Advanced settings

The Advanced settings let you customize advanced XProtect Smart Client settings. If you are not familiar with the advanced settings and how they work, just keep their default settings. If you connect to some surveillance systems, you may see Follow Server column. You can use this column to make XProtect Smart Client follow the recommended settings of the server as set up in the Management Client's Smart Client Profiles. You may experience that certain settings are already server-controlled, in which case configuration on the server decides whether or not you are able to override those settings.

Name

Description

Multicast

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

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

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

Disabled: multicasting is not available.

Hardware acceleration

Controls if hardware-accelerated decoding is in use. The load on the CPU is high in a view with many cameras. Hardware acceleration moves some of the CPU load to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). This improves the decoding capability and performance of the computer. This is useful, mainly if you view multiple H.264/H.265 video streams with a high frame rate and a high resolution.

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

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

Maximum decoding threads

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

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

Auto is the default setting. Auto means means that the computer uses as many threads per camera position as it has cores. However, the maximum number of threads is eight, and the number of threads actually used may be lower, depending on which codec (compression/decompression technology) is used.

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

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

Deinterlacing

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

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

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

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

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

Video diagnostics overlay

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

Select between these options:

Hide: No video diagnostics overlay. Default setting.

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

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

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

Time zone

Select a predefined time zone or a custom time zone. The available options are:

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

Master Server's time zone: the time zone of the server

UTC

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

Custom time zone

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

PDF report format

Select A4 or letter format for your PDF reports. You can create reports of events from, for example, XProtect Access.

PDF report font

Select a font to be used in your PDF reports.

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