Ver 1.21 NEW SOFTWARE RELEASE ==================== Products involved: AXIS Camera Station Release date: November 29, 2004 Release type: Production Software version: 1.10 Build 31 File name: AXISCameraStationSetup.exe File size: 26 891 296 bytes Supported OS: Microsoft 2000(SP4), 2003 Server and XP Professional (SP1/SP2) Last preceding release: 1.01 Build 34 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact Information ==================== Please contact Axis Communications for product information, updates and support at: http://www.axis.com Installation ============ - Run the self extracting AXISCameraStationSetup.exe file. - For upgrade to this version an upgrade license must be valid. The original installation included a one year upgrade license. See Help/About when current upgrade licence expires. Please contact your nearest Axis reseller to buy an upgrade license if needed. - Make sure you have full administrator rights on the computer you install on. - Do NOT install AXIS Camera Station on a computer already running AXIS Camera Station Client. - AXIS Camera Station settings and image database will remain after upgrade. - The background service will be stopped for the upgrade (no recordings). The background service will start automatically after the upgrade. - After upgrade to this version it is not possible to downgrade to the previous version without a complete uninstallation. Uninstallation ============= - Run 'Uninstall' under Start/Control Panel/Add or Remove programs/ Some files might need to be manually erased under C:\Program Files\Axis Communications\Axis Camera Station\ and under C:\TempACS\. - Recordings are not erased by 'Uninstall' and need to be manually erased under C:\Recordings\ or where located as specified for each camera. Recommendations =============== - Observe the hardware requirements for running AXIS Camera Station. See users documentation at www.axis.com for details. - Install AXIS Camera Station on a dedicated computer mainly running this application. - Make sure the 'Server IP address' under File/Administration/General is set to the IP address of the computer running AXIS Camera Station. - Make sure that the display 'DPI setting' is set to default (96 DPI) under Control Panel/Display/Settings/Advanced/Display. Also make sure that the 'Font size' is set to 'Normal' under Control Panel/Display/Settings/Appearance. - AXIS Camera Station is designed for XGA (1024 x 768) screen resolution or higher. Default sceen size might be lower on some of the recommended OS listed above. Go to ControlPanel/Display/Settings to adjust the screen resolution. - It is recommended to set up recovery options for the background service. This is done under: ControlPanel/AdminTools/Services/AXISCameraStation/Properties/ RecoveryOptions - Defragment the harddisk periodically for optimal performance. - Make sure used AXIS devices run latest available firmware. - When upgrading from 1.00 or 1.01 please note that the recording image size now is defined in AXIS Camera Station. The default value in the AXIS Camera Station might be different from the previous used image sized which was the image size set in the camera. --------------------------------------------------------------------- New features ============ Performance improvements - AXIS Camera Station now supports recording speeds up to 25/30 frames per second. The total number of frames per second is > 250 on recommended hardware. - Image size and compression of recordings can now be specified per camera in the administration setup to optimize image quality and/or storage. Previously the default setting in the camera was used. - All live view windows now use the AXIS Media Control (AMC) ActiveX component. This will significantly reduce the CPU load on the host computer. - All live view windows now use the best fit of resolution and frame rate, i.e. a four split will use a higher resolution and frame rate than a 16 split. The frame rate for each view is configurable. - Application and administration startup time is now significantly shorter. - Hard disk utilization is more effective. MPEG viewing support - Viewing can now be set up to use MPEG-2/4 stream for high quality viewing with low bandwidth for those Axis devices supporting this. For MPEG-2 devices only viewing is possible. For Axis devices such as the AXIS 210/211 (with software 4.10 or higher), which support both MJPEG and MPEG-4, MJPEG will always be used for recording. - AXIS Camera Station and AXIS Camera Station Client do not include any MPEG-2/4 decoder. Decoder license(s) is/are included in the purchase of the Axis hardware product supporting MPEG-2/4. AVI generation of recorded events - It is now possible to create AVI movies from recorded event. These can easily be replayed on almost any computer. The previous ZIP format is no longer available. Mini-central functionality - AXIS Camera Station Client will now remember the last five AXIS Camera Stations connected to. This will make it possible to manage up to five AXIS Camera Stations from the same AXIS Camera Station Client. When changing AXIS Camera Station the current configuration and event log from this AXIS Camera Station will automatically be downloaded. Other enhancements - Application can now be installed on any drive letter, i.e. C:\ is no longer required. - Background recording service is no longer stopped during administration. After administration the background service will restart reducing the downtime to a minimum. - It is now possible to start/stop the background service from the taskbar icon. - E-mails sent when an event occur will now in the subject field include the camera number/name. - User registration has been clarified and simplified for user friendliness. - Date and time in cameras with software 4.0 and higher will be set by AXIS Camera Station for full time synchronization between camera and recording server. - For improved support, a Server Report functionality is added which in one easy to send document includes information about the current configuration, log files etc. - Support for additional Axis Network Camera Servers - AXIS 213 PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom Camera Server with I/O ports and Audio) - AXIS 231D/232D (Dome Pan-Tilt-Zooms Camera Server with I/O ports) - Default support for additional Axis Network Camera Servers AXIS 211 (Camera Server with I/O ports) AXIS 206M (Megapixel Camera Server without I/O ports) AXIS 206W (Wireless Camera Server without I/O ports) Corrected problems since 1.01 ============================= - A dual network card/ports problem causing an error message when application started has been solved - Some new Axis devices were not automatically detected - Sometimes the administration could not be opened unless the computer was rebooted or the VideoAdmin.exe process stopped. - Desktop shortcut did not work if not logged on as same user as installed. - Administration showed 'X Camera Demo Limitation' even if product was registered. - Various license issues corrected. - Automatic software registration did not work behind a proxy server using auto-proxy script. - Problem causing error messages with .NET Framework 1.1 SP1 solved. - AXIS Media Control (AMC) was missing from the installation. - Font size problems on some Asian OS corrected. - Any email sent now only show link to web interface if installed and enabled. - Some windows could be re-sized with unexpected results. - Some dropdown boxes could be edited with unexpected results. - Various motion detection issues corrected. - Pre-event recording did not work with I/O. - If password protection was enabled in AXIS Camera Station, AXIS Camera Station Client could not connect to station. Known limitations in version 1.01-1.10 ====================================== - Camera cycling (Guard Tour/Patrolling) with more than 20 cameras does not work. - If DNS names are used for local network resources they must be entered with domain like camera1.mycompany.com. - The built-in search tool (Camera Explorer) for finding cameras on the local network only searches for cameras on port 80 (default) - If Microsoft Internet Explorer uses auto configuration script for proxy settings it can happen occasionally that a blank image is shown instead of the live stream. Use manual proxy settings to bypass this problem. - Web interface only works on MS IE 6.0 or higher. - Overview page in the web interface will not show any images from pure MPEG devices such as AXIS 230 and 250. - AXIS Camera Station does not support the switch to and from daylight saving time. Daylight saving should be disabled on the computer running AXIS Camera Station. - If a Camera is selected in the alarm table in the web interface it will open in the alarm table window. - Sometimes the alarm table does not show correct status for any active (red) I/O after the background service is started. The alarm table in the web interface does not have this problem. - Pop-up calender when setting specific scheduling dates will be in the default language set on the PC. - If two or more cameras have the same name, configuration and playback mixing is possible. - Camera and I/O name can not contain any country specific characters. - If several cameras are set to record from the same I/O the Alarm table will only show one a button for one camera. - The alarm table can only show 8 I/O alarms. More I/O alarms can be defined but they are not shown in the alarm table. - When a camera is viewed live in the web interface there is no indication if the camera goes down, image will freeze and will not resume when connection is back. Use Refresh/F5 to continue. - On double-byte OS the 'Active License' button is outside the screen if minimum screen resolution 1024x768. Increase screen resolution or use 'Grace Period' instead. - For some non default 'Themes' in Windows XP, the bars in the Schedule tab in Administration do not have correct colors or positions. - Any client accessing the AXIS Camera Station web interface must have AXIS AMC installed to get any live images. AXIS AMC is downloaded and installed when Internet Explorer connects to an Axis video device. - If the web interface is enabled it will create a virtual folder called /tempacs in the wwwroot folder pointing to C:\tempacs. This can fail without any message if the AXIS Camera Station administrator does not have full admin rights on the used computer. In this case the web interface will only show blank images for any recording. - Some windows will not be correctly shown if the Display DPI setting is not set to default (96 DPI) under Control Panel/Display/Settings/Advanced/Display. - Minimum screen resolution is 1024x768. Less resolution will show corrupted windows. - If a PTZ camera is opened from the I/O alarm table no PTZ controls will be shown. - 16-camera playback removed. - User and password setting for SMTP mail server removed. - Summary page in configuration show wrong fps for cameras with recording speed over 1 fps. - If a MPEG2/4 camera connection is lost an error message from AXIS AMC is shown which needs to be manually cleared. - Suggested default recording image size for older Axis cameras such as AXIS 2100/2110/2120/2420 is not CIF. This need to be manually changed in the administration/recording tab. - AXIS Camera Station now use the directory C:\TempACS by default. During upgrade logs etc are moved from the previously used directory C:\Temp. - AVI generation of b/w recordings will be larger than color recordings. - AVI generation of recordings smaller than CIF will be playbacked in QCIF format. - AVI playback image size might depend on AVI player used. - 'Save image to disk' in 4-view playback on station does sometimes not save any image(s). - Overall performance is optimized for recording speeds of 1 fps or higher. - Maximum interval between images is 60 seconds. - Received images are not checked for consistency. - A player for saved recordings with the previous ZIP method can be requested from Axis Technial support if needed. - If time synchronization is not wanted between AXIS Camera Station and cameras, set up a user in the camera with only view rights. Then use this user/password in AXIS Camera Station configuration. Other ===== - To make a factory default of AXIS Camera Station copy all files from the folder: c:\Program Files\AXIS Communications\AXIS Camera Station\parm to c:\Program Files\AXIS Communications\AXIS Camera Station\ License information will not be affected. Best Regards, Axis Communications