The procedure for adding an encoder to Milestone XProtect Enterprise and Professional is different.
There is a known issue adding encoders where the EdgeVis server can only be accessed by a domain name and not by IP Address. There is a simple workaround detailed below.
Adding the encoder to Milestone
From the Milestone management application, right-click on Hardware Devices and select Add New Hardware Device:
Select Manually Specify the hardware to add:
Enter the address of the camera. Use the format:
encoder.server
or
stream.server
For example, to add an encoder called “camera-1” on server “my.server.com” you would enter:
camera-1.my.server.com
With a full stop ( . ) between encoder name and server name.
Note: EdgeVis now supports creating a stream name, different than the encoder name. In this case, use the stream name you have created on the server. EdgeVis also supports multi-stream encoders, so you may have several stream names per encoder. In this case as well, use the stream name, as opposed to the encoder name. Milestone will essentially see these as separate video sources, even though they originate from the same encoder device.
Note: Encoder names can only have A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and – (dash) in their name. Underscores ( _ ) are not supported in Milestone XProtect)
If the EdgeVis server is only accessible with an IP Address and not by a domain name then a domain name must be assigned locally for the server. Refer to the Configuring XProtect Enterprise & Professional with IP Address for more details.
Enter the details as follows:
IP Address: Camera-1.my.server.com
Port: Is not required. Leave set to 80
User Name: An account on the EdgeVis server that has access to the encoder.
Password: The password of the account
Driver: From the dropdown select DigitalBarriersTVIDecoder
Select Next – the EdgeVis Encoder is now be added to the system:
Note: If the EdgeVis encoder is not enabled for audio, it must be disabled within Milestone. Select the Hardware device, then Microphone. Un-tick the enabled box.
Configuring XProtect Enterprise and Professional with IP address
Milestone XProtect Enterprise and Professional does not accept an EdgeVis server that is only accessible using an IP address. To resolve this issue, add the EdgeVis server to the windows hosts file.
Add the server to the hosts file
On the Milestone recording server, open the Windows hosts file from the following location.
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\
Open the file with an application running with Administrator privileges.
To configure an EdgeVis server with an IP address of 192.168.0.63, add the following to the file:
192.168.0.63 my.server.local
Note:
You only have to add the server once.
Use a domain name that is not currently in use.
Below is the sample hosts file in Windows. Once edited, Save the file.
# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
192.168.0.63 my.server.local
# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost
Test the hosts file
To test that the host file has been configured correctly, from the Milestone recording server attempt to ping the new domain name you have created.
c:>ping my.server.local
Pinging my.server.local [192.168.0.63] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.63: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.63: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.63: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.0.63: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
The domain name should resolve to the IP address you entered in the hosts
Add the encoder to the system
Using the procedure at the top of the article and add the encoder as you normally would.
In the example above, to add Camera-1 to a server with IP Address 192.168.0.63
1. Add the IP Address to the hosts file as follows:
192.168.063 my.server.local
2. Add the encoder as:
Camera-1.my.server.local