Network Optix

HD Witness 101 – Recording Schedule

Network Optix — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:17:55 +0000

Setting up a recording schedule has never been easier. Check out our latest HD Witness 101 demo video on how to set up, modify and duplicate a recording schedule in a matter of seconds.

Keep in mind that a license is required to be able to record.

HD Witness 101 – License Activation

Network Optix — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:24:27 +0000

For those of you that are starting to follow our series of short demo and training videos, here is the next one focusing on hassle-free license activation. Keep in mind that in order to be able to record, you need a recording license (one license per camera). Additional licenses can be purchased through one of our authorized dealers. Our licenses come with free upgrades and no annual maintenance fees.

Introducing HD Witness 101

Network Optix — Fri, 03 May 2013 22:25:10 +0000

Network Optix team is introducing a series of short training and demonstration videos we are calling HD Witness 101. The videos will focus on the app’s many exciting features and capabilities. These short videos will demonstrate the ease of using HD Witness, highlight its unique UI, illustrate its many features and help surveillance professionals install, configure and manage the application with ease.

Here is the first of our many short videos focusing on custom layouts. Stay tuned as we continue to evolve our technology and its feature set. Make sure to follow us on the HD Witness Facebook page for more updates.

HD WITNESS V1.5 HAS JUST BEEN RELEASED

Network Optix — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 06:39:24 +0000

Exactly one year from the date HD Witness was first launched, Network Optix is proud to present HD Witness Version 1.5. Our latest in a series of product breakthroughs and advancements in surveillance video management. With its evolution has come user success stories from around the globe as well as strategic partnerships with some terrific companies.

With this release we have added several major new features, the biggest of which is our new Events, Alerts & Notification system. As is our custom, we focused on building a very strong engine behind the entire feature that can power it as it grows into a major component of our entire system, while simultaneously making sure it was more intuitive and user friendly than any prior. Here’s a shot of what the interface for the full Events, Alerts & Notification system.

This new feature allows you to configure the system to provide visible alerts as well as email users based based upon events including motion detection, network conflicts, drive or storage failure, camera disconnection or failure and even camera relays.

The email Notification system is remarkably simple to set up and at initial launch, prompts you with alerts to configure the email sending system as well as entering users emails into the expanded user profiles and settings.

Network Optix recently partnered up at a strategic level with Digital Watchdog. A North American leader in analog surveillance cameras and DVR’s, Digital Watchdog has sold hundreds of thousands of DVR’s in the United States and Canada with systems installed in some of the largest government, retail, education and industrial customers in both countries. In the past year they have moved quickly into the IP Video community with the release of their Blackjack NVR’s powered by DW Spectrum. Their primary DVR line; the VMAX Series, is now fully integrated into HD Witness as well as DW Spectrum. Now thousands, if not tens of thousands of Digital Watchdog VMAX DVR customers across the US and Canada have a simple and exciting way to easily migrate their existing analog surveillance system directly into the advanced world of IP Megapixel surveillance and manage them through the hottest new VMS software available.

With the advancements in our analog integration comes an exciting addition to our licensing model. When HD Witness (or DW Spectrum) detects the addition of analog cameras, whether through the VMAX DVR line or utilizing one of our integrated analog encoders such as Axis or Vivotek, a new analog license can be used to allow recording and streaming. Our full professional licenses can still be used if you already have them installed however the new analog licenses which are sold in packs of 4 channels each can be purchased for half the price per channel of our already low priced professional licenses.

There is a long list of cool new features and upgrades and we will be showing them all (plus a few sneak peaks at upcoming features) at the ISC West show in Las Vegas next week. We will be conducting demonstrations and customer meetings at our smaller booth #1062 or you can see one of the non-stop demonstrations on a much bigger video wall at Digital Watchdog’s booth #6075. Please contact us soon if you would like to set up a meeting at the show.

More information regarding this big release will be coming in blog posts and video demonstrations in the coming few days. You can download and upgrade to the latest version right now though. Only takes a minute and many exciting new features and capabilities await you.

Download HD Witness V1.5 in Windows or Linux here: HD Witness V1.5

HD Witness V1.4

Network Optix — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:58:15 +0000

The HD Witness v1.4 version delivers more power, more features and a wider range of hardware integration that now includes Digital Watchdog’s new Blackjack NVR IP solution, the entire line of Arecont Vision cameras and all the D-Link cameras capable of dual-streaming.

The new exciting features of v1.4 include:

An advanced Android client
64x architecture version for Windows
Multi-video export with embedded player
On-demand help system
Global time synchronization
Video export with rendered time-stamps
Ability to use public IP for media server
Automatic system updates and more

To download this new version, choose from one the following: WINDOWS and LINUX. As always, FOUR FREE LICENSES are included.

Android Client

Here are a few snapshots of our cool new Android UI. Download HD Witness Android App on Google Play and start streaming directly to your mobile device. You will be surprised to how easy it is to navigate through the app thanks to our wonderful development team who always look for innovative ideas to streamline the user experience.

MULTI-VIDEO EXPORT WITH EMBEDDED PLAYER

The multi-video export feature allows users to export videos and layouts as a single file and play it back with FF/REW, SmartMotion search, thumbnails and other controls. Files can be saved as .nov, .exe and “read only”. Follow these steps to try this cool new feature.

STEP 1: Select videos and right-click to Export Multi-Video.

STEP 2: Select the desired format.

EMBEDDED HELP SYSTEM

No more flipping through hundreds of pages of user manuals! Now you can find all of the answers you are looking for from within the application by using our new on-demand help system. Simply select the question icon located in the top right corner and click on the desired element to get the right answers.

STEP 1: Select the question icon (?) located in the right top corner of the application window, then click on any element within the current layout to view all the relevant support information (available in both Windows and Linux).

STEP 2: An html window will open to display all the relevant to the search information. You can also browse through the library (see the menu tree located on the left) to learn more on other features and controls.

VIDEO EXPORT WITH RENDERED TIMESTAMPS

This feature, commonly used in daily operations for seeking deeper forensic analysis, has been re-engineered by our team dramatically to provide for a better and much more efficient user experience (UX). In standard VMS applications, the time to export video with rendered time-stamps can be time-consuming. This is why our team has created a much more efficient path to achieving same results in a matter of seconds.
Note: the export required transcoding on client, which might cause delays, a slight decrease in quality and an overall increase in processor load up to 100% during export.

STEP 1: Select the desired time range and right-click on Export Selected Area.

STEP 2: Select the desired format. Two quick steps and it’s done!

AUTOMATIC SYSTEM UPDATES

Lastly, the new v1.4 release includes automatic system updates, so whenever there is an update, the system will automatically detect it and prompt the user to initiate the upgrade.

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION

HD Witness v1.4 is available in both Windows and Linux (64x and 86x versions). The application comes with four unrestricted camera licenses that users can keep permanently without any restrictions or time constraints.

Network Optix On Display At Security China In Beijing

Network Optix — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 05:02:54 +0000

Version 1.4 (beta) of our technology was showing off its draw power in Beijing last week at the Security China trade show. Our partner nnodal was demonstrating it at their station in the Axis booth to non-stop crowds.

HD Witness V1.3 Available For Immediate Download

Network Optix — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:40:28 +0000

Version 1.3 of our increasingly popular HD Witness® is now available for immediate download and/or upgrade. Upgrading from a previous version takes even less than the one minute required for a new and full install. Just download and run the installer and the app will take care of the rest. All of your settings should remain exactly as you left them.

HD WItness Download

This is our biggest minor release yet and it is packed with cool new features. It also introduces our new Linux Client and Web Client. Our Linux Server and Client can be downloaded from our HD Witness for Linux page. Both of our clients and servers are cross-connectable so you can use them in any combination you wish.

Our new Web Client and Server is a fantastic addition to the HD Witness platform and opens up a world of new applications for our technology. Our web server can dynamically transcode up to 720p HD resolution and a live stream can easily be embedded into any website or other thin client application. The addition of our new Linux Client opens up a new realm of embedded appliance applications.

We have added controls for PTZ (Onvif supported), manual camera addition for Onvif cameras that do not auto-detect, admin-definable permissions for viewers, an amazing new thumbnail time search feature, panic recording, system health monitoring, new calendar search capabilities and much more. All of the new features and upgrades are listed in our V1.3 Release Notes. We have also put together a Quick Reference Guide (and Hot Key Cheat Sheet) that will help make it easier to learn all the cool new things our app can do as well as tips on features that have been in for a while.

We are looking forward to feedback on all the new features from our currently installed user base and global network of testers and demonstrators. We are planning a fast turnaround to V1.4 that will have new features added but will also have highly advanced software and hardware acceleration upgrades. Upgrades that will take our already extremely powerful yet lightweight architecture to new levels of performance on off-the-shelf and embedded hardware appliances.

To become part of the community of partners, testers, customers and influencers of Network Optix technology, then join us on Facebook and Linked In to keep up to date and provide open feedback. As many of our users already know, our team is adding features and capabilities at a scorching pace and we are always looking for more insight into what would make HD Witness continue to evolve as the hottest, most useful, most intuitive VMS ever built.

Help us spread the word by Sharing this post with the +Share button below and stay tuned for our soon to be released Android App.

Below are some useful links

HD Witness – Quick Reference Guide (cheat sheet edition)

HD Witness – Linux Support Page

HD Witness V1.3 – Release Notes

Coming soon… HDWitness.com on its own website

HD Witness V1.2 – ONVIF Edition

Network Optix — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 10:42:35 +0000

Network Optix is happy to announce the release of HD Witness V1.2. Completed less than two months after our previous release, V1.2 is a major achievement in advancing our enterprise video platform. Network Optix is now a proud member of the Open Network Video Interface Forum, or Onvif for short. Our flagship Enterprise Video Management Platform; HD Witness now fully conforms with all versions of the Onvif standard in our V1.2 product release available for immediate download.

The Onvif standard has quickly become the dominant standard in the IP surveillance industry and is rapidly evolving and expanding its user and member base. New camera models are being added to the list of compliant products every week and even older camera models are being retrofitted to accommodate the standard at a high rate. We have tested our Onvif integration with multiple different camera lines (as is required by the standard) and we’re eager to test HD Witness with any and every Onvif compliant camera on the market we can get our hands on. So far our testing has included Axis, Sony, D-Link, Brickcom and Digital Watchdog and a small handful of others.

ATTN: Onvif camera manufacturers: Get in touch with us so we can test and certify your cameras into HD Witness Video Management Platform for full and deep feature integration. Our Onvif integration takes advantage of Onvif compliant dual streaming capability. In doing so, all dual-streaming Onvif cameras can now utilize our advanced server-side motion detection and motion smart search system as well as efficiently operating within our enterprise bandwidth optimization engine.

In HD Witness V1.2 we have made major upgrades to that above mentioned server-side software motion search and sensitivity masking system. In our previous release we had introduced its capabilities only with Axis cameras. Now in V1.2 it is available on all Onvif dual streaming cameras. We made significant improvements to the sensitivity and zone settings and we further optimized the already minimal processor utilization algorithm.

Audio Recording
We have also now added the ability to record audio from all integrated cameras with microphones. Since HD Witness is also a full media player, it already has built in audio synchronization capabilities which will be further improved in later versions. This also works with our Onvif integration and should work for all Onvif cameras with integrated microphones as well. We have tested it with several however we look forward to feedback from testing with many more.

Thumbnails
An advanced thumbnail reviewing system has been added to our pan-temporal timeline. The thumbnails are sampled evenly and dynamically from the amount of archive defined within the timeline view. They can be expanded in size, seamlessly scrolled through and turn on and off with a single click.

There were several other general purpose upgrades and improvements. SSL is now being used for all system components giving even greater security to the overall system. You can also now set the system to record in full resolution during motion and continue recording in lower resolution when no motion is present. This gives the ability to record seamless full-frame rate video 24/7 while reducing the storage requirements dramatically at times of little to no activity in the scene.

All in all, HD Witness V1.2 is a big jump forward in the product’s ongoing evolution. It is without question the most powerful free enterprise video management system on the market. It takes less than two minutes to download and install, will auto-discover all of your cameras and comes pre-licensed for recording up to four cameras ABSOLUTELY FREE!. What are you waiting for? Download HD Witness now!

For more information regarding:
Integration with HD Witness email: integration@networkoptix.com
To become a reseller email us at: sales@networkoptix.com
For partnering opportunities email: info@networkoptix.com

Or you can always call us at our new toll free number: 800-376-1170

HD Witness® v1.1 Has Arrived

Network Optix — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:12:46 +0000

The Network Optix team is proud to announce the completion of HD Witness® v1.1. It took a few extra days but the results are well worth it. This release is jam-packed with cool new stuff including our much awaited Ubuntu Linux Media Server edition. Now it’s easier than ever to run our hyper-efficient serving architecture on even lower cost off-the-shelf hardware of any performance capacity. We ran our Linux Server recording 16 multi-megapixel surveillance cameras at maximum frame rates and as high as 20mp resolution on a Intel Gen1 Atom Dual Core processor while simultaneously playing back the archive of all 16 cameras at max frame rate and the server still had lots of processing power to spare. The performance of HD Witness® is off the charts and since we give it away absolutely free, I challenge any and all out there download it and to prove us wrong.

Other awesome editions to HD Witness® V1.1 include our new state-of-the-art server-side motion detection and motion sensitivity configuration. Not only is it incredibly simple to use and configure, it is extremely powerful in its capabilities. Even more amazing is that all this power comes with negligible impact on the server-side CPU utilization. Meaning this feature could easily be used on the hardware configuration described in the paragraph above. Finally, this feature is available for use on many of our integrated cameras and going forward in the future will be available The screen capture clearly illustrate the detail and level of granularity in sensitivity masking that can easily be configured. The layout to the left took me less than a minute to define and deploy within that image.

The white box surrounding the ceiling fan represents a complete motion mask out ignoring that entire segment and the other areas define varying levels of sensitivity settings the user can deploy. Remember this whole defined space and scene settings took me under a minute to define and then screen capture it for use in this post.

Also in this release we have added support for: Axis Video Encoders, Sony IP/HD Surveillance cameras and the COLDSTORE storage array from Veracity UK.

We have made some a major upgrade to our pan-temporal timeline as well. Display for ‘all cameras’ archive history as well as the selected cameras separated archive and motion history. The days are now color-differentiated and rendering out footage within a selected segment of the timeline has never been easier. Now you can just right-click and drag the cursor across the time space you want to render into a clip.

We’ve also upgraded our clip rendering capabilities in many ways as well, not the least of which is the additional to a watermark encryption and authentication system on all rendered clip footage. Now you can also render your clips in either .AVI format or in .MKV format with watermark authentication for both.

We have added port forwarding for setting up camera viewing across different subnets. For those that have been asking for remote viewing servers, now we can get them set up. If you’d like to set up your own remote view server, just let us know and we’d be happy to assist.

Finally, in a major move towards our goal of total cloud portability, we have added drag-n-drop device management within the enterprise. If a camera is configured on one server with full archive and motion settings, you can now just drag and drop that camera from one server in the file tree to another and all the settings will be maintained and the camera will begin archiving on its new server. But the archive from both or all locations it has been recording to throughout your enterprise will be seamlessly joined in the client’s pan-temporal timeline display and review. This will lead us into a whole new world of server clustering, auto load-balancing, system failover capabilities and endless cloud storage scenarios.

We were unable to complete full Onvif integration for this release and we are still awaiting our membership approval besides. We will be releasing HD Witness® V1.2 shortly on the heels of Friday’s release and it will include full Onvif support as well as some other cool features we couldn’t squeeze into this release. For more detailed release notes, click here: HD Witness® V1.1 Release Notes

Remember, HD Witness® is ABSOLUTELY FREE to download in its full and complete glory. It even comes pre-loaded with the first four licenses free and ready for a one-click activation. Additional licenses can be purchased from any authorized dealer.

To become an Authorized Dealer, simply apply here: How to Buy

Best regards from the whole team here at Network Optix. As always we welcome your comments and feedback. Stay tuned for more great things right around the corner.

HD Witness Linux Server is Here

Network Optix — Sun, 06 May 2012 03:02:48 +0000

We have completed development work on our full Linux Media Server. The HD Witness Server can now be installed on hardware running Linux Ubuntu 10.04 to 11.10. It flew through testing with flying colors (as any good cross-platform architecture should) and it is ready earlier than we expected and can be deployed for HD Witness V1.0 installs. We have not posted the download publicly on the site yet, however you can request a copy from via our Support Portal or by contacting sales@networkoptix.com directly. When we release HD Witness V1.1 in the very near future we will have both Windows and Linux versions available for easy public download. And we will soon be hard at work on adding a full Linux client and of course support for other major OS’ as well.

What to look for in HD Witness V1.1 soon…

Full support for ONVIF™ discovery, streaming and archiving.

Full support for COLDSTORE, the very cool storage solution from Veracity. The HD Witness Media Server (both Linux and Windows) will be able to record directly to this hyper-efficient storage solution from our friends at Veracity. We will be working to evolve our direct-to-storage model we illustrated with TRINITY – VSE for full-featured use with COLDSTORE in the upcoming months.

Additional features such as watermark authentication on exported footage, the ability to also export in AVI format or in .MKV format, support for the first analog encoders, zoom window creation, pan-temporal timeline enhancements… And the list goes on. Rest assured we’re keeping some of the best details about the release in reserve until we’re ready to announce it.

We expect to release HD Witness v1.1 on May 14th if all goes to plan. Early beta version will be available by the 10th for our partners and beta test teams. As mentioned above, if you need to try the Linux Server version for the current version, just let us know and we’ll get you a copy for testing.