Introduction
The release introduces a number of major enhancements to EdgeVis including:
Each component also includes a number of bug fixes and security improvements - we've highlighted any major fixes below.
This release builds upon EdgeVis 8.5 (see previous release notes) and is compatible with the same products:
Supported Products:
EdgeVis Video Router 1/1R/1RL
EdgeVis Video Router 4/4RL
EdgeVis HD-IP200
EdgeVis HD-IP470
EdgeVis MiniCam
You should also review the v8.6 backwards compatibility and encoder upgrade processes before installation.
Wireguard VPN Support
While EdgeVis includes its own secure encryption systems, we recognise that sometimes EdgeVis devices have to be used in environments where there may be existing secure communications infrastructure.
To aid in the situations, we have added support for VPNs within EdgeVis encoders, and have implemented Wireguard as the first supported VPN provider.
The goal is that it should be easier for customers to:
Simplify their existing VPN deployment by removing the need to use a separate VPN router - the intention being that you can perform both VPN and video transmission on your EdgeVis encoder.
Allow other devices attached to the encoder to be accessed remotely (e.g. to upgrade a camera's firmware, or to configure the device through its web interface)
Allow other devices attached to the encoder to access central resources (e.g. to allow an edge-based IoT temperature sensor to send readings to a central database)
Improving our multi-stream capabilities
Our products today are a mix of single and multi-channel streaming devices - the EdgeVis Video Router 4 and 4RL are capable of outputting multiple EdgeVis video streams simultaneously.
Market feedback has indicated that we can improve the utility of our multi-streaming devices by increasing the number of output EdgeVis video streams. Customers often complain that because we support more inputs than outputs, third-party systems like Milestone don't understand that an incoming
Firmware 8.6 doubles the number of output video streams on the EdgeVis Video Router 4 and 4RL, while reducing the number of inputs :
| EVVR4 / EVVR4RL
Firmware 8.5 and below | EVVR4 / EVVR4RL
*NEW* Firmware 8.6 |
IP camera inputs | 16 | 8* |
Safezone-2D analytics | 16 | 8* |
Recording channels | 16 | 8* |
EdgeVis output streams | 4 core streams | Up to 4 core OR 8 extended streams |
Maximum core streaming performance | 4 x 1080p @ 25fps | 4 x 1080p @ 25fps |
Minimum extended streaming performance | n/a | 8 x 720p @ 12.5fps |
Quad streams | Y (4 out) | Y (2 out)* |
*To provide sufficient CPU resources to encode eight output streams, the number of incoming IP camera streams has been reduced from 16 to 8.
The number of quad views is also limited to two - partly because you no longer require the user of quad view to watch every camera on your encoder.
If you currently have more than eight cameras added to your encoder and upgrade to Release 8.6 the extra cameras will be removed from your configuration.
What is core and extended performance?
Core performance
The core streaming performance of your EVVR4 is unchanged and your encoder will still be able to achieve the same streaming performance when used with up to four video streams (given enough bandwidth) - you will still be able to hit the maximum frame rate and resolution provided by the camera.Extended performance
Once you use more than four output video streams there is a small performance hit on the video streaming performance if you are utilising all features (e.g. Sazezone-2D enabled on all channels). The value listed above is the guaranteed minimum you will achieve - however in most situations, the performance observed will be very close to core performance.
Several factors affect the streaming quality, including the amount of available bandwidth, the complexity of the scene, and the number of output video streams. We have written an article that provides guidance on how to achieve the best streaming performance in your scenario.
Changes to encoder configuration options
As part of supporting these new features a small number of configuration options and defaults have been changed in devices running 8.6 (and above):
Legacy video codec mode has been removed. This was a setting introduced with v8.0 to allow users time to upgrade their clients, VMS and SDK applications to support the new Enhanced codec mode.
Version 8.5 set this setting to Enhanced by default, and now version 8.6 removes Legacy mode entirely.
Any device that is upgraded to version 8.6 will now use Enhanced codec mode automatically.
Users with viewing clients that are older than 3 years old should upgrade their clients to a newer version to continue viewing streaming video. All VMS with deep EdgeVis integration (e.g. Milestone, Genetec) have newer versions that support Enhanced codec mode. Failure to upgrade may cause viewing clients to show a black screen instead of live video.
'Auto' codec mode (selected by default) has been improved to utilise higher frame rates by default, while still balancing frame rate and resolution. Users who require full frame rate or resolution can continue to use the 'Favour frame rate' or 'Favour resolution' options as before.
Reserve stream bandwidth is now enabled by default (on multi-stream encoders) to ensure that users with high numbers of output video streams do not perform unpredictably. Review the article on this setting for more information.
Improvements to EdgeVis Streaming in difficult situations
As part of multi-streaming changes and customer reports on streaming performance, this release includes several improvements to streaming performance, especially as we’ve been using KMAX to perform extreme testing at high bandwidth and high levels of Jitter and latencies (e.g. from 100ms to 1000ms).
Changes:
We detect more rapidly when video streaming data buffers are growing and use that to decrease the video bitrate.
We now use packet loss to help auto-adjust the stream bandwidth when packet loss levels start to increase.
When we detect a very large drop in the available bandwidth, we now reset the video stream rather than trying to adapt, which results in faster recovery.
We now use better starting values when restarting the video stream, again resulting in faster recovery times.
At high bandwidths, the server was not responding quickly enough to acknowledge packet receipt – meaning high bandwidth streams would become degraded.
Significant fixes
EdgeVis Encoder
Recording issues (especially on HD-IP470) around reaping full recording disks (causing blue screens) have been resolved.
Resolved an issue where the HD-IP470 was unable to format its recording disk.
Resolved an issue where editing camera layouts on an IP470 caused it to drop offline.
Resolved an issue where installing SZ-2D on a busy scene would cause it to send multiple alerts per second, putting strain on the server. SZ-2D alerts are now debounced so that new detections are ignored if there is already an existing ongoing detection.
The encoder’s firewall was not opening non-standard ports for RTSP feeds.
The wording around restoring an encoder’s configuration has been fixed to stop incorrectly advising users that the encoder would shortly reboot.
To comply with PTCRB requirements we have disabled Band 48 on Minicam units that use the MC7411 modem.
Fixed an issue where some PTZ cameras were not showing PTZ controls in EdgeVis Client.
EdgeVis Server
The option to hide user roles from domain admins/users was not working correctly.
At high bandwidths ( > 4 mbit/s ) the server was not responding quickly enough to encoders causing occasional dropouts in video.
Various small memory leaks (database queries, web sessions) could cause EdgeVis Server to run out of memory.
Improvements made to MSR to avoid high CPU loads while upgrading individual servers.
Certain special characters in passwords were causing the MSR wizards to fail when attempting to add additional nodes.
If you have connected to your server with a large number of clients/SDK applications using a single EdgeVis user account, you may have found that you are locked out after utilising over 50 different clients/applications.
EdgeVis Client
Fixed a crash in the Recordings Downloader (during startup) if there is an existing job in progress.
Users with MFA enabled could encounter an issue logging in with the iOS client.
The built-in help has been removed to remove potential security issues – users are directed to our EdgeVis Support Site now, where all help material has been transferred.
On Android a green filter was occasionally shown over the video footage - this no longer appears
Security Updates
As part of our commitment to security with our partners and customers, all EdgeVis components go through a rigorous security check to ensure we are not shipping with major CVEs (critical vulnerabilities).
As part of this release, any library with exploitable security issues is updated to the latest release, and then a full regression test is performed.
Major updates in this release include:
Updating Yocto on encoders to include updated libraries
Updating the use of curl on encoders and decoder SDK