying the cameras, the switch and, if desired, the computer

• Professionally laid Ethernet cables guided to the mounting positions of the cameras (no separate power cables required)

• Computer installed with a Windows, Mac OSX or Linux operating system

• Conﬁgured DSL router registered with a VoIP provider (required for telephone and e-mail notiﬁcation and external access via DynDNS)

1.2.3 Hotel With Nine Cameras

In this scenario, an entire hotel is guarded using a MOBOTIX system. The video sequences

are recorded in the cameras.

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The cameras at the main entrance and the delivery entrance are event-controlled. Each of these cameras is connected to a MOBOTIX ExtIO. Additionally, these cameras can be used as a door intercom and to remotely open the doors. In the underground garage,

there are two event-controlled cameras that record cars entering the garage or persons present in the area. Cameras in both hallways on the second ﬂoor and the third ﬂoor, in the gym and in the swimming pool area record all events when persons are present in these areas. A camera located in the lobby makes continuous recordings with a variable frame rate of all events in the entire reception area (lower frame rate for normal operation,

max. frame rate in case of an alarm).

Hotel sta can trigger an alarm at the reception desk using the Manual Alarm feature.

This alarm can be conﬁgured to trigger notiﬁcation via VoIP telephone call (and/or e-mail)

to be sent to predeﬁned recipients.

Hotel sta can use the following additional features with the connected ExtIO modules for the cameras at both entrances:

• Door Opener: Opens the door connected to the corresponding camera.

• Light: Switches on the light located near the camera.

• Speaker: Switches on the camera microphone and the ExtIO on the speakers of the computer. When the cameras are displayed one after another using the Camera

Sequencer, the software plays the sound from the active camera.

• Microphone: Activates the sound on your computer microphone and feeds it to the camera speaker (or the connected ExtIO), allowing your voice to be heard.

• Acoustic Alarm: Plays a preselected audio ﬁle over the camera speaker (or the connected ExtIO).

Required Components

• 6 x MOBOTIX Q24M-Sec, 5 with In-Ceiling Set

• 1 x MOBOTIX D12D-Sec with 1 L22 lens, 1 L43 (parking lot)

• 2 x MOBOTIX M24M with L22 lens

• 1 x PoE switch with at least nine PoE ports

• Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units for supplying the cameras and the switch

• Professionally laid Ethernet cables guided to the mounting positions of the cameras (no separate power cables required)

• Computer installed with a Windows, Mac OSX or Linux operating system

• Conﬁgured DSL router registered with a VoIP provider (required for telephone and e-mail notiﬁcation and external access via DynDNS)

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Setting Up A Video Surveillance System– Overview

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1.3 Setting Up A Video Surveillance System– Overview

We will describe the most important steps for basic installation in this section. These steps

are the same for all scenarios.

For thorough instructions regarding camera installation, see the section

Installation

in the

corresponding

Camera Manual

. For information on the power supply and connecting

cameras to the network, see the section

Connecting The Camera To The Network And To

The Power Supply

in the corresponding

Camera Manual

Mounting And Connecting The Cameras

•

Installing the Ethernet cable and mounting the cameras: Determine where you want to mount the cameras. Run the Ethernet cable to the mounting position of the camera. Mount the cameras and connect the Ethernet cable to the corresponding camera:

– In the House example, one camera (Q24M) is mounted over the front door and

the other camera is mounted behind the house under the roof overhang.

–

In the Gas Station example, two D24M-Sec cameras monitor the pumps in order to record persons and vehicles in the area. The shop camera is mounted in one corner of the room and the register camera is mounted on the ceiling above the cash register area so as to monitor both customers and the register.

– In the Hotel example, one Q24M-Sec is mounted at the main entrance of the

hotel and the corresponding ExtIO is mounted next to the door of the main entrance where it serves as a door intercom. Two M24M-R16 cameras monitor the entrance and the rear side of the underground garage. The remaining ﬁve Q24M-Sec cameras are installed in the planned positions using In-Ceiling Sets (in the hallways of the second and third ﬂoors, in the swimming pool area, in the gym, and above the reception desk). The camera above the reception desk is mounted in the ceiling so as to monitor the entire reception area.

• Setting up the power supply: Set up the power supply of the camera. Use either a commercial PoE switch, MOBOTIX Network Power Racks/Boxes or MOBOTIX power

supply units in conjunction with Network Power Adapters.

• Connecting the cameras: Connect the Ethernet cable from the cameras to the PoE switch (or the Network Power Rack/Network Power Adapter). The PoE switch is connected to the local area network (LAN) via another Ethernet cable.

• Checking the cameras: Inspect the LEDs of the operating cameras to make sure that they indicate that the camera is operating normally.

The MOBOTIX cameras are now ready to use and available in the local area network. They can now be integrated into MxEasy.

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Integrating The Cameras Into MxEasy

•

Installing MxEasy: Insert the MxEasy CD (if available) or download the MxEasy software

for your operating system. Install the application (see

Section 2.3, “Installing MxEasy”

•

Automatic search for cameras: Launch MxEasy. The application automatically ﬁnds all MOBOTIX cameras in the local network and shows a preview image for each camera that is directly accessible. You can manually add cameras later on, which are outside of the local network (e.g. in your summer cottage). At this point, you can assign speciﬁc names to the individual cameras and set new access data (see

Section 3.1.1, “Searching MOBOTIX Cameras”

, as well as

Section 3.1.3, “Adding

Remote Cameras Using DynDNS”

• Network conﬁguration for the cameras: MxEasy will prompt you to enter the IP addresses to be used for the cameras in the network (or you may select the option

DHCP

). If there is a DSL router in the network, MxEasy automatically selects

DHCP

(see

Section 3.1.2, “Selecting And Adding New Cameras”

•

Resetting to MxEasy defaults: When prompted, you may choose whether or not you wish to reset the cameras back to MxEasy defaults. You may also choose to retain the current settings if you have already conﬁgured the cameras using MxEasy or if MxEasy is to be installed on several computers. MxEasy automatically recognizes whether or not these settings have been applied and recommends the appropriate option.

After you have completed these steps, the cameras are displayed in MxEasy.

Further Steps

•

Displaying live images: Click Next Camera to display each camera one after another in the main window of MxEasy and select the desired image section (see

Section 3.3,

“Displaying Live Images And Monitoring Alarms”

• Using image sections and zoom functions: If necessary, deﬁne dierent image sections and change the zoom settings (see

Section 3.5, “Image Sections And Digital

Zoom Functions (PTZ)”

• Setting up alarms and recordings in the alarm planner: Deﬁne the time period during which alarms are to be detected and select the events for which the camera alarms are to be triggered (see

Section 3.6, “Setting Up Alarms And Recordings”

• Selecting the operation mode: Select how MxEasy should record video and audio data- Alert Mode records continuously and Alarm Planer Mode records according to the times deﬁned in the weekly time table. Switched O Mode stops recording (see

Section 3.6.1, “Operation Modes Of MxEasy”

• Creating manual alarms: Click this button to trigger a manual alarm (this feature can also be used to test the recording functions).

• Evaluating recordings: Evaluate the recorded video sequences (see

Section 3.8,

“Playing Back And Evaluating The Recordings”

•

Creating users and passwords: If the computer is accessible to several users, make sure to set up passwords for the Administrator, Owner, User and Guest access

levels (see

Section 3.9, “Creating Users And Passwords”

) once you have ﬁnished the

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Setting Up A Video Surveillance System– Overview

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conﬁguration of the system.

Appendix B, “Access Rights For User Access Levels”

contains a list of the rights assigned to each user level.

When you have completed these steps, see

Chapter 4, “Advanced Operation”

, for further

conﬁguration options:

• Printing and saving images and exporting recordings: You can print and save images from the camera at any time (live images or recordings) and even export recorded video sequences separately (see

Section 4.1, “Saving, Printing And Exporting”

)

using the print feature and the convenient preview option.

• Saving the settings: Save your settings so that you can easily restore the selected settings later (for example, after experimenting with the image settings) (see

Section 4.2,

“Saving And Restoring Settings”

• Activating the “Privacy Mode”: Activate this mode to stop all recording features and to prevent anyone from accessing the cameras controlled by MxEasy. While this lock can be deactivated directly from the current computer, you will need the user name and password set in this dialog to deactivate the lock from a dierent computer (see

Section 3.7, “System Shuto- Privacy Mode”

Note

All MOBOTIX cameras controlled by MxEasy can use dierent

recording targets

. Depending on the model and type of camera used, they can store the audio/video data on internal storage media (SD cards) or on ﬁle servers.

Newer cameras (Q22M, Q24M, D24M, M24M, all except

Basic

and

Web

models) and

R models

have factory-installed SD cards and are preconﬁgured for recording “outof-the-box”. At present, MxEasy cannot change the recording target of the cameras. To change this basic conﬁguration setting, you need to change the conﬁguration on the camera itself (see

Section 4.7, “Recording Targets- SD Cards And File Servers”

This section also contains more information on the dierent recording targets.

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MxEasy User Manual: System Installation

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2 SYSTEM INSTALLATION

2.1 System Requirements

Computer System

The computer system on which MxEasy is installed must meet the following criteria in order to ensure optimum operation of your MOBOTIX system:

• Computer with a current operating system (Windows XP or higher, Mac OSX 10.4 or higher with Intel processor, Linux with latest kernel available). Macintosh computers with PowerPC architecture are no longer supported.

• Monitor with a minimum resolution of 1024x768 pixels. The resolution should be higher (at least 1280x1024 pixels) in order to be able to use the full-screen display of one or more cameras.

• 2-button mouse with scroll wheel. MxEasy also supports joysticks and devices with a touch panel.

•

To create the network connections, you need a switch or router with switch functionality.

2.2 Power Supply And Network Connection Of Cameras

The MOBOTIX cameras can be supplied with power using a Network Power Adapter (MX-NPA-PoE) or a switch that supports the PoE standard IEEE 802.3af. Both of these methods will be brieﬂy described here. For information about additional power supply options and for more details, see the section

Network And Power Connection

in the cor-

responding camera manual.

For the Q24M, you should use the new blue MX-NPA-PoE-Set.

Previous MOBOTIX network power accessories such as the NPA Set, Power Box and Power Rack (MX-NPASet, MX-NPR-4 and MX-NPR8/20) are not suitable for use with the Q24M

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Power Supply And Network Connection Of Cameras

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2.2.1 Power Supply When Connected Directly To A Computer

1. Connect the factory pre-installed cable of the camera to the Camera connector of the Network Power Adapter.

2. Connect the PC/Power connector of the Network Power Adapter to the Ethernet port of the computer.

3. Plug the RJ45 connector of the external power unit into the LAN/Power connector of the Network Power Adapter.

2.2.2 Power Supply And Network Connection With A PoE Switch

Connect the factory pre-installed cable of the camera to the Ethernet connector of the PoE switch/router. The switch/router must support the PoE standard IEEE 802.3af.

MX-NPA-PoE-Set

(power supply and blue power adapter)

Patch cable

10.8.0.99

192.168.1.12 (255.255.255.0)

Patch cable

The IP addresses in the diagram are shown only as an example

Patch cable

10.8.0.99

192.168.1.12 (255.255.255.0)

Patch cable

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2.3 Installing MxEasy

The current version of MxEasy is available for download on the MOBOTIX website (www.

mobotix.com

under Support > Software Downloads > MxEasy).

Note

Only registered users are permitted to download MOBOTIX software from the website. If you are not yet a registered user with MOBOTIX, why not register now? Registered users have the following beneﬁts:

• Access to the entire range of the freely accessible MOBOTIX software.

• Automatic subscription to the newsletter (if desired) to inform you about the latest MOBOTIX products.

2.3.1 Installation On Windows Computers

•

Open the ﬁle for automatic installation (

MxEasy_*_Setup.exe

). You receive this ﬁle:

–

Download the ﬁle (

MxEasy_*_Setup.exe

) from the MOBOTIX website (release:

MxEasy Windows), and save the ﬁle to your computer (for example, on the

Desktop).

– If you have received installation media (CD, DVD, USB stick), you can launch the

installation ﬁle directly from the storage device (the installation ﬁle may be opened automatically after you have inserted the storage device).

• Follow the instructions of the installation assistant.

2.3.2 Installation On Mac OSX Computers

• Open the ﬁle for automatic installation (MxEasy *.mpkg). You receive this ﬁle:

– Download the ﬁle (

MxEasy *.mpkg.zip) from the MOBOTIX website (release:

MxEasy Macintosh), and save the ﬁle to your computer (for example, on

the Desktop). Unpack the ﬁle by double-clicking it.

– If you have received installation media (CD, DVD, USB stick), you can launch the

installation ﬁle directly from the storage device.

• Follow the instructions of the installation assistant.

2.3.3 Installation On Linux Computers

Because there are a number of dierent distributions available for Linux computers, MOBOTIX oers several dierent installation ﬁles. The supported distributions are listed for each release on

www.mobotix.com.

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Installing MxEasy

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Automatic Installation With Package Manager

•

Install the ﬁle for automatic installation that corresponds

to your distribution

(

MxEasy*.

deb/rpm). You receive this ﬁle:

–

Download the ﬁle (

MxEasy*.deb/rpm

)

for your distribution

from the MOBOTIX website (release: MxEasy Linux) and save the ﬁle to your computer (for example, in the

/tmp directory).

– If you have received installation media (CD, DVD, USB stick), you can open instal-

lation ﬁle directly from the storage device.

• Please note the documentation of the applicable Package Manager.

Manual Installation

• Unpack the ﬁle for manual installation (

MxEasy*.tar.bz2). You may obtain this

ﬁle using one of the following options:

–

Download the ﬁle (

MxEasy*.tar.bz2

)

for your distribution

from the MOBOTIX website (release: MxEasy Linux), and save the ﬁle to your computer (for example, in the

/tmp directory).

– If you have received installation media (CD, DVD, USB stick), copy the installation

ﬁle

for your distribution

onto your computer, for example to the /tmp directory).

• Open the ﬁle

PLATFORM NOTES in the unpacked directory and follow the installa-

tion instructions described.

Note

By factory default, MxEasy checks at startup whether a new program version has been released on the MOBOTIX website and oers to update the software. For more information, see

Section 5.6, “Software Update”

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3 GETTING STARTED

The previous chapter described the installation of MxEasy. In this chapter, you will learn everything you need to know to get started with MxEasy.

When you launch the program for the ﬁrst time, MxEasy Wizard automatically ﬁnds all MOBOTIX cameras that are available in the network and guides you through the initial conﬁguration for the selected cameras. You can then set up the cameras quickly and easily using MxEasy.

•

Section 3.1, “Using MxEasy For The First Time”

•

Section 3.2, “Elements In The Program Window And Program View Modes”

•

Section 3.3, “Displaying Live Images And Monitoring Alarms”

•

Section 3.4, “The Most Important Camera Views And Image Settings”

•

Section 3.5, “Image Sections And Digital Zoom Functions (PTZ)”

•

Section 3.6, “Setting Up Alarms And Recordings”

•

Section 3.7, “System Shuto- Privacy Mode”

•

Section 3.8, “Playing Back And Evaluating The Recordings”

•

Section 3.9, “Creating Users And Passwords”

See

Appendix B, “Access Rights For User Access Levels”

, for a list of the rights assigned to each user level (Administrator, Owner, User, Guest). For additional information on saving, printing and exporting recorded audio and video data as well as saving and restoring settings, see

Chapter 4, “Advanced Operation”

3.1 Using MxEasy For The First Time

3.1.1 Searching MOBOTIX Cameras

When you launch MxEasy for the ﬁrst time, MxEasy Wizard automatically starts searching for MOBOTIX cameras and displays all detected cameras in a list. The camera list will be updated automatically as soon as new MOBOTIX cameras are connected to or removed from the network.

Note

If MxEasy does not ﬁnd any cameras (the camera selection list contains no entries in this case), check the ﬁrewall settings of your computer. If necessary, customize the settings for MxEasy to allow connections to and from MxEasy. If you do not have permission to modify these settings on your computer, contact your system administrator for assistance.

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MxEasy Wizard: Selecting Cameras

In this dialog, MxEasy lists all detected cameras and displays the current operating status of each camera. In order to select the correct cameras, this dialog shows a preview image of the last selected camera and the camera information listed in the columns:

• Camera list/name: Click one of the columns to sort the camera list accordingly. You can change the order in which the cameras are sorted by clicking again. Double-click the camera name to change it or click Edit in the pop-up menu.

• Filter: You can enter any ﬁlter criterion in this ﬁeld to narrow the list of cameras displayed (for example, if you enter

3.4.4.7, the list will be narrowed down to the

cameras that use this particular software version).

• Legend: MxEasy also automatically monitors and displays the operating status of all cameras. There are ﬁve statuses that MxEasy cameras can display. These statuses are displayed as colored circles listed before the names of the cameras:

–

Green: The camera is ready, responding and can thus be integrated immediately.

–

Green with blue lock: The camera can be integrated, but it is password-protected and the password has not yet been entered into MxEasy. Right-click the camera, select Authenticate and enter the correct user name and password. Once a valid user name and password have been entered, the symbol changes to a green circle and the lock disappears.

– Green with red lock: This camera is in Privacy Mode. A camera in this mode

cannot be accessed in any way until the camera is unlocked again. Note that this mode deactivates the audio channel as well as all event and recording features of the camera.

–

Blue: Besides the cameras in the same subnet as your computer that have already been added, MxEasy also ﬁnds new MOBOTIX cameras with factory IP addresses

Legend

Camera list

Preview image

Filter

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using the Bonjour service. Since new cameras are usually in a dierent subnet, it is not possible to establish a video connection.

This usually happens if the IP addresses in the network are automatically assigned by a DHCP server (e.g. in the DSL router). The computer (and the cameras already added) are in a dierent subnet (e.g. 192.168.178.x) than the MOBOTIX cameras with factory IP addresses (always

10.x.x.x). If such a camera is

added to the system, MxEasy can automatically integrate them into the subnet of the computer.

– Yellow: The camera has been found, but it cannot be integrated at this time. This

is the case if MxEasy is busy determining the status of the selected camera, for example. The yellow circle will be replaced by a green or red circle after a short time.

– Red: The camera has been found but is not responding. This status occurs when

a camera has been restarted but can also be caused during normal operation by a disruption in the HTTP connection (network error, ﬁrewall).

• Preview image: MxEasy displays the live images from the selected camera in this ﬁeld

as long as this camera is reachable

(if more than one camera is selected, the

preview window displays the images from the last camera to be selected).

Adding MOBOTIX Cameras Manually

Click the Add Cameras button in the MxEasy Wizard or on the Add command in the context menu of the camera list to add cameras located outside the network (e.g. on the Internet) as MxEasy cannot ﬁnd these cameras automatically.

For more information on DynDNS and how to add “remote cameras”, see

Section 3.1.3,

“Adding Remote Cameras Using DynDNS”

Descriptive name of the

camera

Camera port on the router

User name and password for accessing the camera

DynDNS name of the router

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3.1.2 Selecting And Adding New Cameras

Selecting Cameras

You can now select the cameras that you would like to add to MxEasy. To select more than one camera, simply use

Shift-click for a block selection or the command key and

left-click for individual selection.

command key + a selects all cameras. The preview always

displays live images from the selected camera (if more than one camera is selected, this window always displays the live images from the last camera to be selected).

Adding Cameras

Once have you selected the desired cameras, click Continue and conﬁrm the security prompt by clicking OK.

If some of the selected cameras are passwordprotected (status: Authentication required), MxEasy will prompt you to enter the corresponding user name and password.

In this step, MxEasy Wizard also saves the entire conﬁguration of all selected cameras. As a result, this conﬁguration can be easily restored at a later time.

Select multiple cameras using the Shift or Command key

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Network Conﬁguration

Network conﬁguration for MxEasy Wizard will only be carried out if one of the selected cameras displays the status

(Invalid network).

If your computer automatically obtains its IP address from a DHCP server (e.g. from a DSL router), then this is certainly the best choice for that speciﬁc camera and most likely for all other cameras that have been found in a dierent subnet (Get IP address automatically option). If you have assigned a ﬁxed IP address to your computer, you will probably want to assign ﬁxed IP addresses (issued by your system administrator) to every camera (the Use this IP address option). Normally, you enter the same conﬁguration used for the network settings of your computer.

Once you click OK, the selected cameras will be reconﬁgured automatically. The cameras are now in the same subnet as your computer and are marked as Reachable in the camera list.

Resetting The Camera Conﬁguration

You can choose whether to reset the cameras to MxEasy defaults in the next step.

Note

We highly recommend that you

always reset the conﬁguration of the cameras

to MxEasy defaults

Click Continue to proceed.

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Setting A User Name And Password

If you opted to reset all cameras to MxEasy defaults in the previous dialog, you can now set one user name and a password for all cameras. Note that doing so will also disable public access to the cameras. Leave the ﬁelds empty if you would like to skip this step.

Caution

For security reasons, it is highly recommended to assign a user name and password to protect the cameras from unauthorized access. If you would like to set

a user name and password later on, please see

Section 5.3, “Setting Up A Global

User For All MOBOTIX Cameras”

Caution

Make sure that you store information on user names and passwords in a secure location. If the administrator password is lost, the passwords for the cameras must be reset at the factory. This service is subject to a service charge!

If no user name and password have been entered, MxEasy uses the factory defaults (user

admin, password meinsm). This automatically enables public access to the

Guest screen via a browser window.

Click Continue to proceed.

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Determining The Mounting Position And The Image View (Hemispheric Cameras Only)

If MOBOTIX Hemispheric cameras (e.g. a Q24M) are selected in the selection list, MxEasy Wizard displays the following dialog for each of the cameras, one after another. Here, you can determine the mounting position and the desired view of each camera (wall or ceiling). Depending on its mounting position, the camera provides dierent views.

Closing MxEasy Wizard

The cameras are displayed in the following dialog after the integrated cameras have been reconﬁgured:

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Click Continue and Finish in the the next dialog to close the Wizard and display the selected cameras in MxEasy.

MxEasy saves the conﬁguration of the cameras before they have been integrated into the system for the ﬁrst time (and each time the program is launched). This way, you can safely change the camera settings when integrating the cameras into MxEasy. The Backup Conﬁguration button oers you the option to undo changes you have made. For more information on saving and restoring conﬁgurations, see

Section 4.2, “Saving And Restoring

Settings”

Notes On Closing MxEasy Wizard

• Cameras that are no longer needed should be deleted from MxEasy. This way, you can reset the connection to the MxEasy computers. Before these cameras are deleted, they should be restored to the settings they had prior to initial integration in MxEasy (the Camera> Remove Camera menu command). MxEasy will prompt you to do this when removing the cameras. This process can take place fully automatically.

•

In addition to integrating cameras that are available in the local network, you can also use remote cameras in MxEasy (for example, a camera available online via DynDNS; see

Section 3.1.3, “Adding Remote Cameras Using DynDNS”

, on how to do this).

•

When there are a large number of cameras in the network, it may take a moment for MxEasy to create the camera list and retrieve the camera information. However, you can select a particular camera entry before the entire list has been populated. The information and the preview image for this camera will be found and displayed ﬁrst.

•

The ﬁrst time you launch MxEasy or the ﬁrst time you use MxEasy to access MOBOTIX cameras, the Microsoft Windows ﬁrewall may display a warning dialog. Allow access for MxEasy.

3.1.3 Adding Remote Cameras Using DynDNS

MxEasy cannot ﬁnd cameras that are outside of the local network. These cameras need to be added manually to the camera list. The simplest case is a camera that can be reached using a ﬁxed IP address. To do so, select Camera> Add Cameras from the menu and add the ﬁxed IP address of the camera in the Camera Selection dialog of the MxEasy Wizard.

In the majority of cases, however, the cameras are connected to the Internet using a broadband connection with dynamic IP addresses that change every day. This kind of Internet connection requires using

DynDNS

(

dynamic domain name resolution

). The dynamic DNS process allows using a given name registered with a free DynDNS service provider (e.g.

www.dyndns.org) instead of a ﬁxed IP address (e.g. 213.117.53.215). The

integrated DynDNS client of your broadband router automatically updates the IP address of the DynDNS service if the IP address changes. This service thus allows adding the camera using its DynDNS name (e.g.

mycamera.dyndns.org:19801) in the Camera

Selection dialog of the MxEasy Wizard.

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Note

The IP addresses of cameras, routers, the ports and the DynDNS name

mycamera.

dyndns.org are only examples. Make sure that you are not using the same

names and ports, but rather assign your own names and ports for accessing your cameras via DynDNS.

Caution

• It is highly recommended to only use ﬂat rate taris for the Internet connec-

tion of the cameras or the router. Using a dierent tari may produce costs

that are too high.

•

Make sure that the factory access data of the cameras (user name “admin” and password “meinsm”) have been changed! If you would like to set a

user name and password later on, please see

Section 5.3, “Setting Up A Global

User For All MOBOTIX Cameras”

Scenario: Internet Connection Of The Cameras Using A Broadband Router

In this scenario, all cameras are connected to the Internet via a broadband router with a ﬂat rate tari. Note that you only need a DynDNS name for the router itself. This name and the corresponding access data are then entered in the router’s DynDNS client. The router uses

port forwarding

to provide access to the individual cameras, e.g. mycamera.

dyndns.org:19801

for the ﬁrst camera,

mycamera.dyndns.org:19802

for the

second, etc. (the numbers following the colon “:” are examples for the individual

ports

port

allows oering dierent services on one computer using the same IP address.

This way, one computer can be used as web server (port

80) and as e-mail server (port

25 for sending, port 110 for receiving e-mails) at the same time.

The router can assign certain ports of its external interface to speciﬁc internal addresses (this is called

port forwarding

). For more information on ports, please see the infor-

mation on

en.wikipedia.org using “TCP port numbers” as search term.

The port forwarding itself is also conﬁgured on the router. Ports of the router’s external IP address (

19801 and 19802 in the example) are assigned to local (internal) IP addresses

of the cameras (

192.168.178.201 and 192.168.178.202). In our example, the

two ports are assigned to the following cameras (or more precisely - their IP addresses):

•

19801 → 192.168.178.201

• 19802 → 192.168.178.202

Once this has been conﬁgured, the router will forward a query from the Internet to port

19801

of its external IP address

213.63.87.154

to the local IP address

192.168.178.201

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and thus to

camera1

. In the same manner, the router will be forwarding queries on the

external port

19802 to the local IP address 192.168.178.202, i.e. to

camera2

• 1: The router updates its IP address at the DynDNS server.

• 2: The computer asks for the IP address of

mycamera.dyndns.org.

• 3: The DNS service sends the IP address

213.63.87.154 back to the computer.

• 4: The computer uses dierent ports (

19801 und 19802) when accessing the

router’s external IP address

213.63.87.154.

• 5: The router forwards queries on the ports

19801 and 19802 of its external IP

address

213.63.87.154 to the internal IP addresses (192.168.178.201

and

192.168.178.202, respectively).

Registering A DynDNS Name

In this ﬁrst step, you need to create an account at a suitable DynDNS service, if you have not already done so (e.g.

www.dyndns.org). Make sure that you keep the access data

(user name and password) stored in a safe place. You will need this information later on, when conﬁguring the DynDNS client of the camera or the router.

DSL router

„mycamera.dyndns.org“

DynDNS server

How DynDNS works

Camera2:

Front door

Camera1: Back door

Internet

(public IP addresses)

(Private IP addresses)

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In this step, you should also register the DynDNS name for the router that you would like to use for accessing the remote cameras. The name in our example would be “

mycam-

era

”. The DynDNS service providers usually oer a selection of domains to add after the

DynDNS name (separated by a dot). For this example, we selected “

dyndns.org”. The

name for accessing the cameras thus always starts with “

mycamera.dyndns.org”.

Conﬁguring The Router

• Setting up the DynDNS client on the router: Open the user interface of the router in your web browser by entering its IP address or its mDNS name (e.g. “

http://192.168.178.1” or “http://fritz.box”, respectively). If this

does not work, please read the documentation of your router to ﬁnd the correct IP address for accessing the router.

Open the broadband router’s conﬁguration page of the DynDNS client in the web browser. Read the documentation of the router or search the router’s online help to ﬁnd more information on the “DynDNS” topic.

Enter the DynDNS name and the access data you have registered with your DynDNS provider as described in the documentation. Furthermore, you should active the remote conﬁguration of your router (at least temporarily).

• Setting up port forwarding: Open the broadband router’s conﬁguration page for port forwarding in the web browser. Read the documentation of the router or search the router’s online help to ﬁnd more information on the “port forwarding” topic.

Assign one port to every local IP address (

192.168.178.201, 192.168.178.202

)

you would like to access from outside of the local network (e.g. 19801 →

192.168.178.201, 19802 → 192.168.178.202, etc).

Testing the DynDNS Conﬁguration

Once you have completed the previous steps, you should run the following tests:

• Test DynDNS: Open your web browser and enter the DynDNS name you registered (example:

http://mycamera.dyndns.org

). If everything has been conﬁgured

properly and the remote conﬁguration has been activated (see

Section “Conﬁguring

The Router”

), you should see the user interface of the router.

•

Test the cameras: Open your web browser and enter the DynDNS name and the port of the ﬁrst camera (example: http://mycamera.dyndns.org:19801). You should now see the user interface of the camera and the browser should prompt you for access data (user name and password). Test all other cameras that are to accessed remotely using the appropriate ports (see above).

Caution

Deactivate the remote conﬁguration of your browser if you had activated it in the

Section “Conﬁguring The Router”

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Adding A Remote Camera In MxEasy

To add a remote camera using DynDNS, proceed as described in

Section “Adding MOBOTIX

Cameras Manually”

. Instead of an IP address, enter the DynDNS name of the router and

the corresponding port of the camera:

• Name: Descriptive name for easy identiﬁcation of the camera (“

Back door” in

this example)

• Address:

mycamera.dyndns.org

• Port: 19801

•

User name: User name for accessing the camera (“

remoteuser

” in this example)

• Password: Password for the user name

If everything has been conﬁgured properly, the status will change to green

and

MxEasy shows a preview image for this camera.

Activating SSL Encryption

Once this has been activated, all communication to and from the camera is encrypted using SSL. Using this encryption method makes “eavesdropping” on the data and access information (virtually) impossible. Proceed as outlined below to activate SSL encryption on the camera.

•

Click on the Next Camera button until you see the ﬁrst remote camera in the MxEasy main window (this would be the “Back door camera in our example).

• Click on the Camera Options button and select the Connection tab in the dialog.

•

Activate the Use Secure Connections (SSL) checkbox.

•

Click on Apply or on OK to apply the changes to the camera.

•

Reboot the camera if prompted you to do so.

Descriptive name of the

camera

Camera port on the router

User name and password for accessing the camera

DynDNS name of the router

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All communication to and from the camera is now using an SSL-encrypted connection. Note that you can also use the encrypted connection in a web browser by entering the camera’s address as in the example below:

https://mycamera.dyndns.org:19801

3.2 Elements In The Program Window And Program View Modes

After the Wizard is ﬁnished and all preparations have been completed, MxEasy displays the live images. Up to four integrated cameras are displayed simultaneously. The images are displayed in the Standard or Panorama view modes of the MxEasy program window, which is divided into the areas shown below.

Standard View Mode Of The MxEasy Program Window

Note

Once the Wizard has ﬁnished, MxEasy will start in Panorama view mode, if at least half of the cameras are Hemispheric models and these cameras are running in Panorama mode. For further information on the Panorama view mode, please see

Section 3.2.2, “Program View Modes”

Main window

Menu bar

Image bar with camera/event windows

Tool Tips for MxEasy

elements

Info bar 1

Info bar 2

Toolbars

Dynamic toolbar

Status bar

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3.2.1 Areas Of The MxEasy Program Window

Main Window

Depending on the view you have selected, this area of the program window displays the live image of a camera, the recorded images of a camera, the camera overview or a calendar for alarm planning. When MxEasy is launched for the ﬁrst time, the program window appears in Standard mode and displays the live image of the ﬁrst camera. There are two information bars located above and below the main window. In the Standard and Player views, these bars display speciﬁc information on the camera currently displayed in the main window. For more information, see

Section 3.2.1, “Areas Of The MxEasy Program Window”

Image Bar

Depending on the current view, the image bar contains the live images or recorded event images of up to three cameras. Live images are displayed with a camera symbol and event images are displayed with a cassette symbol in the upper right-hand corner of the image. For more information on the image bar, see

Section 3.2.2, “Program View Modes”

Note

When MxEasy is launched for the ﬁrst time, there are usually no event images. This is always the case if the integrated cameras are new and have not recorded any event images yet. MxEasy then displays a placeholder image in the bottom righthand corner of the event image area. Because the image bar is ﬁlled dynamically according to the number of integrated cameras, MxEasy may display this image multiple times.

Toolbars

Using the buttons located around the main window, you can quickly and easily perform the most important functions for setting up and operating your MOBOTIX video surveillance system. These include functions for live surveillance, controlling the cameras, playing back recorded video and audio data and conﬁguring integrated cameras.

The following buttons are among the software’s special features and are used to activate the dierent

function areas of MxEasy

. These buttons can be used to adjust the settings in many dierent function areas of the program. Clicking these buttons causes a number of dierent buttons to appear at the bottom of the program window in the dynamic toolbar. You can use these buttons to make detailed settings:

• Player mode: MxEasy switches to Pleaser mode and displays the events of the camera in the main window. The other cameras (if available) are displayed in the image bar. Empty areas in the image bar are ﬁlled with the camera’s latest event images.

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• Alarm Planner: Displays the alarm settings for the current camera in the calendar view. You can use this view to set the times and sensors. The cameras then use these settings to trigger alarms, actions and messages.

•

Image Settings: Here, you can adjust the saturation, image brightness, contrast and sharpness of the camera images to suit your needs. Using the Exposure Window feature, the camera can adapt the exposure to the contents of speciﬁc image areas.

• Image and Recording Formats: Here, you can set the image format for live images and recording and adjust the image quality and the frame rate. You can also determine whether the camera’s audio channel is to be recorded and whether the displayed image or the full image (or sometimes a section thereof) is to be recorded.

• PTZ Views: These buttons allow for simple setting (and subsequently selecting) predeﬁned image areas that have been created using the camera’s digital zoom features.

Clicking Player Mode or Alarm Planner changes the content of the main window (see

Section 3.2.2, “Program View Modes”

Buttons With Selection Menus

Many buttons are not only used to activate or deactivate a particular feature. These buttons also allow you to set certain values by selecting them from a menu. Selection menus are displayed by right-clicking the button or clicking the small triangle at the bottom right-hand corner of the button.

Tool Tips For Buttons And Other Elements Of The User Interface

Hover the mouse pointer over a button or element to display the corresponding

Tool Tip

. Tool Tips are available for all buttons and other elements on the user interface. If you do not wish to display the Tool Tips, you can choose to display the headers only (Tools> Detailed Tool Tips menu command).

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Menu Bar

Using the menu bar, you can access most of the features and settings that can be activated using the buttons in the toolbars. There are certain features that can only be activated using the menu bar, for example switching the current environment.

Status Bar

MxEasy displays certain information about the runtime at the bottom of the application. When the mouse is moved over camera windows or buttons, for example, the status bar displays the name of the camera or a short description of the element.

Information Bars

MxEasy shows the relevant information for the current view mode in the two blue bars above and below the main window.

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3.2.2 Program View Modes

Standard

This view of the main window is ﬁlled with the live image of the ﬁrst camera that has been integrated into the system. The image for the latest event of this camera is displayed in the image bar at the bottom. The three other windows in the image bar are ﬁlled with live images from other cameras.

If there are fewer than four cameras in the system or fewer than four cameras have been activated for Standard mode (see the

Camera Overview

section), the empty windows in

the image bar are ﬁlled with additional event images from the main camera.

Elements of the Standard mode:

Normal Mode Vs. Panorama View

When displaying images from wall-mounted MOBOTIX Hemispheric cameras (e.g. Q24M), MxEasy can be switched to the “Panorama” view, which displays the images with an aspect ration of 8:3 (instead of the standard 4:3). In this mode, the image bar is located

below

the window of the main camera. The images of the image bar are ordered from

Date/time of the main camera

Live image in main

window

Latest event image of the main camera (if available)

Live images of up to three more cameras

Symbol for live image

Camera Name

Symbol for recording target

Date/time of the latest event of

the main camera

Live frame rate of the main camera

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left to right instead of top to bottom. The window at the bottom right-hand side is used to display the latest event image.

To activate the Panorama view mode, open the context menu using the Camera Overview

and Layouts button or the View> Layout menu.

Notes

•

This view is particularly suited for the Hemispheric cameras (e.g. Q24M), which records images in Panorama mode with an aspect ratio of 8:3.

• This aspect ratio of the main window is retained, even when a camera image with an aspect ratio of 4:3 (e.g. VGA) is displayed in the main window.

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Player View

This mode is used to search for and play back recorded data. It is activated by clicking the Player Mode button from Standard or Panorama view mode The main window now displays the image for the latest event recorded by the main camera. The image bar displays the live images of the ﬁrst four integrated cameras.

Additional buttons are displayed below the main window. These buttons can be used to play back and navigate through recorded video and audio data.

Elements of the Player mode:

Click the Player Mode button again to return to Standard mode. When you restart MxEasy, the program automatically activates the mode that had been activated before the program was closed (Standard mode or Player mode).

MxEasy displays an icon for the current Recording Target in

the lower information bar of the main window. Hold the mouse pointer over the icon in the information bar to see this tool tip.

Date/time of the MxEasy computer

Event image in main

window

Last image

Slider bar for event

3 live cameras in image bar

Live image of the current camera

Symbol for recording

Camera Name

Symbol for recording target

Current imageFirst image Player controls

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Note

Double-clicking the event image in the image bar also switches from Standard to Player mode. Another double-click into the live image of the image bar switches back again to Standard mode.

Camera Overview

To use this view, click on the Camera Overview and Layouts button or on the View> Camera Overview menu command. This view shows the live images of all cameras that

have been integrated into the system in a grid with camera windows of the same size. MxEasy uses the space of the program window that is usually occupied by the main window, the image bar and the information bars.

Click the Camera Overview and Layouts button again to return to Standard mode.

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Camera Management

To use this view, click on the View> Camera Management menu command. Note that this also activates the Camera Overview and Layouts button. If you would like to leave this view again, it is sucient to deactivate the button or the View> Camera Management menu command.

This view displays all of the integrated cameras (i.e. up to 16 cameras). Standard mode and Player mode display

up to four of all cameras, which have been activated

in Camera Management. This way, it is possible to “lock” the live images and image playback for individual cameras in certain applications scenarios without having to remove these cameras from the system.

The Next Camera and Camera Sequencer buttons also use the list of all cameras activated in the Camera Management. The sequence of the cameras in this list corresponds to the display sequence in the Camera Management and proceeds from top to bottom and left to right. You can change this sequence using drag and drop: If you move a camera image using the mouse and allow it to fall onto another position, these two cameras switch positions in the Camera Management and also in the Camera Overview.

For more details on working with the Next Camera and Camera Sequencer features, see

Section 3.3, “Displaying Live Images And Monitoring Alarms”

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Elements of the Camera Management:

Click the Camera Overview and Layouts button again to return to Standard mode.

Alarm Planner Mode (Calendar)

In this mode, you can deﬁne time periods for recording events for the current live camera in the main window. Activate this mode by clicking the Alarm Planner button. The live images of the current camera and up to three additional cameras are displayed in the image bar. Using the calendar displayed, you can deﬁne time periods, the events that trigger an alarm, the actions taken during recording and the type of recording to be used in case of an alarm. Here, you can also deﬁne time periods for continuous recording that is independent of events. For more details, see

Section 3.6, “Setting Up Alarms And Recordings”

Activated cameras

Deactivated cameras

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Click the Alarm Planner button again to return to Standard mode.

Note

Double-click the live image in the top right-hand corner of the image bar to switch the positions of the live image and the calendar. The calendar is now displayed at the top of the image bar and the live image is displayed in the main window. Double-click the calendar again to return it to the main window. This feature can be helpful for deﬁning video motion windows (see

Section 3.6.5, “Selecting The Alarm Sensors”

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3.2.3 Size Of The Program Window

The Standard, Panorama, Overview and Player view modes described in

Section 3.2.2,

“Program View Modes”

, are mainly controlling the layout and the format of the MxEasy display elements (main window, image bar). Besides the view modes, MxEasy features additional possibilities to control the size of the program window and its display windows.

These possibilities allows using the resolution of the monitor as eciently as possible, for example. On the other hand, this means that the images may need to be scaled, resulting in reduced image quality as compared to the original image size or if the scaling factor is using “favorable” multiples.

For this reason, MxEasy oers an additional option to adjust the size of the program window in such a manner that the camera images are displayed in optimum quality. The following paragraphs will present the individual settings.

Program Window Modes

For all modes described above (except Alarm Planner), MxEasy can be switched to two special modes that optimize the available monitor space when displaying the camera in the main window or the Camera Overview. The View menu contains the Full Image and

Maximize commands.

Full Image

These settings can also be activated or deactivated using the Full Image button. This command resizes the main window or the camera overview as well as the surrounding symbol bars to cover the entire screen; the image bar is not displayed in this mode. The frame of the program window and the Windows task bar are no longer visible. You can deactivate this mode by clicking the Full Image button again, by selecting the View> Full Image menu command, or by pressing the

eSc key.

Maximize

The entire program window is expanded to ﬁt the screen so that the main window or the Camera Overview are displayed with the toolbars. The frame of the program window with the title bar, the menu bar and the status bar and the Windows task bar remain visible. This mode can be deactivated by pressing the

eSc key or the Minimize button in

the Windows title bar.

Size Settings

Clicking on the Camera Overview and Layouts button or the menu command View> Layout opens an additional selection menu, which allows controlling the size of the dis-

play elements.

The adjustable sizes, VGA (640px) to MEGA (1280px), refer to the size of the main window. The size of the image bar is automatically adjusted to the new size of the main window.

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Note

Using a size setting that is identical to the size of the camera image will result in optimum image quality.

‘Original Size’ Setting

This option displays the unscaled live image of the current camera in the main window with the original image resolution from the camera. The main window sets the size of the image (VGA, SVGA, XGA or MEGA) so that it is either exactly the same size as the camera image or slightly smaller. If the camera image is too large because, for example, the camera displays a QXGA image of 2,048x1,536px or records at a resolution that does not correspond to the four available resolution settings, the main window will display a centered section of the image instead of the entire camera image. You can use the digital PTZ commands to view the edges of the image that are not visible in the main window. For more details, see

Section 3.8, “Playing Back And Evaluating The Recordings”

Caution

• When you select Original Size, MxEasy automatically starts its automatic size adjustment feature. Afterwards, this option is no longer displayed in the selection menu as the manual PTZ commands can also lead to the same state and can also chage this state afterwards.

• If the camera in the main window records images in Panorama mode (aspect ratio 8:3), MxEasy automatically activates the Panorama view (if you acknowledged the user prompt).

‘Don’t Scale Up’ Setting

This option ensures that camera images that are smaller than the main window are not enlarged (scaled up). These images are displayed in their original size, centered in the main window. This option allows preventing images from being scaled up, which can result in reduced image quality.

‘Toolbar’ And ‘Image Bar’ Options

You can use the selection menu to hide and/or display the toolbars and the image bar.

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3.3 Displaying Live Images And Monitoring Alarms

In order to display and monitor the live images of the cameras, MxEasy mainly uses the Standard and Panorama view modes. This section describes the settings that are available when using these view modes.

Activate the Speaker button to hear the audio channel of the live camera shown in the main window. Note that this is only possible if the camera microphone has been activated (see

Section 5.2.2, “Audio Settings”

). If the camera microphone has not been activated,

MxEasy disables this button.

MxEasy displays an icon for the current Recording Target in

the lower information bar of the main window. Hold the mouse

pointer over the icon in the information bar to see the tool tip.

Date/time of the MxEasy computer

Event image in main

window

Last event of the main camera

3 live cameras in image bar

Symbol for recording

Camera Name

Symbol for recording target

Date/time of the last event of the main camera

Live image of the main

camera

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3.3.1 Switching The Displayed Cameras

Use the mouse to drag the desired camera from the image bar into the main window (or double-click the desired camera) to display a dierent camera in the main window. The cameras then switch places.

Manually Cycling Through Cameras

In Standard mode, up to four live images can be displayed. In the Camera Overview, however, you can activate up to 16 cameras for live display. Using the Next Camera button, you can switch to the next camera in the list of activated cameras. MxEasy then removes the current camera from the main window and replaces it with the top camera in the image bar. The other two cameras in the image bar move upwards and a new camera from the list of activated cameras is added in the bottom position in the image bar.

Automatically Cycling Through Cameras

Click the Sequencer button to automate the process of switching to the next camera. This mode sets MxEasy to automatically switch to the next camera activated in the Camera Overview every ﬁve seconds. You can change this time interval under Tools> Preferences on the Behavior tab.

You can switch to the previous camera or the next camera before the set time interval has elapsed using the arrow keys on your keyboard (

ctrl+è or ctrl+). You can stop

or restart the automatic cycle through the images by pressing

ctrl+Spacebar. This gives

you more time to review a suspicious situation, for example.

Note

Camera Sequence

The activated cameras will normally be displayed in the same sequence as they appear in the Camera Overview. If a camera in the main window is replaced by a camera in the image bar as described above, this will change the sequence accordingly. Each change in the Camera Overview (activation or deactivation of cameras, switching the sequence of the cameras) changes the display sequence to match the current sequence in the Camera Overview.

3.3.2 Alarm Display

If an alarm is detected, a ﬂashing red lightning symbol is displayed in the image of the camera that triggered the alarm. This symbol is displayed until you acknowledge the alarm by clicking the image. This applies to both the main window and the image bar.

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You can deﬁne the precise reactions of the software in the case of an alarm under Tools> Preferences on the Behavior tab (see

Section 4.8.2, “‘Connections’ Tab”

For more information on alarms and alarm notiﬁcations, see

Section 3.6, “Setting Up

Alarms And Recordings”

When you display an event by double-clicking or dragging the event from the image bar into the main window, MxEasy automatically switches to Player mode and displays the desired event in the main window. For more information on Player mode, see

Section 3.8,

“Playing Back And Evaluating The Recordings”

Note

If the time displayed in the title bar of the main window is ﬂashing, it means that the system time of the camera in the main window diers by more than 15 seconds from the system time of the computer. Make sure to synchronize the computer and the connected cameras using a time server. For additional information on this topic, see

Section 5.2.5, “Time Settings”

3.4 The Most Important Camera Views And Image Settings

3.4.1 Camera Views

You can select one of the views available for the selected MOBOTIX camera using the pop-up menu of the Image and Recording Formats button.

Camera Views (All Cameras except Hemispheric Models)

• Full Image: MxEasy displays the entire live camera image (without inset image).

• Lens distortion correction: MxEasy displays a portion of the live camera image with lens correction. This option is available when the camera conﬁguration is adjusted accordingly.

•

Picture in Picture: This option displays a small image from one camera sensor inset in the large image of the other. This setting is available on MOBOTIX Dual models only.

• Picture in Zoom: MxEasy displays a small version of the entire live camera image in the bottom right-hand corner of the large live camera image. This way, the entire image is visible even when the live image is zoomed.

• Event in Picture: MxEasy displays a small version of the latest event image in the bottom right-hand corner of the large live camera image.

For more information on the dierent views available for MOBOTIX cameras, see the

General Image Settings

section in the

Software Manual

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Camera Views (Hemispheric Models)

• Full Image: The entire (distorted) full image of the image sensor is displayed.

• Normal: A corrected image is displayed. This image can be panned and tilted. This is the factory default image setting for the Q camera models.

• Surround: MxEasy shows four image sections pointing to each of the four cardinal directions in the same view. You ﬁrst need to specify which direction is North. All four views can be changed independently of each other using PTZ commands.

• Panorama: This displays the corrected image of an entire room (corrected 180° panorama) from the left to the right wall. This view is available for the wall-mounted MOBOTIX Q model only. The aspect ratio of this view is 8:3 (width to height).

• Double Panorama: A panorama view of the Northern half of the image is shown together with a panorama view of the Southern half of the image with an aspect ratio of 4:3 (width to height). This view is available for the ceiling-mounted MOBOTIX Q model only. Both partial views (North and South) can be changed independently of each other using PTZ commands.

• Panorama/Focus: This view is a combination of the Panorama view (8:3) and two smaller individual views (each 4:3) in a single image. This view is available for the

wall-mounted

MOBOTIX Hemispheric cameras.

Q24 view “Normal” Q24 view “Surround”

Zoomed image section Q24 view “Full Image”

For more information on the views available for MOBOTIX Hemispheric cameras, see the section

First Images And The Most Important Settings In The Browser

in the

Camera

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Manual

. In addition, refer to the information in the section

Setting Image And Recording

Formats

(the

Recorded Image

option) in the

Camera Manual

3.4.2 Image Settings – Formats, Quality, Frame Rate, Hemispheric Settings, Recording

By clicking Image and Recording Formats, additional buttons for adjusting important properties appear along the bottom edge of the program window:

• Resolution: You can set the resolution of the camera image with this option. The resolution you set may be dierent from the resolution displayed in the main window of MxEasy. Regardless of the current resolution of the camera, the camera image in the main window of MxEasy is always displayed with the image size set here (VGA, SVGA, XGA or MEGA).

When you click this button, a magnifying glass appears in the camera image. Click the plus or minus (+/-) button of the magnifying glass to change the image resolution of the camera (the new image resolution will soon appear in the camera image). You can now move the magnifying glass to a new image area.

The section in the magnifying glass area always shows the original resolution of the camera (one pixel of the camera image will appear as one pixel on your monitor). This means that if the image resolution of the camera is set to a value higher than the resolution of the main window, the magnifying glass area will show an enlarged image (for example, 2 times or 4 times the size). This function allows you to accurately judge the image detail provided by the camera and used for the recording. You can optionally select the desired resolution in the context menu of the Resolution button.

• Custom Size: You can create a camera image with a custom resolution and size with this option. To do so, use your mouse to draw a box directly in the camera image. Windows set up in this manner will be automatically saved and activated once you deactivate this button.

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By clicking the Custom Size button again, you can readjust or delete the area that you have deﬁned in the camera image. This area is also displayed at the correct position in the full camera image, which has been darkened. You can move this area with the mouse, change its size or delete it.

This function is useful if only certain areas of the camera image are allowed to be monitored, for example.

When monitoring pumps at a gas station, for example, it may be useful to resize the image to display only the horizontal strip in the middle that is of possible interest. This way, the recorded images require less storage space. Compared to a full image, the resized image requires less bandwidth for live display and less storage space for recorded data.

• Image Quality: The three values that can be set using this button (

Fast, Normal

High

) inﬂuence the image quality in which the image sensor is to be read. Increasing the image quality improves the camera image but also decreases the maximum available frame rate - for VGA resolution (640x480px) and higher. The

Normal

option oers a good compromise between the High and Fast options. For more information, see the sections

General Image Settings

and

Image Programs

in the

Software Manual

• Obscure Area: If certain areas in the image are meant to remain unrecognizable, you can use this button to obscure these areas with the camera (for example, workstations, public areas, etc.). To do so, use your mouse to draw one or more boxes directly in the camera image. Windows set up in this manner will be automatically saved and activated once you deactivate this button.

• Camera Frame Rate: From the pop-up menu of this button (right-click), you can set the frame rate provided by a camera (options:

No Limitation, 25fps,16 fps, 12fps

8fps, 4fps

). This function can be used as a way to manage bandwidth. The lower the frame rate, the less bandwidth is required to transfer the video data. Note, however, that you should primarily use the functions outlined in

Section 4.5, “Bandwidth

Management”

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•

Mounting Position: You can set the mounting position of a MOBOTIX Q model (

Ceiling

Wall

) from the pop-up menu of this button (right-click). If ceiling mounting is enabled, you can also specify the North direction of the camera. Activate the button and turn the image to the right or left using the symbols that appear. The North direction set in this manner will be saved automatically once you deactivate this button.

The deﬁned North direction inﬂuences the Surround and Double Panorama camera views. In the Surround view, the image is composed of four partial images -consisting of views to the North, East, South and West. The Double Panorama displays two 180° panorama views arranged vertically. One image is a view to the -North, the other is a view to the South. For additional information, see the section

First Images

And The Most Important Settings

in the

Q24M Camera Manual

• Recorded Image: This option is important for all cameras for which a zoomed section of the live image (PTZ) is shown instead of the full camera image. This applies to all cameras that are digitally zoomed so that individual areas of the image can be monitored more closely, particularly hemispheric camera models (Q24M/Q24M). If a live image is recorded in this manner (option: Record Shown Image), the areas that are not visible in the zoomed image will also be missing from the recording. You can prevent this by selecting the Record Full Image option, which guarantees that a full camera image is always recorded - regardless of the live image that is visible or its settings.

Note

When playing back video data, MxEasy can automatically correct the recorded (distorted) full images of Hemispheric cameras in the same views (Surround, Panorama, etc.) as are available for live images. In this case, the PTZ commands can be carried out after the image is recorded so that the user can inspect any areas of the image more closely during playback.

Note that any subsequent search of the full camera image (PTZ functions) is only possible with the Record Full Image option.

Q24M: Shown Image Q24M: Full Image

• Record Audio: If this button is activated, the audio from the camera microphone will be included in the recording. If the button is deactivated, the video sequences will be recorded without sound.

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Note

These settings apply for all recordings. You cannot make separate settings for each recording time period.

3.5 Image Sections And Digital Zoom Functions (PTZ)

With MxEasy, you can use digital zoom to scale the displayed image up or down and pan the modiﬁed image area from side to side or tilt it up and down. These functions are called

PTZ functions

(Pan/Tilt/Zoom).

3.5.1 Zooming The Image Section

You can use the following options to operate the zoom functions:

• Roll the mouse wheel forward in order to zoom in on the image. Roll the mouse wheel backward in order to zoom out from the image.

• Press and hold the alt key (Windows) and use the mouse to draw a rectangle in the live image. MxEasy displays the selected image section in the main window.

Note

This zoom function is

not

available for the live image display of MOBOTIX

Hemispheric cameras.

• Press and hold the

command key. Press the buttons or in order to scale the

visible image section up or down.

ctrl+# shows the full image again.

• Rotate the control stick of the joystick to zoom in on or zoom out from the image.

Note

If you are using a joystick, make sure that you have properly conﬁgured it

before

you start MxEasy.

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3.5.2 Panning And Tilting The Image Section

You can use the following features once you have deﬁned an image section:

• Use the mouse to drag the zoomed image area in the desired direction.

• Press the arrow keys on the keyboard to drag the image section as desired.

• Move the joystick left, right, up or down to pan and tilt the image section as desired.

After you have deﬁned the image section, you can save this view to be used later.

3.5.3 Digital Zoom In MxEasy And In The Camera

A digital zoom of an image is carried out in two steps:

1. Application zoom:

Often, the camera records images with a higher resolution (e.g. MEGA 1280x960px) than that of display in the MxEasy main window (e.g. VGA 640x480). In the display, multiple pixels are combined,

reducing the size of the pixels

. Note that the digital appli-

cation zoom is active now.

The software displays an

arrow cursor

over the live image. When you move the mouse or the joystick, the highlighted black arrows of the cursor indicate the direction in which the image is being moved.

In this case, a digital zoom causes the main window to display an image section instead of the entire camera image. This ﬁrst step- the “application zoom” - is visualized by a small rectangle in the upper right-hand corner of the image. This visualization shows the displayed image within the entire camera image.

If you perform any panning or tilting commands while the image is zoomed, these motions will only aect the area inside the entire camera image. These motions also are visualized by the small rectangle.

As you continue to zoom, the application zoom is used until the selected section of the camera image is as large as possible in the main window (until the pixels are no longer reduced). The pixels will not be enlarged if you continue to zoom. Instead, the zoom function is taken over

by the camera

2. Camera zoom:

When zoom and PTZ commands are carried out inside the camera, the camera reads and displays a smaller section of the image sensor. This way, more pixels are available for displaying a smaller image section and more details are visible. The transition from application zoom to camera zoom and PTZ commands carried out by the camera is visualized in the upper right-hand corner of the image, this time by a camera symbol instead of a rectangle.

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Caution

The camera zoom is only available after it has been allowed by pressing the Toggle PTZ button. Otherwise, the application zoom is the only PTZ command that is carried

out.

Notes

Digital application zoom and live stream:

Carrying out PTZ commands within the application zoom has no eect on the generated camera image and therefore no eect on the recording.

Camera zoom and live stream:

PTZ commands carried out within the camera change the live image of the camera also aect the recording if the camera does not record the full image. In order to select an image section within a zoomed image, press and hold the

alt key and

use the mouse to draw a box within the live image. MxEasy displays the selected image section in the main window.

PTZ Views (Positions)

In addition to interactive PTZ controls using the mouse, keyboard or joystick, you can select areas of possible interest in the camera image along with the desired zoom, pan and tilt settings and save these settings as PTZ preset views. You can then activate these views at a later time with a click of the mouse.

Proceed as follows to save current image sections or PTZ preset views:

•

Click the PTZ Views button to activate the preset view buttons in the dynamic toolbar:

• To save a view, click one of the numbered view buttons (for example, View2) and hold down the mouse button (for about 3 seconds) until View 2 stored! appears in the main window. MxEasy now places a marker beneath the button to indicate that the view has been assigned.

The number keys on your computer can also be used to save preset views: When you press and

hold down

a number key (for example, 2), this view is saved (View10

is saved by pressing

0).

• If you would like to return to a saved view,

brieﬂy

click the corresponding button or

brieﬂy

press the corresponding key (for example, 2 for View2). MxEasy displays the

corresponding view. (View10 can be activated by pressing

0.)

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• If you have a joystick with save buttons installed on your computer, you can also use these buttons to save frequently-used views.

You can use this feature to save

up to ten preset views for each camera

in your MOBOTIX

system and activate them as needed.

Note

For MOBOTIX Hemispheric cameras with an L11 lens (360° allround view), you can select additional options in the pop-up menu of the Toggle PTZ button. These addi- tional options are only available for hemispheric cameras. For more information, see the

Conﬁguring The MOBOTIX Q24M

sectionin the

Q24M Camera Manual

3.6 Setting Up Alarms And Recordings

You can centrally set up and manage recordings, alarms and notiﬁcations for one or more MOBOTIX cameras to be triggered for speciﬁed times and days of the week using MxEasy.

Note

All MOBOTIX cameras controlled by MxEasy can use dierent

recording targets

. Depending on the model and type of camera used, they can store the audio/video data on internal storage media (SD cards) or on ﬁle servers.

Newer cameras (Q22M, Q24M, D24M, M24M, all except

Basic

and

Web

models) and

R models

Section 4.7, “Recording Targets- SD Cards And File Servers”

This section also contains more information on the dierent recording targets.

3.6.1 Operation Modes Of MxEasy

You can switch recordings/alarms on and o and activate the Alarm Planner as needed using Operation Mode. You can adjust these settings by clicking the Operation Mode button or by using the button’s pop-up menu:

•

Switched O Mode: Recordings, alarms and notiﬁcations are not activated. The time periods set up in the Alarm Planner (see below) are not taken into account.

• Alarm Planner: Recordings, alarms and notiﬁcations take place according to the weekly times and dates that have been set in the Alarm Planner (see below).

•

Alert Mode: As in Alarm Planner mode, but recording takes place continuously with the maximum frame rate (continuous recording). This overrides the type of recording and recording times set up in the Alarm Planner.

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This setting remains active until it is manually changed.

Triggering Manual Alarms

When you click on the Manual Alarm button, MxEasy immediately activates continuous recording on all attached cameras for a limited amount of time. After this time has elapsed, MxEasy automatically switches back to the operation mode (see above) that had been active before. Note that this button also triggers all alarm notiﬁcations of the camera in the main window!

This feature is ideal for creating suspicion recordings, for example: As soon as security sta observes a suspicious situation, they can activate the manual alarm and continue to monitor the scene. If the suspicion is substantiated, security sta can extend the recording by ﬁve minutes by clicking on the button again. Once these additional ﬁve minutes have passed, recording stops automatically (unless it is extended again by pressing on the button once more).

Complete System Shuto – Privacy Mode

Use the Privacy Mode, if you would like to deactivate the whole system, i.e. recording and any kind of camera access is rendered impossible until you deactivate this mode. While this lock can be deactivated directly from the current computer, you will need the user name and password set in this dialog to deactivate the lock from a dierent computer (see

Section 3.7, “System Shuto- Privacy Mode”

3.6.2 Alarm Planner

The Alarm Planner can only be activated in Standard mode -using the Alarm Planner button or the Camera> Alarm Planner menu command. The live image of the camera from the main window is displayed as a small image in the top right-hand corner in the image bar and the other camera images move down in the image bar. All settings made

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in the Alarm Planner apply to the camera that was previously in the main window. To change this, you may select the To All Cameras option.

The Alarm Planner allows you to set up recording modes, alarms and notiﬁcations for one or more cameras according to time and date settings in just a few steps.

Step1:

• Set time period

Step2 – for every time period:

• Select a recording mode

• Select alarm sensors to trigger alarms in the deﬁned time periods

• Set alarm notiﬁcations

The following sections describe the individual setting options in more detail.

3.6.3 Setting Time Periods

Use the mouse to draw a window in the calendar ﬁeld to set a time period in the Alarm Planner. You can continue to adjust all settings of the time window after it has been created.

• Creating time periods: Use your mouse to draw a box inside the calendar window (see ﬁgure above) to create a new time period.

• Moving time periods: Use the mouse to drag the window to the desired time and day of the week to move a time period. A hand cursor appears automatically when the mouse pointer hovers over a time window.

• Changing time periods: If you want to shrink or enlarge a time period, drag the edge of the time window accordingly using the mouse. A resize cursor appears automatically when the mouse pointer hovers over the edge of the window. You can also use the weekday and time ﬁelds (in the lower section of the time planner) to adjust the active time period down to the minute.

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• Deleting time periods: Select the window with the mouse and press the delete key on the keyboard (or right-click the time period and choose Remove in the pop-up menu) to delete a time period.

• “Background” time period: The areas that are not assigned to speciﬁc time periods (times and days) fall into a collective time period. This period can also be assigned a particular recording mode, alarm sensors and alarm notiﬁcations. Right-click outside a deﬁned time period in the calendar ﬁeld and make the desired settings using the pop-up menu (see following sections).

Hint

Make the settings for the “background” time period ﬁrst. Then conﬁgure the individual time periods.

Important

Selecting Time Periods

The settings for recording mode, alarm sensors and alarm notiﬁcation described in the following sections always apply to the time periods that are currently selected. At least one time period is selected at all times: one or more explicitly deﬁned time periods or the background time period. You can select multiple time periods by clicking these areas while pressing down the

command key. You can determine whether

or not areas are selected by noting their color: selected time periods are darker.

3.6.4 Setting The Recording Mode

You can set up a

continuous or event recording using the

pop-up menu of the time period (right-click the time period). If you have activated a time window in the Alarm Planner, you can also set up the recording mode for this window using the pop-up menu of the button (right-click the button).

The camera continuously records data for

continuous recording

and for

event record-

ing

, the camera begins recording when an alarm sensor is triggered (see

Section 3.6.5,

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“Selecting The Alarm Sensors”

). The time period will be colored either

red

(continuous

recording) or

yellow

(event recording) depending on the recording mode you have selected.

event recording

is selected, you need to also select at least one alarm sensor for the corresponding time period. Event recording is activated when the alarm sensor is triggered (see

Section 3.6.5, “Selecting The Alarm Sensors”

The recording status is indicated by the colored camera symbol in MxEasy (on the left in the blue camera information bar above the main window).

Recording o

Deactivated by camera time table

Waiting for events

Recording on

For more information on the recording features of the MOBOTIX camera, see Chapter8,

Recording

, in the

Software Manual

Note

A period of two seconds before the beginning of the event is saved automatically along with the event for event recording.

3.6.5 Selecting The Alarm Sensors

When the

Alarm Sensor

of the MOBOTIX camera (or the active connected CamIO or ExtIO)

is triggered, event recording and/or alarm notiﬁcation are activated (see

Section 3.6.4,

“Setting The Recording Mode”

and

Section 3.6.6, “Setting Up Alarm Notiﬁcations”

You can set up alarm sensors using the pop-up menu of the time period (right-click the time period). You can also set the alarm sensors using the pop-up menu of the corresponding button (right-click the button).

• Video Motion Detection: The alarm is triggered when a MOBOTIX camera detects a VM event. The MOBOTIX camera uses video motion windows to detect changes in the live camera image. You can select a predeﬁned set of video motion windows from the pop-up menu of this button. You can specify whether or not the window will be visible in the camera image with the

Show Video Motion Windows

option. This option can be used to check the windows and create user-deﬁned windows (see below).

For more information, see

Deﬁning Video Motion Windows

later on in this section.

• Passive Infrared Detection: The alarm is triggered when a PI event is triggered in a MOBOTIX camera. MOBOTIX cameras of the model series M12 and D12 are equipped with a PIR sensor (Passive Infrared Sensor) as standard. M24M and D24M models

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can use the PIR of a connected MOBOTIX ExtIO. The PIR sensor enables motion detection even in the dark.

You can set dierent values for the triggering threshold using the selection menu of this button. Selecting a lower threshold value results in a higher sensitivity for triggering the PI event.

• Microphone (for Noise Detection): The alarm is triggered when a MI event is triggered in a MOBOTIX camera. This event can be triggered either by the built-in camera microphone or the microphone of an active connected CamIO or ExtIO.

You can set dierent values for the triggering threshold using the selection menu of this button. Selecting a lower threshold value results in a higher sensitivity for triggering the MI event.

• Signal Input Detection: The alarm is triggered when a SI event is triggered in a MOBOTIX camera. This event can be triggered either by the signal input of the MOBOTIX camera or by an active connected CamIO or ExtIO.

Using the selection menu of the signal input button, you can select a status or a status transition to trigger an SI event.

• Temperature Detection: The alarm is triggered when a TP event is triggered by the internal temperature sensors of a MOBOTIX camera.

Using the selection menu of the button, you can choose between dierent conditions, i.e. temperature ranges, that trigger an event.

• Illumination Detection: The alarm is triggered when an IL event is triggered in a MOBOTIX camera.

Using the selection menu of this button, you can choose between two dierent ranges that trigger an event.

For additional information, see the section

Events

in the

Software Manual

Deﬁning Video Motion Windows

If you click the Video Motion Detection button while a time period is activated in the calendar view, MxEasy automatically displays the live image of the camera. The calendar is displayed in the top right-hand corner in the image bar.

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In this view, MxEasy displays predeﬁned standard video motion windows (red areas such as in the image to the right). You can select additional video motion windows using the selection menu of the Video Motion Detection button.

The Custom Windows option in the selection menu allows you to create and edit custom video motion windows using the mouse:

• Creating video motion windows: Use your mouse to draw a box inside the camera image in the main window (see ﬁgure) to create a new window.

• Moving video motion windows: To move a window, drag and drop it to the location you want with your mouse. A hand cursor appears automatically when the mouse pointer hovers over a window.

• Resizing video motion windows: Drag the edge of the window using your mouse to increase or decrease the size of a window. A resize cursor appears automatically when the mouse pointer hovers over the edge of the window.

• Deleting video motion windows: To delete a window, click the

X button in the upper

right-hand corner of the window or press the

delete key on your keyboard.

Deﬁning Reference Windows

Reference windows help avoid false alarms resulting from unwanted changes in the image. The bright light from a ﬂash during a thunderstorm, for example, instantly changes all image pixels. Such a change would normally trigger the deﬁned video motion windows and, subsequently, the alarm.

Reference windows can help avoid most of these false alarms as the camera will not throw an alarm if both the video motion windows and the reference windows trigger simultaneously.

Hints For Deﬁning Reference Windows

• Keep the

alt key pressed and draw a box with the mouse to deﬁne a reference

window.

• One reference window per camera is usually sucient.

• Always deﬁne reference windows in image areas that usually do not change, i.e. next to windows or in areas that are higher up and not reachable.

• Make sure that reference windows do not overlap video motion windows.

Once you have deﬁned the reference windows, you can use the same functions for changing these windows as for video motion windows (moving, resizing, deleting).

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Again Displaying The Calendar In The Main Window

Double-click the camera image at the top of the image bar to display the calendar in the main window.

If at any time you wish to edit or resize the active video motion windows, you can switch the positions of the calendar and the live image so that the live image is displayed in the main window. To do this, double-click the Video Motion Detection button or double-click the live image in the top right-hand corner in the image bar.

Notes

•

Custom video motion windows

and

reference windows

are used for all time

ranges, for which they have been activated. In contrast, you can set the

pre-

deﬁned

windows for each time range

individually

•

Video motion and reference windows of Hemispheric cameras and cameras with activated distortion correction

are shown as polygons if the visible image

has been panned, tilted or the image has been switched from Normal to Full

Image, for example.

3.6.6 Setting Up Alarm Notiﬁcations

Alarm Notiﬁcations

can be sent when the alarm sensor of the MOBOTIX camera (or the

active connected CamIO or ExtIO) is triggered (see

Section 3.6.5, “Selecting The Alarm

Sensors”

You can set up and activate alarm notiﬁcations using the pop-up menu of the time period (right-click the time period). If you have activated a time window in the Alarm Planner, you can also set up alarm notiﬁcations for this window using the pop-up menu of the button (right-click the button).

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You must select at least one alarm sensor for the corresponding time period (see

Section 3.6.5,

“Selecting The Alarm Sensors”

). The selected alarm notiﬁcations are sent when the alarm

sensor is triggered.

• Sound Notiﬁcation (audio playback): Click this button to activate playback of an audio ﬁle on the speaker of the MOBOTIX camera (or an active connected CamIO or ExtIO). Click the button a second time to deactivate the feature.

This function can, for example, play a pre-recorded audio ﬁle over the camera loudspeaker to inform a suspicious person that he or she is being observed and recorded (“You are unauthorized to enter this area! You are under video surveillance. Please leave the premises immediately!”)

• VoIP Phone Notiﬁcation: Click this button to activate VoIP phone notiﬁcation from the MOBOTIX camera. Click the button a second time to deactivate the feature. This function can be used to alert the security guard that there is an alarm situation (for example, motion is detected in an oce building at night). A message can be transmitted via telephone (“Message from surveillance camera 15, oce 32, 4th ﬂoor: Motion has been detected in this room.”)

•

E-Mail Notiﬁcation: Click this button to activate e-mail notiﬁcation from the MOBOTIX camera. Click the button a second time to deactivate the feature.

This function can be used to document incoming vehicles in a corporate parking lot for later evaluation. E-mails are better for messages that do not require immediate action. This function makes it possible to send images via e-mail even if no recording medium is available (for example, an external data server).

Speciﬁc settings are necessary for each notiﬁcation mode, for example, the name of the audio ﬁle, a phone number, an e-mail address and/or additional basic settings of the MOBOTIX camera. MxEasy detects whether valid settings have been made and if necessary, it prompts you to make the necessary settings. For more information on camera settings, see

Section 5.2.2, “Audio Settings”

and

Section 5.2.7, “E-Mail Settings”

You can reselect an audio ﬁle, a telephone number or an e-mail address that was set previously using the pop-up menu of one of the time periods or the corresponding button (right-click the time period and select Edit or click the button on the lower edge of the MxEasy program window).

For additional information, see the

section Actions And Messages

in the

Software Manual

3.6.7 Assigning Settings To One Or More Cameras

1. Activate the camera that is to be assigned a particular task. The active camera is always the camera displaying the live image in the small camera window in the upper right-hand corner of the Alarm Planner.

2. Click the Next Camera button until the desired camera is located in the upper right-hand camera window.

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Assign the camera to the desired time periods with the corresponding notiﬁcation characteristics.

4. Activate the settings for the camera by clicking Apply. Activate the To All Cameras checkbox and then click Apply to simultaneously assign all cameras to the same time period.

Hint

First carry out the settings that apply to all cameras (the To All Cameras checkbox, for example, activation and recording) and then carry out the settings for the individual cameras.

3.7 System Shuto- Privacy Mode

In contrast to the other operation modes of MxEasy (see

Section 3.6.1, “Operation Modes

Of MxEasy”

, the Privacy Mode deactivates the whole system, i.e. recording and any kind of camera access is rendered impossible until you deactivate this mode. While this lock can be deactivated directly from this computer, you will need the user name and password set in this dialog to deactivate the lock from a dierent computer. Note that the cameras are also signaling this operating mode by a speciﬁc LED blinking pattern.

Activating The Privacy Mode

To activate this mode of MxEasy, simply click on the Privacy Mode button. MxEasy now shows a dialog with the automatically generated access data. You can either use this access data or set a user name and password of your own.

Activate the Don’t ask me again checkbox if you would like to activate this mode immediately when clicking on the Privacy Mode button (i.e. the message box will not appear any more). MxEasy then creates new access data and activates the Privacy Mode without asking back.

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Caution

• Every time you are activating the Privacy Mode, MxEasy will generate new access data. Writing down these access data only makes sense if you would like to deactivate this mode from a dierent computer. In this case, you should

never activate the Don't ask me again checkbox!

• If you choose not to see the generated access data, you can only deactivate the Privacy Mode from the same computer. In case of a serious malfunction (or total failure) of this computer, you can activate the system again as described in

Section 5.7, “Resetting The Cameras From The Privacy Mode”

Eects Of The Privacy Mode

• MxEasy generates random access data (user name and password), sends them to the attached cameras and deactivates all other users. If you do not posses the access data, you can only deactivate this mode from the same computer that had been used to activate the Privacy Mode.

• Image generation is deactivated completely-all display windows show the red lock icon. The Privacy Mode button itself is now white and the lock is closed.

• Recording is completely deactivated.

• The camera’s audio channel is switched o completely.

• All attached cameras show a distinctive blinking pattern so you can see that the cameras are in this mode (see below).

Signaling By The Camera LEDs

The dierent MOBOTIX cameras are displaying the following blinking patterns once they have been switched to Privacy Mode.

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Camera LEDs Blinking Pattern

M12

LED0 ﬂashes every 3sec. red LED3 ﬂashes every 3sec. red, in sync with LED0

D12

LED0 ﬂashes every 3sec. red LED3 ﬂashes every 3sec. red, in sync with LED0

Q22M, D22M,

M22M

LED0 ﬂashes every 3sec. green LED1 ﬂashes every 3sec. red, in sync with LED0

Q24M, D24M,

M24M

LED0 ﬂashes every 3sec. green LED1 ﬂashes every 3sec. green, in sync with LED0

Deactivating The Privacy Mode

Simply click on the Privacy Mode button if you are using the same computer and you would like to deactivate this mode and switch on the system again.

If you are running MxEasy from a dierent computer, enter the access data that you have written down or deﬁned yourself upon activating the mode.

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Playing Back And Evaluating The Recordings

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3.8 Playing Back And Evaluating The Recordings

You can play back and evaluate the recorded event sequences (video and audio) of the MOBOTIX cameras using the MxEasy

Player

. Once you have activated Player mode by pressing Player Mode, a recorded image takes the place of the live image in the main window. The live image of the camera is then displayed at the bottom right-hand corner in the image bar.

When you launch the Player for the ﬁrst time, the most recent event image of the camera is displayed automatically. When the Player is launched again, it automatically displays the image from the point in time at which it was last deactivated. If the Player was last launched for a dierent camera and the current camera does not have a recording that corresponds to the correct time, the Player displays the next available image in the recording.

The Player buttons are used to

play back

the recorded event sequences. The

Video Search

button provides you with the search tools you need to quickly ﬁnd the events you are looking for.

When you click any of the buttons marked with a red lightning, the software plays back the event images only. Buttons without a red lightning play back all recorded video and audio data. This includes the images that were recorded prior to and after the event.

Playing Video Sequences

• Play: Click this button to play back all recorded video and audio data.

• Fast Forward / Fast Backward: These buttons play back the recorded video and audio data quickly (in fast motion).

• Play Events / Play Events Backward: These buttons play back the recorded event images (without the time periods recorded prior to or after the events).

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Positioning Within The Recordings

• First Event / Last Event: These buttons jump to the ﬁrst or last image of the recording respectively.

•

Previous Event / Next Event: These buttons jump to the next or previous event image respectively.

If the recording contains audio data, you can press the Speaker button to play back the audio data. The recorded audio data from the camera can be played only with normal playback (Play button). Audio data cannot be played with other types of playback (Fast

Forward, etc.)

Procedure For Evaluating And Exporting Recordings

We recommend the following procedure for evaluating recordings, viewing event sequences and preparing recordings for export (the Search Event button):

1. Enter the earliest time for which you would like to begin the evaluation.

2. Watch the events image for image for a quick overview of the recordings.

3. If you would like to have a closer look at a particular event, play back the recorded video sequence in real-time with audio.

Move the red triangle to take a look at the video at various spots within the recorded event sequences. The date and time of the current event are displayed in the upper section of the dialog.

Set the start and end positions of the time period to be exported using the blue triangles.

6. Press Add Clip to Export List to add the clip marked by the triangles to the MxEasy export list. From here, this clip can by saved to a computer or an external storage device.

For more information on the export functions of MxEasy, see

Section 4.1.3, “Exporting

Video And Audio Data”

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Creating Users And Passwords

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3.9 Creating Users And Passwords

You will have access to all functions and authorizations (automatic administrator mode) the ﬁrst time you launch MxEasy. If you would like to set up the software to limit user access to certain functions, we recommend using the predeﬁned MxEasy access levels (Administrator, Owner, User, Guest). Speciﬁc functions are automatically preassigned to each access level.

Once you have set up a password for a particular access level, it is activated automatically (the access level Guest can be accessed without entering a password). Please note that passwords can only be set up in the Administrator access level.

You can log on to the access level using the login dialog (the Authenticate button or the menu command File> Authenticate). As long as the Administrator access level is activated, this dialog also displays the buttons for setting up and changing an existing password (Change Password).

The active access level is indicated by the red stars on the button:

• Administrator: You have access to all functions and settings of MxEasy with the Administrator access level. In particular, this allows you to add new cameras to MxEasy and remove existing cameras from the software. This access level is the only one that allows you to set up and change passwords.

• Owner: You have access to all functions available for the User access level and to the majority of the remaining MxEasy functions in this access level.

• User: You have access to the recorded event sequences in addition to the functions available for the Guest access level.

•

Guest: You can access live views of all cameras and save snapshots with this access level.

Notes

For an overview of the functions in the individual access levels, see

Appendix B,

“Access Rights For User Access Levels”

Automatic Authentication On Launch

If you have set up passwords for the access levels, each time you launch MxEasy you need to select the access level and enter the correct password. If you would like to be logged on automatically, you can activate this option and select the relevant access level under

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Tools> Preferences> General. MxEasy then automatically logs on to this access level without prompting you to enter a password (see

Section 4.8, “Adjusting The Default Program

Settings”

You can change the access level by clicking Authenticate while the software is running. To do so, select the access level in the menu and conﬁrm your selection by entering the correct password. If needed, the administrator can activate additional functions by selecting a dierent access level. After the settings have been made, you can return to the Guest access level using the same dialog.

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Notes:

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MxEasy User Manual: Advanced Operation

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4 ADVANCED OPERATION

Chapter 3, “Getting Started”

, you learned about the basic features of MxEasy. Note, however, that MxEasy allows you to do much more than simply play back video sequences. In this chapter, we will familiarize you with the advanced features of this software.

4.1 Saving, Printing And Exporting

4.1.1 Saving Snapshots

The easiest way to take snapshots is to click the Snapshot button. When you click this but- ton, the image from the camera displayed in the main window will be saved immediately as a

*.jpg ﬁle. This works for both live images and event images. The ﬁle name of a ﬁle

saved as

*.jpg contains the name of the camera followed by the date and time of the

recording (for example,

mxcam 2008-11-24 15-05-13 for a ﬁle saved on November

24, 2008 at 3:05 PM and 13 seconds). The ﬁle names allow you to sort the ﬁles more easily.

Note

You can specify a target folder for the saved images under Tools> Preferences on the General tab (Snapshots> Folder).

4.1.2 Printing Snapshots

You can print a camera image in MxEasy using the Print button. This feature is only activated in Normal mode and Player mode. In Normal mode, the live images of the current camera are printed– in Player mode, the latest event image of the camera in the main window is printed together with the live images of the other cameras. A print preview is always displayed before the image is printed. Here, you can set the format, zoom factor and number of images per page.

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4.1.3 Exporting Video And Audio Data

In order to export recorded audio/video data, you need a MOBOTIX camera with at least one recording. If the Player button is active (i.e. not grayed out), you can click on this button (it turns white) to see the last event image.

Before you start exporting recorded audio/video data, you should brieﬂy consider how these data will be used later on. Generally speaking, you can create the following formats when exporting:

• File server structure: JPEG images for playback using MxEasy or MxControlCenter.

• MxPEG Clip: MOBOTIX format for playback in MxEasy, MxControlCenter and in Windows Media Player (after installing the MxPEG DirectShow codec).

• AVI ﬁle: When using this format, you should use a suitable codec depending on the target operating system. In order to ﬁnd the suitable export format, you should read

Section 4.1.5, “Playing Back Exported Audio/Video Data”

Select the Video Search button in Player mode to export recorded video sequences from MxEasy:

When this button is activated, the Select Event by Time dialog appears:

You have the following options for selecting the correct position in the recording:

• Move the red triangle on the slider bar in the main window.

• Move the red triangle on the slider bar in the Select Event by Time dialog.

• Enter and conﬁrm (using the

enter key) the desired time in the Select Event by

Time dialog.

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To export recorded video and audio data:

1. Select the start time of the sequence you want to export. You can do so by moving the blue triangle on the left or entering a time in the Date/Time ﬁeld (for example, using the arrow keys) and then clicking the Set Start Marker button.

2. Select the end time of the sequence you want to export. You can do so by moving the blue triangle on the right or entering a time in the Date/Time ﬁeld (for example, using the arrow keys) and then clicking the Set End Marker button.

3. Click the Add Clip to Export List button. The Export dialog will now open with the time range you selected. Previously selected time ranges may appear and can, if necessary, be removed manually (

del

key). If you have closed the list by accident,

you can open it again by selecting File> Export Recordings from the menu.

4. Select the desired export format:

– File Server Structure: This option allows you to export the recorded data of the

selected time range in the same format in which it is saved in the ﬁle system. Unlike other options, this option does not convert the format and hence requires the least amount of time to export. We recommend using this option when you need to keep the ﬁles in their original format (for example, to preserve evidence for law enforcement purposes).

– MxPEG Clip(s): With this option, the recorded data of the selected time period is

exported as MxPEG clip ﬁles. Files in MxPEG format also include the audio data recorded by the camera.

The max. ﬁle size for exporting can be set using the Settings button.

– AVI clips: Use this option to export (recode) the event sequences of the selected

time range as AVI ﬁle. The audio track can be included, if this is desired. Depending on the video codec used, you can play back the AVI ﬁle on dierent operating

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systems using dierent applications (see

Section 4.1.5, “Playing Back Exported

Audio/Video Data”

Note

MxEasy can play back data server structures and MxPEG clips. You can do this in the dialog located under File> Open Clip (see

Section 3.8, “Playing

Back And Evaluating The Recordings”

5. Select the export settings (using the Settings button). You can now specify dierent options for the export, including a ﬁle size limit as well as audio and video encoding options with which you can deﬁne parameters such as the resolution or video codec.

6. To start the export, click Export.

The time required for the export to ﬁnish depends on a number of factors, including the processing speed of your computer, length of the selected time range, number and size of individual ﬁles and type of recording (event or continuous recording). In particular, converting to an *.avi ﬁle can take a long time.

4.1.4 Export Options

When exporting the audio/video data, you can choose between dierent options depending on the export format selected in the Export dialog (MxPEG clips/AVI clips). Note that File server structure does not allow selecting any options. The preselected options provide for maximum compatibility of the exported data on the dierent operating systems (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux).

File Size

This tab allows setting the maximum size of the individual ﬁles. If the data are larger than speciﬁed here, MxEasy automatically creates additional ﬁles with the same name and a running number.

You can set most of these options for MxPEG clips and AVI clips.

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Audio

You should only change this setting if there is a good reason to use a dierent codec than the default PCM codec.

This tab is only available for AVI clips.

AVI

You should only change these settings if you have special requirements (e.g. if you need to set a speciﬁc resolution or frame rate).

Selecting the codec has a signiﬁcant impact on the operating system on which you can play back the exported data:

• Motion JPEG: This codec stores full JPEG images and is suitable for most common operating systems. The exported data have the highest quality, since they consist of the original camera images stored as full JPEG images, but this codec requires the highest storage capacity (4 to 6 times as compared to the FFMPEG MPEG-4 codec).

•

FFMPEG MPEG-4 (default): The preselected codec is supported by VLC and can also be played back on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux operating systems, if you need to support other players than VLC. This codec represents the ideal combination of quality and minimum storage space.

• Microsoft MPEG-4 V2: General-purpose codec for Windows systems.

• DivX V3 MPEG-4 (Low Motion): This codec is available for all operating systems free-of-charge (

www.divx.com).

• Windows Media Video7: Version7 of the standard codec for Windows systems, which can be played back using Windows Media Player.

• Windows Media Video8: Version8 of the standard codec for Windows systems, which can be played back using Windows Media Player.

If the Display recording gaps checkbox has been activated, the end timestamp of the last clip and the start timestamp of the next clip will be shown for ten seconds, provided that the gap is ten seconds or longer.

This tab is only available for AVI clips.

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4.1.5 Playing Back Exported Audio/Video Data

You can play back exported

MxPEG clips

and

ﬁle server structures

directly in

MxEasy

(File> Open Clip> ...). Note that you can also use

MxControlCenter

to play back these

export formats. After installing the

MxPEG DirectShow codec

, you can also play back

MxPEG clips

Windows Media Player

and other DirectShow-enabled applications (you

can download the codec free-of-charge from

www.mobotix.com in the Support >

Software Downloads

section).

In general, the exported

AVI ﬁles

can only be played back on the standard players that come with the operating systems. If you would like to use a universal player that can play back all of these formats on all operating systems, you should install the VideoLAN player (VLC,

www.videolan.org). It can play back AVI ﬁles exported with the preselected

options and also with all other codecs. Note that the ﬁles are automatically added to the playlist of VLC and the other players in order to play them back automatically one by one.

The following table shows which preinstalled or installable video players can be used on which operating system in order to get the best quality when playing back the audio/ video data:

Windows Mac OSX Linux

Codec VLC

Windows

Media

Player

VLC QuickTime VLC

MPlayer,

Xine, ...

Motion JPEG +++

†

+++

†

+++

†

+++

†

+++

†

+++

†

MxPEG DirectShow — +++

— — — —

FFMPEG MPEG-4 ++ ++* ++ ++* ++ ++*

Microsoft MPEG-4 V2 + + + — + +*

DivX V3 MPEG-4 + +* + +* + +*

Windows Media Video 7

+ + + — + +*

Windows Media Video 8

+ + + — + +*

Quality/compatibility: +++ excellent, ++ very good, + good, o satisfactory, — not possible; Remarks: *codec to be installed separately, **MxPEG DirectShow codec to be installed separately,

†

high storage

capacity required

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4.2 Saving And Restoring Settings

The backup feature (the Backup Conﬁguration button), allows you to save and restore all MxEasy settings and the complete conﬁguration of each connected camera with a simple click of the mouse.

Caution

After you have ﬁnished setting up the system, after changing the conﬁguration and especially

after adding cameras

, it is

highly recommended to store the contents

of the backup folder

(see

Section 4.2.2, “Storing The Backup Folder”

4.2.1 Creating And Loading Backups

MxEasy automatically creates a backup when you start the program. You can also click the Create Backup button if you need to create one manually.

Loading A Backup

You can specify the time when a backup will be loaded using the following functions:

• Initial default conﬁguration: This backup allows restoring all cameras and MxEasy itself to the default settings that were set when the program was ﬁrst launched and the cameras were integrated into the system by MxEasy Wizard.

• Most recent startup of application: This backup contains the conﬁguration data of MxEasy from the last time it was launched.

• Yesterday: This backup contains the conﬁguration data of MxEasy when it was ﬁrst launched on the previous day.

• One week ago: With this option you can load the conﬁguration data of a backup from the previous week or earlier.

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• Manual backup from: You can select a manual backup from the list provided. If you have already created manual backup, you can delete the most recent backup or all

manual

backups.

Once you have selected a backup, MxEasy uploads the backup to the attached cameras when you click on the Reset button and restarts the cameras.

Caution

The conﬁguration backup only covers the cameras currently attached to MxEasy. If you have changed the conﬁguration or added new cameras, it is strongly recommended to create a manual backup (see

Section 4.2.2, “Storing The Backup Folder”

4.2.2 Storing The Backup Folder

After you have set up the system or changed the conﬁguration, you should create a manual backup. In addition, you should copy the entire backup folder to a separate storage device. This will allow you to easily restore the conﬁguration in case you should have problems with this computer.

• Click on the Conﬁguration Backups button.

• Create a manual backup by clicking on Create Backup (you should add the text “

Manual” at the beginning of the backup name so you can identify the manual

backups easier later on).

• Click on the magnifying glass icon to open the backup folder.

• Copy the entire contents of the folder to a suitable external storage device (possibly as a

ZIP archive of the folder).

4.2.3 Replacing The Backup Folder

• Click on the magnifying glass icon to open the backup folder.

• Make a backup copy of the entire contents of the folder (possibly as a

ZIP archive

of the folder).

• Delete the entire contents of the backup folder.

• Copy the entire contents of the stored folder into the backup folder.

• Close MxEasy and restart the application.

• Click on the Conﬁguration Backups button.

•

Activate the Manual backup from option and select the backup you created manually.

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• Click on Reset and then on OK in the conﬁrmation dialog.

MxEasy uploads the conﬁguration to the currently attached cameras and restarts them.

4.3 Using The Door Intercom

The IT and Secure models of the

M12

and

D12

MOBOTIX cameras and the

ExtIO

and

CamIO

expansion models that are compatible with all MOBOTIX IT and Secure models are equipped with signal inputs and outputs. The signal inputs are capable of receiving a doorbell signal, for example, and the signal outputs can transmit the command to open a door (or a gate) to a locking system (door opener).

This means that MxEasy, when used in conjunction with MOBOTIX cameras, can serve as a fully equipped and ﬂexible door intercom system with video and audio transmission. Press the Microphone or Loudspeaker button to use the intercom (audio transmission). To open a door or turn on the light, press the Door or Light button. You can also play back a voice message that has been saved in a MOBOTIX camera (the Sound button).

• Microphone: The audio from the computer microphone will be transmitted to the camera loudspeaker for as long as you press and hold this button. This works the same way as if you were to make an announcement in a soccer stadium or on a train platform or to use a handheld transceiver or a door intercom.

• Speaker: Activate this button to hear the audio from the camera microphone over the computer loudspeakers. This feature allows you to use MxEasy as a door intercom, for example.

• Door: You can activate a door opener connected to a MOBOTIX camera (or a connected ExtIO or CamIO) with this button via signal output 1. The signal output/door opener will deactivate automatically after ﬁve seconds.

• Light: This button allows you to enable and disable a device (for example, the light for the door intercom) connected to a MOBOTIX camera (or a connected ExtIO or CamIO) via signal output 2.

•

Sound: Click this button to play back an audio ﬁle that has been saved in a MOBOTIX camera on the loudspeaker of that camera. You can select one of the audio ﬁles that is available on the camera displayed in the main window from the pop-up menu of the button (right-click). These are all system audio ﬁles that are recorded on the camera by the user or sound ﬁles that have been loaded in the camera. MxEasy uses the sound speciﬁed for the particular camera.

• Volume Up: Click this button to increase the speaker volume on the computer running MxEasy.

• Volume Down: Click this button to decrease the speaker volume on the computer running MxEasy.

For additional information on the audio functions of the MOBOTIX camera, see the sections

Microphone and Speaker

and

Sound on Event

in the

Software Manual

, the

ExtIO

and

CamIO User

Manuals

and the manuals of the individual MOBOTIX camera models.

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For more information on the signal inputs and outputs of MOBOTIX cameras, see the section

Signal Output

, in the

Software Manual

, the

ExtIO

and

CamIO User Manuals

and

the manuals of the individual MOBOTIX camera models.

4.4 Adjusting Additional Image and Exposure Settings

This button gives you access to functions that allow you to set individual image settings such as Saturation, Brightness, Backlight or Sharpness. You can also control the

exposure

of the images using this button:

• Saturation: This function increases or decreases the saturation of an image. When you increase this value, the image becomes more colorful.

• Brightness: This setting allows you to adjust the image brightness. Make sure that the exposure windows are being used eectively before you make any adjustments.

• Backlight: This setting improves the display of a camera image that contain overexposed or underexposed areas. A typical example of this is a room that is illuminated only by daylight from the windows. Objects located around the edges are displayed too dark and with too little contrast. Increasing the value will increase overall illumination to properly display the dark areas in the image. This setting is particularly useful for high-contrast (color) night images.

• Sharpness: This setting allows you to display sharper camera images. Make sure not to set the sharpness too high since doing so may result in poor image quality (for example, for high-contrast and ﬁnely detailed images).

• Default Settings: Click this button to restore the default values for all settings (with the exception of exposure windows).

• Exposure Window: The MOBOTIX camera sets the exposure window to ensure the proper exposure/brightness for the live camera image. You can select a predeﬁned set of exposure windows from the pop-up menu of this button. The corresponding window will then be displayed in the camera’s image and you can check the modiﬁed exposure control directly in the live image. You can specify whether or not the exposure window will be visible in the camera image (green box) using the

Show

Exposure Windows

option.

Notes On Predeﬁned Exposure Windows

The content of the predeﬁned exposure windows aects the exposure of the camera. It aects the exposure time, among other factors, and determines the overall quality of the image.

The predeﬁned and custom exposure windows are deﬁned as “global” for the

full image

displayed by the image sensor. This means that the PTZ commands do not aect the content of the exposure windows and therefore have no eect on the exposure. If an image contains dark areas and overexposed areas, performing PTZ commands does not change the appearance of these areas. For example, if you zoom into an overexposed area, it remains over exposed. The PTZ commands do not modify any part of the image.

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The predeﬁned and custom exposure windows are particularly suited for use with full image recording because the recorded full image of MOBOTIX cameras is not aected by PTZ commands.

If the camera is used primarily as a live camera, meaning that it must display high quality images even when PTZ commands are used, we recommend using the Automatic Exposure (PTZ) setting. With this setting, the current visible image section is used as the exposure window. As long as no digital zoom is performed in the camera, this area is identical to the full image displayed by the image sensor. When you perform a digital zoom, the visible area becomes smaller than the full image. This setting optimizes the exposure of the live image, even when you are performing PTZ commands.

Caution

With the Automatic Exposure (PTZ) setting, images recorded using full image record- ing are aected by the PTZ commands– whenever the PTZ commands aect the

exposure of the image.

Deﬁning Custom Exposure Windows

The Custom option (from the pop-up menu of the button) allows you to create and edit individual exposure windows using your mouse.

• Creating exposure windows: To create a new exposure window, use your mouse to draw a box inside the camera image in the main window (see ﬁgure).

• Moving Exposure Windows: To move a window, drag and drop it to the location you want with your mouse. A hand cursor appears automatically when the mouse pointer hovers over a window.

• Modifying exposure windows: Drag the edge of the window using your mouse to increase or decrease the size of a window. A resize cursor appears automatically when the mouse pointer hovers over the edge of the window.

• Deleting exposure windows: To delete a window, click the

X button in the upper

right-hand corner of the window or press the

delete key on your keyboard.

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Bandwidth Management

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Deﬁning Exclusion Windows

Exclusion windows are used to remove sources of light

within exposure windows

from exposure control. In the example to the right, the exclusion window excludes the lamp in the upper right corner from exposure control.

Hints For Deﬁning Exclusion Windows

• Keep the

alt key pressed and draw a box

with the mouse to deﬁne an exclusion window.

• Always deﬁne exclusion windows

within exposure windows

(exclusion windows

outside of exposure windows do not have any eect).

Once you have deﬁned the exclusion windows, you can use the same functions for changing these windows as for exposure windows (moving, resizing, deleting).

Note

•

Just like the predeﬁned exposure windows, the custom exposure windows are deﬁned globally on the full sensor image. That is why these windows do not trigger any image adjustment when using vPTZ actions.

•

Exposure and exclusion windows of Hemispheric cameras and cameras with activated distortion correction

are shown as polygons if the visible image

has been panned or tilted or the image has been switched from Normal to

Full Image, for example.

4.5 Bandwidth Management

MxEasy’s Bandwidth Management feature oers you an eective tool for optimizing the retrieval and display of live images from cameras in MxEasy.

Ideally, an Ethernet network will always have enough network bandwidth to transfer all data at “full network bandwidth” so that the live images of all cameras connected to MxEasy can be shown in all display windows at full resolution and full frame rate. And this is also the case for a wired Ethernet network. If the cameras (or the computer running MxEasy) are connected to the network via a wi-ﬁ or ISDN connection or a modem, there will generally not be enough bandwidth.

With MxEasy’s Bandwidth Management, you can now set up the cameras to retrieve only the live images you need at the resolution and frame rate that MxEasy requires to properly display them at any given time. This means you can have the live image from the camera in the main window displayed at full resolution and full frame rate while the live images in the smaller camera windows are shown at a lower resolution and reduced frame rate. This is possible given that MOBOTIX cameras display both high-resolution video sequences and lower resolution images (“preview” images) at the same time. MxEasy is then able to

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retrieve those preview images (for more information, see the section

Accessing The Live

Image And The Event Images

in the

Software Manual

If one of the cameras from a small camera window is displayed in the main window (for example, due to an alarm or if it has been manually set by the user), MxEasy will show the available preview images immediately and in real-time in the main window and then start to retrieve the images from the respective camera at full resolution from that point on. The live image in the main window will therefore appear for only brief moment at a lower resolution until the newly requested high-resolution image becomes available.

You can apply one of the following strategies for bandwidth management in MxEasy depending on how much network bandwidth is available (or on the network connection type for the MOBOTIX cameras) (under Preferences > Connections > Bandwidth Management; see also

Section 4.8.2, “‘Connections’ Tab”

• High (Fast Ethernet, 100baseT, 1000baseT, WLAN 802.11 g+n):

This setting is recommended for Ethernet networks with unlimited bandwidth (for example, 100baseT/100Mbps, 1000baseT/1Gbps, fast 802.11g/n compliant WLAN with good signal strength).

–

Main window, camera windows: Both the live images from the active camera in the main window and the images from the cameras shown in the small camera windows are displayed at full quality (full resolution and full frame rate).

• Medium (Ethernet, 10BaseT, WLAN 802.11 g+n):

This default setting is generally recommended for wi-ﬁ connections (802.11a/b) or Ethernet networks with reduced bandwidth (for example, 10baseT, Powerline adapter, two-wire media converter, etc.)

–

Main window: The live images from the camera in the main window are displayed at full quality (full resolution and full frame rate).

– Camera windows: The images from the cameras in the small camera windows

are displayed at a lower resolution and lower frame rate (four frames per second) using the Preview feature.

• Low (modem, ISDN):

This setting is recommended for modem or ISDN connections.

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–

Main window: With the Preview feature, the camera images in this window may be displayed with lower resolution (VGA 640x480px) and at a lower frame rate (up to four frames per second).

– Camera windows: The images from the cameras in the small camera windows

are displayed at a lower resolution and lower frame rate (four frames per second) using the Preview feature.

The

recording of video sequences

always occurs at the resolution and frame rate set

for the individual camera irrespective of the display quality of the live camera images.

If the MxEasy program window is minimized in the task bar or dock, all live images will automatically be retrieved at a low frame rate (four frames per second). This is the reason why the live images brieﬂy appear at a lower resolution when you restore the program window.

4.6 Network Environments: Camera Access From Dierent Locations

4.6.1 Overview

MxEasy supports access to cameras in dierent locations– with dierent network settings. This way, for example, the cameras in a gas station can be monitored by a laptop located on site in the local area network (LAN) and later, they can be monitored remotely over the Internet using a preset DynDNS service. Each scenario requires dierent network connection data for the same cameras and it would be time-consuming to have to adjust the connection data each time you connect with the cameras. MxEasy supports the concept of a network “environment”.

The environment is a network area in which the access data is set for all cameras. Switching to a dierent environment automatically switches the network address data, i.e. the IP address, DNS name, port, SSL and proxy for all integrated cameras. Because the bandwidth is normally dierent for each network and access type, the bandwidth setting described in the last section is also coupled with the settings for the individual network environment.

Follow these steps to recreate the example described above:

1. Integrate the cameras and set up camera access to the local area network:

– Launch MxEasy (the Standard environment is activated).

– Search for the cameras and integrate them into MxEasy (using IP addresses).

– Change the name of environment to

Gas station - local (under File>

Environment> Edit Environments and double-click the name of the environ-

ment:

Standard

– Set the bandwidth to

High

under Tools> Preferences> Connections for a fast

LAN connection.

2. Set up external camera access over the internet:

– Set up DynDNS on the DSL router and deﬁne ports for the individual cameras.

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– Create a new environment: Gas station - remote access (under

File> Environment> Edit Environment, click the “+” button).

– Select Camera> Show Cameras and in the Cameras dialog, select the

Gas

Station - remote access

option.

–

Set the correct DynDNS address in the connection data of the relevant cameras (for each camera: right-click and select Information, then enter the DynDNS name).

– Set the bandwidth for access to

Low

under Tools> Preferences> Connections

if your DSL connection is 1,000kbps or slower.

Result

•

To monitor the cameras on site at the gas station, you can access the cameras via the fast LAN by selecting the Gas station - local environment (under File> Environments).

• To monitor the cameras remotely, you can access the cameras via the slower DSL connection with DynDNS by selecting the Gas station - remote access environment. No additional settings are required.

The following section will describe the process of deﬁning and editing the environments in more detail.

4.6.2 Deﬁning And Editing Environments

To deﬁne or edit environments, select File> Environment> Edit Environments:

In the Network Environments dialog, you can use the “+” and “-” buttons to deﬁne new environments and delete existing environments respectively. To rename an environment, select the environment in the list box: Double-click the entry or press

f2 to rename the

environment.

Note

When you create a new environment, MxEasy adopts all camera network data and bandwidth settings from the current environment.

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4.6.3 Selecting An Environment And Changing The Network Data

You can select a predeﬁned environment using the following commands:

• File> Environment (direct selection of environment)

• Camera> Camera Access (Edit MOBOTIX Camera dialog)

Adjust the network access information on the Access Data tab to the remote access data of the camera in the main window.

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• Camera> Show Cameras (Cameras dialog)

In order to edit the camera access data, you can right-click the camera and select

Edit from the context menu. Next, enter the access data in the Edit MOBOTIX cam- era dialog:

• Tools> Preferences> Connections

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When you select an environment, MxEasy activates the network connection data and bandwidth settings associated with this environment for all cameras. All changes you make to the camera addresses and the bandwidth settings after this point will be saved for the active environment.

4.7 Recording Targets- SD Cards And File Servers

All MOBOTIX cameras controlled by MxEasy can use dierent

recording targets

. Depending on the model and type of camera used, they can store the audio/video data on the (volatile) internal memory, on internal storage media (SD cards) or on ﬁle servers.

Newer cameras (Q22M, Q24M, D24M, M24M, all except

Basic

and

Web

models) and

models

have factory-installed SD cards and are preconﬁgured for recording “out-of-the-box”.

At present, MxEasy cannot change the recording target on the attached cameras. To do so, you need to open the web interface of the corresponding camera in a web browser or use MxControlCenter.

Caution

This will not be an issue when using MxEasy to conﬁgure a MOBOTIX system with new cameras. If you are using MxEasy to add cameras with active connections to ﬁle servers, however, these connections will be closed when resetting the cameras to the MxEasy defaults.

In this case, ﬁle server storage needs to be re-established on these cameras

using the

appropriate access data

. For additional information on this topic, see the

Recording

on External File Servers

section in the

Software Manual

Storage Requirements And Life Expectancy Of MicroSD Cards

The life expectancy of a MicroSD card increases proportionally to the storage capacity, since the camera software will execute fewer write/delete cycles on each storage cell. The ﬁrst delete operation will start once the card has been ﬁlled to capacity (ﬁrst full cycle). The theoretical life expectancy of a MicroSD card with 16GB reaches between 10 and 35 years – depending on how it is being used.

Notes

•

Please note that the values contained in the following tables are average values that may vary depending on how the camera is actually used.

• For more information on SD card recording, please see the

Camera Manual

of your MOBOTIX camera.

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32GB MicroSD Card: Storage Requirements And Life Expectancy

6 fps CIF 6 fps VGA 1 fps MEGA 1 fps QXGA

M-JPEG M-JPEG MxPEG M-JPEG M-JPEG

File size single image 15 kB 45 kB - 120 kB 240 kB

Storage req. per second 90 kB 270 kB 75 kB 120 kB 240 kB

Storage req. per 24 hrs 7.8 GB 23.5 GB 6.5 GB 10.4 GB 20.8 GB

Time for one full cycle 4days 1.3days 4.8days 3days 1.5days

Est. theor. life expectancy 60 years 20 years 73 years 46 years 23 years

4GB MicroSD Card: Storage Requirements And Life Expectancy

6 fps CIF 6 fps VGA 1 fps MEGA 1 fps QXGA

M-JPEG M-JPEG MxPEG M-JPEG M-JPEG

File size single image 15 kB 45 kB - 120 kB 240 kB

Storage req. per second 90 kB 270 kB 75 kB 120 kB 240 kB

Storage req. per 24 hrs 7.8 GB 23.5 GB 6.5 GB 10.4 GB 20.8 GB

Time for one full cycle 12 hours 4 hours 14.4 hours 9.2 hours 4.4 hours

Est. theor. life expectancy 7.6 years 2.5 years 8.8 years 5.6 years 2.8 years

4.8 Adjusting The Default Program Settings

Use the following menu commands to view the default program settings of MxEasy. Select the commands that apply to your operating system:

• Windows: Tools> Preferences menu command

• Mac OSX: MxEasy> Settings menu command

• Linux: Edit> Settings menu command

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4.8.1 ‘General’ Tab

•

Language: You can select the language of the MxEasy user interface with this option. Currently, the languages English and German are available. Additional languages are in preparation.

•

Automatic Authentication: Determines whether or not users are automatically authenticated when MxEasy is launched. MxEasy logs on to this access level automatically, without requiring the user to enter a password. For more information, see

Section 3.9,

“Creating Users And Passwords”

•

Folder for snapshots: Use this option to specify a directory or folder for saving images recorded with the Snapshot button. For more information, see

Section 4.1, “Saving,

Printing And Exporting”

• Restore hidden messages: Click the Restore button to show any message and warning windows that have been speciﬁcally deactivated by the user by checking

Don’t ask me again.

Note

MxEasy will warn you if an error occurs when recording data to a storage medium such as an SD card. This error message can be hidden by selecting

Don’t ask me again

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4.8.2 ‘Connections’ Tab

• Proxy Server: If you connect to the Internet in your local network via a proxy server, then the proxy settings need to be entered in the MxEasy program settings. This is necessary if MxEasy needs to access the Internet for purposes such as downloading software updates (see

Section 5.6, “Software Update”

• Bypass proxy settings: If a proxy server has been entered, access to all network devices will occur over this server even if the device is a remote camera or a local network camera. This may result in slower access to the local camera or even prevent access entirely. You should therefore enter the IP addresses (or symbolic names) of all local network devices in the Bypass proxy settings ﬁeld. Here, you can enter an address range (e.g.

192.168.*) or multiple addresses separated by semicolons

(

192.168.1.23;192.168.1.24).

• Network Bandwidth: This setting allows you to optimize the retrieval and display of the live images from the camera in MxEasy. Depending on the setting you select, the camera images will always be retrieved and displayed in MxEasy either at full resolution and full frame rate or at reduced resolution and reduced frame rate (Preview feature) (for more information, see

Section 4.5, “Bandwidth Management”

4.8.3 ‘Behavior’ Tab

• Automatically show alarming camera in main view: If this option is enabled, the live image of a camera connected to MxEasy, but not visible in the main window or

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the camera windows will automatically be shown in the main window of MxEasy in the event that the camera triggers an alarm. You will then be able to view the associated event sequence immediately (the View Events button). For more information, see

Section 3.6.5, “Selecting The Alarm Sensors”

Notes

If MxEasy is minimized and one of the cameras reports an alarm, the program window will be restored automatically and appear in front of all other applications.

• Show red ﬂash on alarm: When this option is activated and an alarm is triggered, MxEasy displays a ﬂashing red lightning bolt in the middle of the live camera images. This image disappears once you have acknowledged the alarm by clicking the image.

• Play sound on alarm: When you enable this option, MxEasy will automatically play back the selected alarm sound as soon as a camera triggers an alarm. The alarm sound will end when it is acknowledged automatically or manually by a user (by clicking the camera window). See

Section 3.6, “Setting Up Alarms And Recordings”

and

Section 5.6, “Software Update”

•

Automatically acknowledge alarms after: This setting allows you to specify the time after which MxEasy will automatically acknowledge alarm messages from connected cameras. Automatic acknowledgement may also end a still active alarm sound. For more information, see

Section 3.6.5, “Selecting The Alarm Sensors”

• Camera Sequencer: You can deﬁne how long the display will last before switching to the image of the next camera with the sequencer interval. For more information, see

Section 3.3.1, “Switching The Displayed Cameras”

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5 ADVANCED FEATURES

5.1 Camera Management

This section will show you how to add new cameras in MxEasy, how to edit, rename and remove cameras that are already attached to MxEasy.

5.1.1 Adding Cameras

In order to add new MOBOTIX cameras to the MxEasy system, execute the Cameras>

Add Cameras menu command. MxEasy now automatically ﬁnds new cameras and lists

all cameras not yet attached in the MxEasy Wizard. To continue, please proceed as described in

Section 3.1.1, “Searching MOBOTIX Cameras”

and

Section 3.1.2, “Selecting

And Adding New Cameras”

5.1.2 Working With The Current Camera- Renaming, Editing And Removing

The functions presented in this section always apply to the camera currently displayed

in the MxEasy main window.

Renaming The Current Camera

Double-click on the camera name shown at the left of the upper information bar in the MxEasy main window or select CameraRename Camera from the menu, then enter a

new name and store it.

Editing The Current Camera

Select Cameras> Edit Camera from the menu. Open this dialog to change the camera name and to enter changed access data (IP address, secure connection, user name and password). All other tabs in this dialog are for your information only.

This is also where you can modify the net-

work parameters of a dierent environment of the displayed camera (see

Section 4.6,

“Network Environments: Camera Access

From Dierent Locations”

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Removing The Current Camera

Caution

When removing cameras from the system, MxEasy will oer to reset the cameras to the state they had before they were added to MxEasy. Please note that this may also aect the passwords assigned in MxEasy. They will be reset and the old passwords will be valid again.

Select Cameras> Remove Camera from the menu. Click on Reset to reset the cameras to the state they had before they were added to MxEasy. When you click on OK, MxEasy will remove the cameras.

5.1.3 Working With The Camera List

Select Cameras > Show Cameras from the menu to open the Camera List. This list

contains all cameras that are reachable over the network.

Cameras that are already

controlled by MxEasy are highlighted in bold print.

In order to edit the selected cameras, you can use the following functions (executed either by the context menu shown here or by clicking on the corresponding button):

– Add: Manually adds a MOBOTIX camera, if it cannot be found since it is not on

the local network, but can only be accessed via the Internet.

– Edit: Works in a similar manner as editing a camera (see the

Editing The Current

Camera

section). Note that you can only use this command if you have high-

lighted one camera.

– Authenticate: Use this command to change the access data used by MxEasy

for accessing one or more cameras. Note that this command does not modify

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the access data on the cameras (see the

Changing The Access Data For All

Attached Cameras

section below).

– Remove: This button removes the highlighted cameras from the list and from

MxEasy (only those that had been attached before). Click on Reset to reset the cameras to the state they had before they were added to MxEasy. When you click on OK, MxEasy will remove the cameras.

– Information: Shows an information dialog for the highlighted camera similar to

the Edit button described above.

– Change Network Conﬁguration: This dialog allows changing the network con-

ﬁguration of all highlighted cameras in one step (see

Section 3.1.2, “Selecting

And Adding New Cameras”

– Hide Preview Image and Legend: Hides the preview image and the legend

or shows it again.

– Display Still Image: Deactivates the live stream of the corresponding camera

and shows a still image in order to reduce the bandwidth.

– Activate Camera Search: This button is usually activated to show that MxEasy

automatically searches for new cameras in the background.

Renaming The Highlighted Camera

Double-click on a camera name or press

f2 to change it. Press the return key to store

the new name. The new camera names will be applied to the corresponding cameras

if you close the Camera List.

Changing The Access Data For All Attached Cameras

If you would like to change the access data of all cameras, click on the Authenticate button

to open the dialog by the same name. Next, click on Camera Access and proceed as described

Section 5.3, “Setting Up A Global User For All

MOBOTIX Cameras”

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Camera Settings

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5.2 Camera Settings

5.2.1 Overview

Many of the settings for the connected MOBOTIX cameras can be centrally managed

using MxEasy (the Camera Options button).

Select the camera whose settings you would like to change (the Next Camera button).

The live image from the camera you selected will be displayed as a preview image to

help you identify the speciﬁc camera you want.

Click Apply or OK and your settings will be sent to the selected camera or, if the To All

Cameras checkbox is checked, to all the cameras connected to MxEasy.

Notes

No preview image will be shown if the To All Cameras option is enabled.

You may need to reboot the camera for some of the changes described here to take eect. If it is necessary, MxEasy will prompt you before rebooting the camera automatically.

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5.2.2 Audio Settings

You can make the most important audio settings for the camera in this dialog.

•

Activate microphone and sensitivity: The camera microphone can be activated or deactivated and the microphone sensitivity can be adjusted as required using the options here.

• Activate speaker and volume: The camera speaker can be activated or deactivated and the volume can be adjusted as required using this option.

For additional information, see the sections

Microphone and Speaker

and

Sound on Event

in the

Software Manual

5.2.3 LED Settings

The LEDs of the MOBOTIX cameras can

be used to signal certain functions and

statuses. You can assign selected ﬂashing

patterns to particular camera actions and functions in this dialog.

• Show Recording State: You can set the LEDs of the MOBOTIX camera to blink when an event occurs and a recording is made with this option.

•

Show Camera Access: The LEDs of the MOBOTIX camera blink whenever the camera is accessed, i.e., if the live image from the camera is displayed in MxEasy or a conﬁguration has been changed using the Camera Options button, for example.

LED Blinking Patterns

• On: LED is permanently on

• O: LED is permanently o

• Blinking: LED is o, blinking on slowly

• Flashing: LED o, ﬂashing on fast

• Negative ﬂashing: LED is on, ﬂashing o

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Blinking Patterns According To Settings

Setting LEDs Color Blinking Pattern

Show Recording State

Alarm:

1, 5

• Continuous recording: On

•

Event recording: Neg. ﬂashing every 3sec.

• Unarmed, o: O

• Armed, waiting: Flashing every 3sec.

•

Critical error: Blinking in sync. with Power LED

Power:

• OK: On permanently

•

Non-critical error: Neg. ﬂashing every 3sec.

• Critical error: Blinking

Show Camera

Access

Alarm:

1, 5

• Continuous recording: On

•

Event recording: Neg. ﬂashing every 3sec.

• Unarmed, o: O

• Armed, waiting: Flashing every 3sec.

•

Critical error: Blinking in sync. with Power LED

Power:

• Always: Double ﬂashing every 3sec.

For more information on the LED blinking patterns of MOBOTIX cameras, see the section

LED Signals and LED Conﬁguration

in the

Software Manual

and in the

Camera Manual

the respective camera model.

5.2.4 Connection Settings

You can also set the parameters for communications with external servers in this dialog, for example, if you need to send e-mails.

• DNS Server: If you have MOBOTIX cameras connected to the network via a manual IP address, you can enter the IP address of the DNS server used by your network here. MxEasy will automatically suggest the DNS server that your computer is currently using (the

Same as this computer

option). A DNS server must be entered in a MOBOTIX camera in order for the Time Server, VoIP and E-Mail functions to work, if the respec- tive IP addresses are

not

known.

Camera

LEDs

M12

D12

Q22M,

D22M, M22M, Q24M,

D24M,

M24M

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• Use Secure Connections (HTTPS/SSL): If necessary, you can activate encryption for all data transferred via HTTPS between MxEasy and the MOBOTIX cameras. We strongly recommend using this option for security-related applications. Note that SSL encryption will place a higher load on the network bandwidth.

For additional information, see the section

SSL Encryption and Certiﬁcates

in the

Software

Manual

5.2.5 Time Settings

Each MOBOTIX camera has a battery-buered real-time clock that always keeps the time correct, even in the event of a power failure.

However you need to make sure that all cameras connected to MxEasy are synchronized for playback and event tracking. You can do this using a time server that synchronizes all cameras to the exact same

time. Use this dialog to enter or select a

time server. Note that you can also specify a MOBOTIX camera as a time server.

• Synchronize with Time Server (NTP): Select a time server from the list or enter the name of your preferred NTP time server. If the MOBOTIX cameras are set to automatically obtain their network data via DHCP, make sure that a valid DNS server is also entered in the MOBOTIX cameras (the Connection tab).

• Synchronize with Master Camera: Alternatively, you can select one of the cameras connected to MxEasy as a time server.

For additional information, see the section

Date and Time/Time Zones and Time Servers

in the

Software Manual

Hint

If the cameras are connected to the Internet, you can select a time server from the drop-down menu. You can also enter a time server in the local network if one is available. If neither a time server on the Internet nor a local time server is available, you should specify one of the cameras connected to MxEasy as the master camera for the purpose of time synchronization. Doing so will at least ensure that all cameras remain synchronized with each other and hence allow saved video sequences to be played back in a synchronized manner.

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Note

The time display in the title bar of the main window will blink if the system time of an active camera (Live view) in the main window deviates from the system time of the computer by more than 15 seconds. In this case, check the computer to see if it is also synchronized with a time server. Try to set up the same time server for both the computer and the MOBOTIX cameras.

5.2.6 VoIP Settings For Phone Calls

Using Internet telephony, you can make phone calls with MOBOTIX cameras. In order

to use this feature, you need to register with a VoIP provider for Internet telephony (for example, sipgate.de). You can enter the access data for the registered VoIP account

in this dialog.

• Use SIP telephony in only local net- work: No SIP user data is required if phone calls are to be made within the local network only (for example, to softphones installed on computers).

• Register with SIP provider for global SIP telephony: Enter the user data that you received from your SIP provider upon registration into the appropriate ﬁelds (SIP User Name, SIP ID, SIP Password and Registry). If the MOBOTIX cameras are set to automatically obtain their IP addresses via DHCP, make sure that a valid DNS server is also entered in the MOBOTIX cameras (the Connection tab).

For additional information, see the sections

Phone Call

and

Phone Proﬁles

in the

Software

Manual

. For detailed information on all telephony features of the MOBOTIX cameras, see

Chapter9 of the

Software Manual

5.2.7 E-Mail Settings

MOBOTIX cameras can send e-mails (for

alarm notiﬁcation, for example). In order

to use this feature, you need to provide a valid e-mail address. You can enter the access data for the account in this dialog.

•

E-Mail data: Enter the user data of an e-mail account in the ﬁelds provided in the dialog: SMTP Server, Port (nor- mally Port 25), Authentication (normally SMTP Login) and User Name and

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Password. If the MOBOTIX cameras are set to automatically obtain their network data via DHCP, make sure that a valid DNS server is also entered in the MOBOTIX cameras (the Connection tab).

For additional information, see the sections

E-Mail

and

E-Mail Proﬁles

in the

Software Manual

5.2.8 SD/USB Settings

MOBOTIX cameras can save their recorded audio and video data either to the internal camera memory or an external storage medium. Using an external storage medium can substantially increase your storage capacity. For the storage medium,

you can choose the integrated SD card of

the camera or an external USB medium (USB stick, USB hard drive, etc.), for example. The basic settings and basic functions of

this feature are found in this dialog.

• External USB hard drive: Select this option if you want the MOBOTIX camera to record data to a connected external USB hard drive directly.

• SD Flash Card: This option sets the MOBOTIX camera to record data to an inserted SD ﬂash card.

• USB Stick/Flash SSD: Select this option if you want the MOBOTIX camera to record data to a connected USB stick or an external ﬂash SSD directly.

• Others: This option is automatically activated if the MOBOTIX camera is conﬁgured to use a recording mode that does not support USB, SD or Flash SSD storage devices. MxEasy is currently unable to set up such a recording mode directly.

A yellow recording icon will appear in MxEasy in

the lower information bar of the main window if

one of the

External USB Hard Drive, SD Flash Card

and

USB Stick/Flash SSD

options is set as the recording target. Hold the mouse pointer over the icon in the information bar to see this tool tip.

Mobotix MxEasy User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual