Note:

Please review the Version 8.0 compatibility and supported devices section before upgrading – version 8.0 drops supports for a number of older versions/products.

EdgeVis Server introduces more cloud features

EdgeVis Server now supports automatic e-mails when creating user accounts, user self-service for password reset, built-in two-factor authentication and more sophisticated password security options all make for a safer secure system that also reduces the burden on busy system administrators.

New video codec modes provide quality and ease-of-deployment improvements

EdgeVis 8.0 encoders can now use an almost entirely automatic quality mode. After setting a maximum bandwidth, select from one of the pre-defined presets, or select a target frame-rate and dimensions and the encoder will auto adjust up to these to suit live network conditions. EdgeVis can now be safely set to higher bandwidths knowing that an encoder will react to live loss of bandwidth - no more need to perform post-installation tweaking!

Second generation SafeZone 2D – new detection modes, reducing false alarms

SZ-2D can now filter out more false alerts (e.g. spider webs on lens, car headlights) as well as a new mode to detect people and/or vehicles that enter the scene – and remain! All of the improvements help reduce the amount of time and money spent reacting to false alerts!

Ability to utilise EdgeVis alarm management in more scenarios

It will now be possible to set a recurring weekly schedule to arm/disarm the alarm rules on an encoder allowing deployments in situations with a regular recurring schedule (e.g. schools, offices) where the system can be disabled during opening hours.

Version 8.0 introduces a number of new management features to improve the security and reliability of EdgeVis installations:

EdgeVis Server can now operate in one of two different modes for user account creation:

Offline (as currently available in V7)

E-mail new user(s) their account automatically (new)

The new e-mail system improves security by ensuring passwords are only
known by their respective users. Additionally, users can now reset their
own passwords using an automated e-mail system directly from the server
login page. E-mails sent can be customised using individual templates.

To enable e-mail account system:

It is possible to enable/disable this feature – however it is not recommended to toggle this setting on a production server as all existing automated e-mails will cease to work when the feature is disabled.

EdgeVis can now protect user accounts using two factor authentication (2FA). This uses the industry standard 6-digit code scheme, which can be generated using third-party apps (such as Google Authenticator).

2FA can be enabled from the server’s User Settings page (under Two-factor authentication) and can be made mandatory for all users, optional, or disabled entirely. This can be set at both the domain and server level.

When 2FA is set to mandatory:

When 2FA is set to optional, users can enable 2FA from the My Settings menu
within EdgeVis Server. Once setup is complete, all users of EdgeVis Server and
Client must enter their 2FA code (in addition to their password) to gain access.

Notes:

Improved password complexity rules, including blocking common words
​

In addition to the existing password rules available, it is now possible to add the following restrictions:

New multi-server Quality of Service metrics

The link between servers in an MSR cluster must maintain a certain level of
performance to ensure that data is synchronised reliably and user response
times are kept low.

To help determine if the inter-server response times are within normal
levels, new metrics are available within each server’s MSR page which will
highlight when response times could effect system performance.

Improved logging and searching performance

Heavily loaded servers should notice improvements when using the search function, or reviewing system logs.

Official support for the 4K-R800

This version of EdgeVis Server is the first server that officially supports the 4K-R800 (when used with the accompanying V8 firmware). Use of older 4K-R800 firmware is not officially supported.

Version 8.0 introduces three new major video streaming changes to simplify encoder deployments and increase video quality:

The goal of these new features is to allow you to safely set higher bandwidths - knowing that an encoder will react to live loss of bandwidth.

No more need to perform post-installation tweaking!

Setting encoder bandwidths is now independent of quality settings

Traditionally, you configure an encoder’s bandwidth settings for one of two reasons:

With version 8.0’s automatic and adaptive quality settings (see next page), this removes the need to configure bandwidths and quality settings together. As such, all bandwidth controls have been moved into a single dialog to simplify cost management.

Additionally, when using the video quality settings (including the built-in preset options) these will no longer modify the user’s configured bandwidth settings.

All cellular modem profiles have been merged into a single profile

Previous version of encoder firmware required the user to configure each cellular technology individually (including 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G). With version 8.0 this has been simplified to one mobile setting.

Minimum bandwidth cutoff simplified to a single percentage setting

Version 8 will now calculate the minimum bandwidth a viewing client must be able to sustain (before being dropped off) as a percentage of the maximum bandwidth setting of the ‘in-use’ profile.

Version 8.0 is now capable of automatically adjusting the video frame rate and resolution based on live network conditions. The highest-level configuration is simplified to four preferences - designed so that most customers will be best served with a fully automatic setting, with some alternative presets to satisfy more specific deployment scenarios.

While the four preset options outlined previously should satisfy most customers, you can also tailor the encoder’s behaviour further. Select Custom from the preset menu to customise the encoder’s streaming settings:

You can choose between four schemes in Prioritise resolution / framerate:

Note:

To fully take advantage of the new continual adaptive quality changes, it has been necessary to add new features to the EdgeVis video codec. This affects older pre-version 8.0 viewing clients who will not be able to view the new video stream. This also affects third-party video management software (VMS) such as Milestone that have not been upgraded yet to use the latest V8.0 SDKs (as of Oct 2020).

It is obviously undesirable to break existing installations, and so it is possible to run encoder in a compatible mode (enabled by default for new and upgrade installs) to ensure old clients can continue to view version 8.0 encoders. Once you are sure all viewing clients have been upgraded to version 8, you can switch the encoder to enhanced mode to take full advantage of version 8.0.

Compatible mode maintains nearly all of the benefits of version 8.0, with the following limitations:

The audio settings have also been simplified, reducing the settings to two simple choices:

EdgeVis V8 now dynamically adjusts the audio bitrate based on live network conditions.

Low/Medium/High dictates the minimum proportion of bandwidth the encoder should allocate to the audio from the chosen maximum bandwidth. Higher settings ensure, should the available live bandwidth drop, that more bandwidth is reserved for the audio.

Note:

A limitation of version 7 is that the bandwidth/quality mechanisms operated differently, depending on where configuration was performed:

Setting a setting in one interface did not necessarily translate cleanly to the other.

Version 8.0 now presents the same interface options to EdgeVis Server and Client users. While a few administrator options (channel caps and audio channels) are restricted to the EdgeVis Server management interface, all end-user options are mirrored across both environments.

Version 8.0 introduces a number of significant updates to the EdgeVis alarm system:

These enhancements extend the number of use cases EdgeVis alarming can be deployed.

Currently alarm rules assume a sterile zone… meaning any
detection should be reported to a user. Version 8.0 adds a
scheduling capability to cater for more use cases (e.g. offices
with set opening hours).

You can now set a schedule of when all enabled alarm rules
should be armed/disarmed. It is possible to create two types
of template within a domain:

The default setting is Always armed with no exceptions, but you can
set a new default weekly and expectation schedule on a domain-basis,
and/or specify a specific schedule on an encoder-by-encoder basis.

Notes:

For users who have Safezone-2D (SZ-2D) licences, version 8.0 includes a number of significant upgrades. Firstly Safezone-2D can now operate in one of two modes:

Additionally SZ-2D can now trigger on objects entering a scene, or (new for V8) for
objects remaining stationary in a scene. Users can now set a minimum duration to
help eliminate false detections for the local environmental conditions.

Other new false-alarm mitigations are also available, including an out-of-focus filter (to help ignore spiders or water droplets on/in front of lens) and a car headlight filter (to help ignore large brightness spikes caused by a passing car at night).

Notes:

Version 8.0 introduces various encoder improvements to IP Series, HD-Q800 and 4K-R800.

Users can now rename the video stream published by a V8 encoder.
This effectively gives encoders an alias that is displayed in the clients.

In version 8.0 an encoder has both:

By default, the stream name is the same as the encoder name (for both new and upgraded encoders). To change the stream name, click the stream name under the Streaming section when configuring the encoder in EdgeVis Server.

Note:

Version 8.0 improves upon the existing Area of Interest (AoI) feature by adding two new features:

User can now skip the automatic setting of ONVIF settings while adding an IP camera.

When adding an IP camera to an encoder, the encoder will normally
set the IP camera to 1080p, 25/30fps @ 10 Mbps - this is to ensure:

This behaviour can now be disabled by unticking Auto configure ONVIF camera to optimal settings when adding the camera. This allows the user to use the pre-existing camera settings (e.g. to extend recording duration by recording at lower settings to 720p or bitrate to 5 Mbps).

To check the live stream characteristics that the encoder is receiving,
select the desired video input and the current characteristics are
displayed under the Stream Information section.

Note:

Version 8.0 introduces various user interface improvements to the encoder’s web interface:
​

EdgeVis Client’s new features mainly expose the new features described elsewhere in this document, but there are a small number of stand-alone improvements:

First 64-bit release

To support the 4K full-resolution images that can be retrieved from the 4K-R800 EdgeVis Client is now a 64-bit program. This also allows EdgeVis Client to support more open streams and hold more images for full-resolution retrieval on all encoders.

Over 200 user interface tweaks

The interfaces across Windows, iOS and Android have been reviewed and updated to ensure consistent placement of menus, buttons and controls, as well as consistent information/error messages.

Improved auto-update of available encoders

Existing clients would auto hide/show encoders automatically when they become offline/online. Version 8.0 extends this to automatically update the asset list when:

Note:

The following sections outline:

Version 8.0 drops all support for V6 encoder firmware and clients. While some older components may continue to connect to a version 8.0 infrastructure this is not recommended and is not supported.

EdgeVis Server 8.0 compatibility

EdgeVis Client 8.0 compatibility

Version 8.0 firmware is available for

Digital Barriers appreciate that some customers are unable to upgrade to version 8.0 and will continue to allow customers to download the last supported versions of the 7.3 releases.

Available from our Legacy Resources Center

Apple App Store

Note: