If the text "Could not connect" appears instead of a video image, that means SmartBot Video could not access your camera.

• The camera may be rebooting. In that case, the image may reappear after 30 seconds or so.
• You can click the link in the middle of the screen that says view your camera from your browser. This launches your default browser and attempts to find the configuration website of your camera.
• If you can connect to the website, that means that the settings are correct and your camera is working properly, but SmartBot Video cannot access it. The most common cause might be that the user name or password entered in the previous screen is incorrect. Otherwise, it might be an intermittent network problem, where clicking Back and Next to retry the connection might work. Or it could be some random state where rebooting the computer and trying again will work.

• If you cannot connect to the website, that suggests the problem is somewhere between the camera and the network, such as:
• The camera is not powered on or is malfunctioning.
• Note that your computer needs to be on the same network as your camera. If you set up your camera on a laptop and took the laptop to a different location outside the range of your Wi-Fi network, you will not be able to see your camera (even if you have Internet access on that computer using a different Wi-Fi network).

• Enter a Camera location name, which is used in various places by SmartBot Video. For example, when looking for video clips, it might be easier to choose between "Front yard" and "Backyard" than it would to choose between "Camera 1" and "Camera 2."
• To change this camera location name after quitting the setup assistant, select Tools > Edit Camera Location.

• Plugging your network camera into your router, and finding its IP address on the network
• Going to the configuration website of your camera and entering your Wi-Fi network name and password, so it can be downloaded to your camera
• Disconnecting your camera and verifying you can now find it wirelessly
• Assigning a DNS hostname, or assigning a fixed IP address to your camera and reserving that address on your router

• First, connect your camera to your router using an Ethernet cable. It is important that your camera is on the same subnet of your network as your computer. Details here.
• Then plug in the power of your camera. It is important to do this after connecting the Ethernet cable.




• Use some software to discover where your camera is on your network, and the IP address you need to talk to it. Options include:
• The setup utility (IP Finder) that came with your camera typically has a view that shows a list of discovered cameras.




• Go to your router configuration software and look for a screen that displays the IP addresses of attached DHCP clients. This may be called something like "DHCP Clients Table" or "Attached devices." If you can't tell which IP address is the camera, look for a MAC address, which is printed on your camera or contained in the packaging of your camera.
• One method is to hook the computer directly to the camera with an Ethernet cable, and temporarily set the IP address of the computer so it can find the camera's default IP address. Instructions can be found here.

• Select Wireless connect to the network, and you will be asked to click set up wireless via camera browser which will be displayed as below.





• Please follow the step to select Wireless router you have and select encryption mode and make a connection if you prefer to use DHCP. However, you may disable DHCP and manually assign an IP address to the camera to connect the wireless router.
• After you connecting, you may close the browser window and follow the SmartBot setup procedure to name the camera location and unplug Ethernet wire and mount the camera to the desire location.

• Disconnect the camera's Ethernet cable
• Unplug the camera.
• Plug the camera back in and verify that you are still connected by going to the "live view" section of the camera's configuration website or SmartBot live viewer.
• Your camera may take up to a minute or more to reboot, during which time you will not be able to access it.

• Find an IP address in the reserved range (outside of the DHCP range). Refer to your router's user manual to find out how to do this, but usually there is a section that refers to "dynamic IP range," or "DHCP beginning address end addresses," with a series of IP address numbers (e.g.,192.168.11.2 to 192.168.11.200). This refers to the range of addresses the router assigns to devices, and therefore you cannot use. In this example, it is safe to use addresses outside of this range, i.e., 192.168.11.201 to 192.168.11.254.
• If there are none available, you need to modify the range of reserved IP addresses to increase the number of available addresses.
• Once you have found an IP address that you know is in the reserved range, and not dedicated to another device, write it down and proceed to the next step (assigning that IP address to your camera).

1. Please use IP finder to find out what is the camera current IP address is.
2. Find an IP address to assign to your camera that will work with your network. You need to find a static IP on your router that you know will not be used. In addition, you need to make sure that you assign an address outside of the reserved range of DHCP addresses that your router can assign. This involves opening your wireless router software or web page and doing the following:
• Find an IP address in the reserved range (outside of the DHCP range). Refer to your router's user manual to find out how to do this, but usually there is a section that refers to "dynamic IP range," or "DHCP beginning address end addresses," with a series of IP address numbers (e.g.,192.168.11.2 to 192.168.11.200). This refers to the range of addresses the router assigns to devices, and therefore you cannot use. In this example, it is safe to use addresses outside of this range, i.e., 192.168.11.201 to 192.168.11.254.
• If there are none available, you need to modify the range of reserved IP addresses to increase the number of available addresses.
• Once you have found an IP address that you know is in the reserved range, and not dedicated to another device, write it down and proceed to the next step (assigning that IP address to your camera).
3. To connect a computer directly to a device, the wiring on the Ethernet cable has to be different. You need to either a special cable (called a "crossover" Ethernet cable, because it crosses two of the wires) or a computer that supports a feature called "Auto-MDIX" (which means the computer can detect and cross the signals from those wires automatically). You can verify this by finding your computer's detailed specifications. All currently shipping Macintosh models support this feature (for details, see Apple's support site.)
4. Next, temporarily change the IP address of your computer to force it to be on the same subnet as your camera's default IP address.
• On different versions of Windows the steps vary, but the general idea is to do the following:
• IMPORTANT: Determine the IP address of your computer and write it down, because you will temporarily change it.
• Find Local Area Connection in the Control panel.
• Find a properties tab and change Obtain an IP address automatically to Use the following IP address.
• In the IP address field, enter the same IP address as the default camera address BUT change the last digit to 10. For example, the default IP Address for an Axis camera is 192.168.0.90, so you would enter 192.168.0.10. You would enter the same value for a Panasonic camera, which has a default IP address of 192.168.0.253.
• Enter 255.255.255.0 for the Subnet mask
• Connect your camera. Plug one end of an Ethernet cable into the camera, and the other into your computer's Ethernet port.
• Plug your camera into a power source.
• Open your web browser and type in the default IP address where you would normally type a website's name, with the "http://" but without the "www." For example, if the default IP address was 192.168.0.90, you would enter http://192.168.0.90.
• This will take you to the configuration web page of your camera. You will be asked to create a password and probably given a default user ID.
• On this web page, find the section that lets you assign an IP address to your camera.
• Assign the IP address that you determined in step 2 above.
• Unplug your camera from your computer, and unplug it from the power source.
• Change the IP address of your computer back to what it originally was.
• On Macintosh computers
• Go to System Preferences > Network
• IMPORTANT: write down what the current IP address is, because you will temporarily change it.
• Select Ethernet (called "Built-in Ethernet" on some versions)
• Set the Configure pop-up (or "Configure IPv4") to Manually
• In the IP address field, enter the same IP address as the default camera address BUT change the last digit to 10. For example, the default IP Address for an Axis camera is 192.168.0.90, so you would enter 192.168.0.10. You would enter the same value for a Panasonic camera, which has a default IP address of 192.168.0.253.
• Enter 255.255.255.0 for the Subnet mask
• Connect your camera. Plug one end of an Ethernet cable into the camera, and the other into your computer's Ethernet port.
• Plug your camera into a power source.
• Open your web browser and type in the default IP address where you would normally type a website's name, with the "http://" but without the "www." For example, if the default IP address was 192.168.0.90, you would enter http://192.168.0.90.
• This will take you to the configuration web page of your camera. You will be asked to create a password and probably given a default user ID.
• On this web page, find the section that lets you assign an IP address to your camera.
• Assign the IP address that you determined in step 2 above.
• Unplug your camera from your computer, and unplug it from the power source.
• Change the IP address of your computer back to what it originally was.

• SmartBot Video sets aside a certain amount of disk space to store two types of video:
• Saved video clips
• Any event that is marked to be saved by a rule is kept as long as disk space is available.
• When you run out of disk space, the oldest clips are deleted.
• Rules that save clips are indicated by the save icon appearing next to the rule, in the Monitor View and Search View filter list (shown here)
:
• If you select a rule in the filter list that saves clips, the clips saved by that rule are displayed as blue marks in the video clip timeline.
• Temporary video
• In addition to saved clips, all video is recorded and saved for a temporary period of time, then deleted.
• The default amount of temporary video is 48 hours (possibly less, because video with more motion takes more disk space).
• Temporary video that contains no detected motion is always displayed in green in the video clip timeline in the Search View . Temporary video that contains detected motion will be displayed in blue if it matches the criteria of the selected rule, otherwise it is displayed in green.
• In addition, you can save any individual clip permanently by selecting it in the Search view and choosing Tools > Export Clip....
• To change the amount of video stored, you can set the following
  • Total amount of disk space used for video. Change the number that appears after the text "To store video, don't user more than."
  • Amount of temporary video stored. Edit the number that appears after the text "Temporarily keep all video for up to."
• Tips for managing video storage
• In general, it is more efficient to allocate less space to temporary video, which frees up more space for saved clips. That’s because if your rules accurately capture events of interest, nothing particularly important is happening in the rest of the temporary video. For example, if you average one hour of saved clips per day, then reducing the amount of temporary video by one day can give you three more weeks of saved clips (and vice versa). On the other hand, temporary video is useful if it’s important to have backup of video where objects may have been missed (e.g., in scenes of night or dark shadows).
• You can save space by scheduling the camera to only run at certain times, which is described here.
• When you set up a camera, a rule is automatically created to save all clips of moving objects. If you want to create more specific rules, it is recommended to add a new rule rather than modify the original rule. That way, you have a backup of all detected motion.
• If you delete or modify the default rule to record fewer objects, however, you can still search for any object recorded in the temporarily saved video. These objects are labeled "temporary video (not saved by a rule)" in the results list of the Search view. The only difference is that they will be deleted when the temporary video time period expires, which is usually sooner than when saved clips will be deleted.
• IMPORTANT: Saving video at high resolution (Basic and Pro Edition only)
• If you save video at a higher resolution, the amount of video you can save in the same amount of disk space decreases significantly.
• As a result, if you use a higher resolution, it is recommended to increase the total amount of disk space used for video.
• Depending on your camera and how much activity is in the scene, a gigabyte of disk space should store roughly the following amounts of video (note that very dark scenes can generate video artifacts that make them equivalent to "busy" scenes):
• 2.5 to 3 hours of QVGA (320 x 240)
• 45 minutes of VGA (640 x 480)
• 15 minutes of XGA (1024 x 768)
• 10 minutes of SXGA (1280 x 1024)

• How clips are created
  • Each clip starts five seconds before the event that triggers the rule (e.g., person crossing a boundary), and ends 10 seconds after. The extra ten seconds allows you to see what happens after the trigger event occurs (e.g., what a person did after coming in a room).
  • If a second object appears before the first object moves out of view, the clip is continued until the second object moves out of view. This continues if more objects appear before previous objects disappear.
  • Note that in the search results list, you do not see video duplicated between clips (for example, you won't see the end of one clip contain the same video as the beginning of the next clip).
• External video storage
• SmartBot Video looks for video in a specific directory location.
• You can change this location, for example to use an external hard disk or server.
• Click "Move video..." in the Options dialog (Preferences dialog on Mac OS) to reassign your video directory. You can either move the files that you already have (which can take several hours if you have gigabytes of video), or delete the original files and start with a new location.

• Telling SmartBot Video the user name and password you use to access your camera
• Testing your camera feed
• Giving your camera location a name

• If you are reading this section of the Reference Guide, you should be on the Choose setup method screen displayed below.
• If not, you can click your browser's back button to return to the last screen you were viewing, or go back to the beginning of the setup instructions.
• Select the option to Manually specify the address of a network camera.
• Enter the IP address you used to set up your camera.
• You can find this information in the configuration website or software you used to set up your camera.
• Do not type "http://" before the IP address.
• If you have set up a plain English name for your camera (using what is called a DNS hostname), you can enter that text instead of the IP address.
• If you have changed the port assignment of your camera, enter the new port number in the Port box. This is most likely if you have set up port forwarding or advanced network management. If not, leave this box blank (the default value is 80).
• Enter the user name and password that you currently use to access your camera into SmartBot Video. (This is not for the creation of a new user name and password.)
• The set up assistant now attempts to access your camera on the network using the user name and password you entered. This may take a few seconds, or it may take up to 30 seconds or more. The blue box in the middle of the screen should change from saying "Connecting..." to displaying an image of your camera's view.

• Enter a Camera location name, which is used in various places by SmartBot Video. For example, when looking for video clips, it might be easier to choose between "Front yard" and "Backyard" than it would to choose between "Camera 1" and "Camera 2."
• To edit a camera location name after quitting the setup assistant, select Tools > Edit Camera Location.

• Once you have set up your camera, you can see a live view of what the camera is recording in the main camera pane (3). If you have not yet set up your camera, see the Getting started.
• IMPORTANT: your computer must be on to record videos. Recording will continue in the background if you quit the SmartBot Video application, but will be stopped if your computer sleeps or shuts down. Make sure your computer is not set to go to sleep after periods of inactivity. Instructions how to disable automated sleep settings on your computer are here.
• To switch your camera between off and on, click the green power icon (4).
• If your camera is on but disconnected from your PC, SmartBot Video will attempt to reconnect periodically. If you want to attempt to reconnect manually, right-click the main camera pane and select Reconnect.
• Below the main camera pane is a list of "rules" (5). A rule is a filter for video clips based on a set of criteria that you select.
• The default rule is to record and save any object seen anywhere, at any time, but more specific criteria can be set using the Rule editor. For example, you can record any object that crosses a line, or people coming through a door.
Click a rule to see options to edit, delete or add a new rule. To see a list of video clips that meet the criteria of that rule in the Search view, click the magnifying glass icon next to the rule.
• Icons to right of the rule (7) indicate if an action is set up in response to seeing the rule triggered.
• An envelope appears if you have set a notification response for the rule (e.g., send me an email if a person enters the stock room).
• A Save icon appears if you have set up the rule to save a clip when the rule is triggered. These clips will be kept as long as disk there is enough disk space is available. Once a maximum amount of disk space is used, the oldest clips are deleted. You can, however, export any video clip to save it permanently, as described in the Search view section. Also, all video is temporarily saved (up to about 48 hours, depending on available disk space). For details on how video
• files are managed, see the Managing your video section.
To temporarily disable a rule (e.g., stop emails from being sent), uncheck the box on the right.
• If no icons or rule schedule times (6) appear, that means no response has been set up for that rule (e.g., save the video or notify me if an event is seen) . This type of rule is used for finding or filtering video clips in the Search view To set a response, click the text of the rule and select Edit Rule....
• To add a camera, select Add Camera... from the Tools menu. Detailed instructions for adding cameras can be found in the Getting started.
• Basic and Pro Editions only. If you have multiple cameras set up, they are displayed in smaller video panes on the right (8).
• Click on a small window to display it in the main camera pane. The circle next to the name of the camera indicates the power state of the camera. Click the circle to switch between off and on/standby.
• To add, remove or edit camera settings, right-click the camera pane to see a menu of options.
• If you have multiple cameras, if you make the window wider (by clicking and dragging the bottom right corner), you can re-arrange the smaller video panes from a vertical to a horizontal format:

• Scheduling rules
• You may wish to limit the time that rules are processed. For example, you may only wish to be notified by email when your office is closed, or you may not want to not bother recording at night when a scene is too dark. To select the date and time to process rules, click the rule schedule text (6) to see this window :




• Note that the rule schedule text does not appear if you have not set up the rule to record or take other action when an event is seen (these are called "responses"). You can still see the rule and use it to search recorded video clips, but it will not trigger any action, and therefore cannot be scheduled. If a rule has no responses set up, click the text of the rule and select Edit Rule... to display the Rule Editor.
• Arming and turning off multiple cameras (Basic and Pro editions only)
  • If you have multiple cameras set up, you can turn them on all at once by clicking the Arm Cameras button (2).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Select the check boxes of the cameras you wish to be running after you click OK.
  • In the above example, only the three selected cameras will be turned on.
  • Any camera that is not selected in this list will be turned off if it is running. In the above example, let's say you manually turned on all cameras by clicking the On buttons in the Monitor view. If you then click Arm Cameras, the three selected cameras would remain running, and the other cameras would be turned off.
  • You can set a delay for the cameras before they are armed. For example, you might be inside a building and want time to get out before the cameras begin recording and/or sending notification alerts. Select Delay before turning on cameras, and choose an amount of time (e.g., 1 minute). Then if you click Arm cameras, you will see a dialog with a countdown telling you when the cameras will be turned on:
  
  
  
  
  • To turn off all cameras with one step (instead of turning off each camera individually), click Turn Off Cameras.
  
  
  
  
  • To run SmartBot Video automatically when you boot:
  • In Windows, place a copy of the program icon in Start\Programs\Startup.
  • On Mac OS, go to System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items, click the + button to select SmartBot Video.

• If you have changed the user name or password that you use to access your camera, you need to update those settings in this screen for SmartBot Video to continue talking to the camera.
• You can also change the resolution that SmartBot Video uses to save the video files. By default (and in the Starter Edition), all video is reduced to 320 x 240 (QVGA), regardless of what resolution is being streamed from the camera. If your camera is streaming 640 x 480 (VGA) and you want to view and save higher-resolution video on SmartBot Video, you can change the resolution here. If the video does not appear to be recording at the resolution you expect, here are a few important points:
• The Search View displays video in two sizes: 640 x 480 ("Large") and 480 x 360 ("Small"). This is independent of the resolution of the video file. A 320 x 240 video file displayed in Large mode will be zoomed, and a 1280 x 1024 video file will be scaled down to the Large or Small resolution. If you want to see a high-resolution at its native resolution, you can select Export from the Tools menu and view the clip in a video player application.
• Make sure that your camera supports the selected resolution (specifically, not all cameras support the higher resolutions such as 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024).
• Note that you can save your video at a different resolution than the camera is streaming. To change the resolution of your camera, go to the camera configuration website described above. For example if you set your video to be saved at VGA (640 x 480), you should check your camera configuration website to make sure your camera is streaming at VGA rather than QVGA (320 x 240) or lower.
• Selecting higher resolution settings can increase processing and disk space requirements considerably. For resolutions higher than VGA, you may find it necessary to increase the amount of disk space allocated to saving video, which is described in the section Managing Your Video.
• On Windows, aspect ratios of higher resolutions are preserved. For example, the main video panes in the Monitor view and Search View are displayed in a 4:3 aspect ratio. If the video from your camera is not at a 4:3 ratio, black bars will be displayed at the edges of the video. On Mac OS, your video image may be stretched to fit the video pane.
• When analyzing video for recognition processing, SmartBot Video first scales the video to 320 x 240 (QVGA), regardless of the resolution coming in from your camera. In other words, setting your camera to a higher resolution will not change recognition accuracy.

• Edit the location name. Select this if you want to change the camera location name, and are not moving the camera. Remember that camera names are used in the filter video clips in the Search View and to create rules. If you change the camera name and click OK, the old camera name will be replaced by the new camera name in the filter list of the Search view and the camera selected in theRule Editor . Also, existing rules will be updated to use the new camera name.
• Create a new location because I moved my camera. If you are moving the camera, however, it is helpful to rename the camera location so you can keep the old camera name for searching videos recorded at that location. Also, existing rules will remain associated with the previous location name.
• For example, let's say you moved a camera from the lobby to the parking lot. Enter the time you moved it, such as today at 8am. If you go to the Search view any video recorded on that camera before 8am today will appear when you click "Lobby," and any video you recorded after 8am today will appear when you click "Parking lot."
• You can also make these changes after the fact. Let's say that you moved the camera to the parking lot and didn't change any settings. If you went to the Search view the next day and clicked Parking lot, you would see numerous videos of people in your lobby. It would be even more confusing if you created a rule to search for people crossing a line in the parking lot, and it showed you numerous clips of people crossing the equivalent line in the lobby! Fortunately at that point you could edit the camera name and "back date" the time you moved the camera (in this example that would be the previous day). Then your clips would be separated into those recorded in the lobby and those in the parking lot.

• Your computer power settings are set to automatically sleep after a certain period of time. To prevent this, set your computer's power settings to never sleep.
• On Windows XP, select Control Panel > Power Options. On the Power Schemes tab, set System standby and System hibernates to Never.
• On Vista, select Control Panel > Power Options. Click "Change plan settings" for the select power plan, and in the next screen click "Change advanced power settings." Click "Processor power management > Minimum processor state > Setting. Set this at 100%.
• On Mac OS, select System Preferences > Energy Saver. Click the Sleep Tab to see the first setting "Put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for." Set this at "Never."
• An automatic Windows update caused your system to reboot. There is a control panel setting to disable this.
• On Windows XP, select Control Panel > System and select the Automatic Updates tab. Select any option except Automatic.
• On Vista, select Control panel > Windows Update > Change settings. Select any option except "Install updates automatically."
• Note: Mac OS does not install updates automatically.
• If you have a system shared by multiple people and accounts, someone may have logged off the account with SmartBot Video. See Using SmartBot Video more securely on a shared computer.
• If SmartBot Video is still running but it seems video was not recorded, see SmartBot Video didn't record something that happened on my camera.

• On machines that have Fast User Switching enabled, you can have one account that is dedicated to video processing. Leave that account logged in (with a password) and switch to other accounts using Fast User Switching.
• On machines that do not have Fast User Switching enabled, like Windows Server or Windows machines that are on a domain, you can lock the account when unattended. On Windows, this is done by hitting the Windows key + L or selecting Lock from the Start menu.

• The search view is displaying the video from a different day. If you leave SmartBot Video running, it does not automatically change to the current day's video. Check the date above the list of video clips to make sure it is the same day as the event occurred.




• SmartBot Video is no longer running. If you have set up SmartBot Video to record, then returned to your computer to find that nothing was recorded, possible causes include:
• Your computer power settings are set to automatically sleep after a certain period of time. To prevent this, set your computer's power settings to never sleep.
• On Windows XP, select Control Panel > Power Options. On the Power Schemes tab, set System standby and System hibernates to Never.
• On Vista, select Control Panel > Power Options. Click "Change plan settings" for the select power plan, and in the next screen click "Change advanced power settings." Click "Processor power management > Minimum processor state > Setting. Set this at 100%.
• On Mac OS, select System Preferences > Energy Saver. Click the Sleep Tab to see the first setting "Put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for." Set this at "Never."
• An automatic Windows update caused your system to reboot. There is a control panel setting to disable this.
• On Windows XP, select Control Panel > System and select the Automatic Updates tab. Select any option except Automatic.
• On Vista, select Control panel > Windows Update > Change settings. Select any option except "Install updates automatically."
• Note: Mac OS does not install updates automatically.
• The connection to the camera was lost. If you are using a network camera, it may be losing the connection to the network. Possible causes and suggestions can be found here.
• The video quality was too low
  • The captured frame rate may be too low to detect moving objects. If you have video for that time period but no tracked objects, this may be the case. SmartBot Video generally requires 8 frames per second to track objects.
  • The object may be too small to be tracked or may blend into the background (low contrast).
  • The camera is dropping frames
• The camera was not set to record. The default setting is to run all cameras all the time. But if you have changed this setting, click your camera in the Monitor view to see if rules were scheduled to run.
• The check box next to the rule must be selected in order for the rule to be run.
• Check the time the rule is set to record (in other words, if you didn't see something recorded at night, make sure the camera was scheduled to run at that time)

• SmartBot Video sets aside a certain amount of disk space to store two types of video:
• Saved video clips
• Any event that is marked to be saved by a rule is kept as long as disk space is available.
• When you run out of disk space, the oldest clips are deleted.
• Rules that save clips are indicated by the save icon appearing next to the rule, in the Monitor View and Search View filter list (shown here):




• If you select a rule in the filter list that saves clips, the clips saved by that rule are displayed as blue marks in the video clip timeline.
• Temporary video
• In addition to saved clips, all video is recorded and saved for a temporary period of time, then deleted.
• The default amount of temporary video is 48 hours (possibly less, because video with more motion takes more disk space).
• Temporary video that contains no detected motion is always displayed in green in the video clip timeline in the Search View. Temporary video that contains detected motion will be displayed in blue if it matches the criteria of the selected rule, otherwise it is displayed in green.
• In addition, you can save any individual clip permanently by selecting it in the Search view and choosing Tools > Export Clip....
• To change the amount of video stored, you can set the following
• Total amount of disk space used for video. Change the number that appears after the text "To store video, don't user more than."
• Amount of temporary video stored. Edit the number that appears after the text "Temporarily keep all video for up to."
• Tips for managing video storage
• In general, it is more efficient to allocate less space to temporary video, which frees up more space for saved clips. That’s because if your rules accurately capture events of interest, nothing particularly important is happening in the rest of the temporary video. For example, if you average one hour of saved clips per day, then reducing the amount of temporary video by one day can give you three more weeks of saved clips (and vice versa). On the other hand, temporary video is useful if it’s important to have backup of video where objects may have been missed (e.g., in scenes of night or dark shadows).
• You can save space by scheduling the camera to only run at certain times, which is described here.
• When you set up a camera, a rule is automatically created to save all clips of moving objects. If you want to create more specific rules, it is recommended to add a new rule rather than modify the original rule. That way, you have a backup of all detected motion.
• If you delete or modify the default rule to record fewer objects, however, you can still search for any object recorded in the temporarily saved video. These objects are labeled "temporary video (not saved by a rule)" in the results list of the Search view. The only difference is that they will be deleted when the temporary video time period expires, which is usually sooner than when saved clips will be deleted.
• IMPORTANT: Saving video at high resolution (Basic and Pro Edition only)
• If you save video at a higher resolution,the amount of video you can save in the same amount of disk space decreases significantly.
• As a result, if you use a higher resolution, it is recommended to increase the total amount of disk space used for video.
• Depending on your camera and how much activity is in the scene, a gigabyte of disk space should store roughly the following amounts of video (note that very dark scenes can generate video artifacts that make them equivalent to "busy" scenes):
• 2.5 to 3 hours of QVGA (320 x 240)
• 45 minutes of VGA (640 x 480)
• 15 minutes of XGA (1024 x 768)
• 10 minutes of SXGA (1280 x 1024)

• How clips are created
• Each clip starts five seconds before the event that triggers the rule (e.g., person crossing a boundary), and ends 10 seconds after. The extra ten seconds allows you to see what happens after the trigger event occurs (e.g., what a person did after coming in a room).
• If a second object appears before the first object moves out of view, the clip is continued until the second object moves out of view. This continues if more objects appear before previous objects disappear.
• Note that in the search results list, you do not see video duplicated between clips (for example, you won't see the end of one clip contain the same video as the beginning of the next clip).
External video storage
• SmartBot Video looks for video in a specific directory location.
• You can change this location, for example to use an external hard disk or server.
• Click "Move video..." in the Options dialog (Preferences dialog on Mac OS) to reassign your video directory. You can either move the files that you already have (which can take several hours if you have gigabytes of video), or delete the original files and start with a new location.

• The camera firmware is old and needs to be updated.
• The camera hardware itself does not keep a good network connection (some camera models, such as Axis and Panasonic, have better network connectivity in general).
• The Wi-Fi signal at the camera is too weak for the camera to hold a good connection (note that cameras in general need a stronger signal than laptops or PCs do, so your signal might look “good” in the same location on a computer, but still be too weak to keep a camera streaming consistently).

• Place your router at a higher location, such as on a shelf.
• Try moving the camera closer to your router (or vice-versa). If possible, try to minimize the number of walls between the router and the camera (Wi-Fi signals have a hard time getting through walls).
• Electrical interference from a device like a cordless phone or microwave oven can cause the signal to drop. If you suspect this is the problem, you can try to move your camera away from these devices. If the problem stops when you moved the camera away from a cordless phone or similar device, you might consider replacing that device with another one that uses a different frequency.
• Change the channel of your router. Like TV sets, wireless signals are sent on channels. Many products ship with a default channel set to 6. If your neighbors are all on the same channel, you can try using your router software to change the channel to 1 or 11 (farthest away from 6).
• Putting in a repeater or router with a stronger signal.

• The search list (5) displays the video clips that match the selected camera (3) and object or rule filters (4). The list contains videos recorded on the date displayed above the list. Click the arrow icons to change days, or click on the date to show a calendar for selecting a specific day.
• Selecting a camera from the camera list (3) will filter the list to display only clips taken by that camera.
• The quick search filter (4) are useful for paring down what clips are displayed. This list contains:
• Object type filters (All objects, People or Unknown). The default selection is All objects, which means all moving objects that were recorded are displayed in the search list (5). If you select People or Unknown objects, only clips with those object types are displayed.
• Rules. The rules created for the selected camera (described in the Monitor view section) are displayed here. For example, if you click on the rule "People entering the stock room," only clips triggered by that rule are displayed. You can add new rules or edit existing rules by clicking the buttons below the quick search filter list (4). Icons are displayed for rules that have associated responses (such as send an email or record when triggered). This is to alert you that editing the rule will change what is recorded or what notifications are sent
• If you are looking at the current day's videos, you can manually refresh the list by clicking the refresh icon on the top right corner of the list:
• Click on an item in the search list (5) to play it in the video pane (6). Yellow boxes are drawn around objects recognized as people. All other objects have green boxes drawn around them.
• In the Basic or Pro Edition, right-click the video pane (6) to toggle between a large and small video window. Video recorded at the default resolution of 320 x 240 is displayed in the large window as zoomed video (the pixels are larger). For clearer images in the video pane, Basic and Pro Editions owners can save video at 640 x 480 (VGA) resolution. This feature is described in the section on Changing Camera Settings.
• Press the space bar to toggle between play and pause (other keyboard shortcuts are described below). Or use the playback slider (7) and buttons (8) on the right to review the video. The dark blue marks in the playback bar indicate when objects appear or rules are triggered (e.g., when someone walks in a door).
• A video clip timeline (9) below the playback buttons displays a representation of all video taken during the selected day, with a red bar indicating the time of the currently selected clip.
• Blue bars represent the clips in the search list (5).
• Light green represents all other recorded video. For example, if you change the quick search filter (4) from All objects to only People, clips that don't contain people will be shown in the time bar as green.
• You can click in the bar to jump to a time, or even drag the red line to see something like a time-lapse view of your day.
• A large block of green is also seen on the current and previous day. This is because all video is kept up for some period of time as a backup (up to 48 hours, unless you changed this setting), regardless of whether any rules were set to record. For details, see Managing your video. Note that clips matching the current search appear as blue blocks in the timeline, even if they are not associated with any recording rules. In these cases, the text "Not recorded from a rule" is displayed in the search list.

• Creating and editng rules
• You can create rules with very specific search criteria, such as people who walk in a door that is in a location you specify. You can save these searches for later use, and edit them on the fly to quickly filter down large collections of video.
• Create new event rules by clicking the "+" button. The "-" button deletes the selected saved search.
• The Edit and Duplicate buttons let you modify and copy searches, respectively. Search criteria are edited in the Rule Editor.
• Exporting clips.
• Click a clip and select Export... from the Tools menu to save a copy of the clip. This is useful because old clips are automatically deleted when the allocated disk space is filled.
• Deleting clips
• Click a clip and select Delete... from the Tools menu (or press the Delete key) to delete the clip. This presents a dialog that gives you two options:




• Quick delete. This the category labels associated with the objects, so you will no longer be able to search for the clip or see it in your list of clips. But it does not delete the video. This is convenient if you simply want to clean up your list of clips.
• Permanently delete. This action deletes all of the video displayed in the clip, and therefore takes longer to process (particularly if you have many clips selected). This is useful if you want to make sure that video is not seen again.
• You can select multiple clips by pressing Control + click on Windows or Command + click on Mac OS (to add clips to the selected group) or shift + click (to select all clips between two clips).
• To select all clips in the list, select Tools > Select All Clips.
• In addition, if you select Tools > Remove Camera..., you can remove a camera and have the option to delete all clips associated with the camera.
• If you choose to remove a camera but not deleted associated video clips or rules, the camera remains in the list displayed as "inactive."
• Note that the Remove Camera command is grayed out if you have "Any Camera" selected in the Camera drop-down list.

• Click the number to the right of the playback bar (7) to toggle between displaying the remaining time and the duration of the selected clip.
• The playback buttons and associated keyboard shortcuts are, from left to right:
  • Previous clip (up arrow). Selects the clip before the currently viewed clip. If you are in play mode, it starts to play. If you are in pause mode, it stays paused.
  • - 2 seconds (shift + left arrow). Moves back two se conds in the video clip, and stays in the same mode (play or pause).
  • Previous frame (left arrow). Moves back one frame, and pauses the video. Play/pause. Click to switch between Play and Pause. W hen you've finished playing a clip, the button switches to pause mode. Clicking again starts playing the next clip (or the video "cache" between clips if there is any).
  • Next frame (right arrow). Moves forward one frame, and pauses the video.
  • + 2 seconds (shift + right arrow). Moves forward two seconds in the video clip, and stays in the same mode (play or pause).
  • Next clip (down arrow). Selects the clip after the currently viewed clip, and stays in the same mode (play or pause)
• Below the playback buttons is a row playback speeds, from 1/2 speed to 3x speed. Click to change the speed of the video played in the video pane.
• You can click in the light green area in the timeline to play the video at that time point.
• As described above, the blue segments of the timeline represent the clips currently displayed in the list, and the green segments represents recorded video that is not in the currently selected clips. For example, if you have filtered the search list to show only people in a region, video of people outside of the region is displayed in green.
• If you reach the end of a clip that borders on a light green video area, the Play button switches to pause mode. Clicking it again starts to play the video in the green area between clips.

• There are options under the View menu for how the boxes around the detected objects are displayed.
• Show boxes. If you uncheck this option, no boxes will be shown in the large video pane. You still will see boxes in the thumbnails of the clips in the search list, however.
• Show different color boxes. This option is only available if the "Show boxes" option is selected. If you uncheck this option, all boxes are displayed in blue rather than displaying yellow for people and green for other objects. This option simply reduces the visual clutter on the screen.
• Show region zones. If you set up a rule with a region, door or boundary, this option displays the region or boundary in red, as well as the center and bottom center of the moving object. This helps you understand why clips are included in your region rules. In the example below, you can see that the center point of the person is within the red region drawn around the mailbox.

• Space = switch between play and pause
• Up/down = select previous/next clip in list
• Left/right = previous/next frame. Tip: pressing and holding advances and accelerates playback speed.
• Shift + left/right = go back/forwards 2 seconds
• Shift + up/down = select top/bottom clip in list.
• Control + left/right (Command + left/right on Mac OS) = go to previous/next triggered event (blue mark in the playback bar) or beginning/end of clip
• Control + up/down (Command + up/down on Mac OS) = goes to previous/next day of clips.
• Enter = replay from the first dark blue mark
• Control + A (Command + A on Mac OS) = select all clips (for quick deletion).

• If you have changed the user name or password that you use to access your camera, you need to update those settings in this screen for SmartBot Video to continue talking to the camera.
• In the Basic and Pro Editions, you can also change the resolution that SmartBot Video uses to save the video files. By default (and in the Starter Edition), all video is reduced to 320 x 240 (QVGA), regardless of what resolution is being streamed from the camera. If your camera is streaming 640 x 480 (VGA) and you want to view and save higher-resolution video on SmartBot Video, you can change the resolution here. If the video does not appear to be recording at the resolution you expect, here are a few important points:
• The Search View displays video in two sizes: 640 x 480 ("Large") and 480 x 360 ("Small"). This is independent of the resolution of the video file. A 320 x 240 video file displayed in Large mode will be zoomed, and a 1280 x 1024 video file will be scaled down to the Large or Small resolution. If you want to see a high-resolution at its native resolution, you can select Export from the Tools menu and view the clip in a video player application.
• Make sure that your camera supports the selected resolution (specifically, not all cameras support the higher resolutions such as 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024).
• Note that you can save your video at a different resolution than the camera is streaming. To change the resolution of your camera, go to the camera configuration website described above. For example if you set your video to be saved at VGA (640 x 480), you should check your camera configuration website to make sure your camera is streaming at VGA rather than QVGA (320 x 240) or lower.
• Selecting higher resolution settings can increase processing and disk space requirements considerably. For resolutions higher than VGA, you may find it necessary to increase the amount of disk space allocated to saving video, which is described in the section Managing Your Video.
• On Windows, aspect ratios of higher resolutions are preserved. For example, the main video panes in the Monitor view and Search View are displayed in a 4:3 aspect ratio. If the video from your camera is not at a 4:3 ratio, black bars will be displayed at the edges of the video. On Mac OS, your video image may be stretched to fit the video pane.
• When analyzing video for recognition processing, SmartBot Video first scales the video to 320 x 240 (QVGA), regardless of the resolution coming in from your camera. In other words, setting your camera to a higher resolution will not change recognition accuracy.

• This view is accessed when you create or edit a rule in the Monitor View or the Search View
• To define the type of event you wish to find:
• Click theVideo Source block (2) to display a drop-down menu containing the list of available cameras on the right side of the screen.
• A current image from that camera is displayed on the right. Above it the text "Image From:" and a time range is displayed. This indicates an hour range from which the still image was taken. If the image from the current time is too dark to use, for example, you can click the arrows to the left of the time range to display an image from the previous hour. Keep going until you find an image that is suitable.
• Click the Object block labeled "Look for:" (3) to display a drop-down menu to select the object you want to find. You can choose People, Unknown objects (such as vehicles or pets), or Any objects (People and Unknown objects). You can also select "Ignore objects smaller than..." to filter out background objects that are never larger than a certain number of pixels. If an object approaches from the distance and grows large, however, the portions of the video where it is small will also be included.




• Click the Movement block labeled "That are:" (4) to display options for selecting where in the video that object is and how it is moving. Select the location and/or direction of the object you wish to find (e.g., inside or outside a region, crossing a boundary, coming in or out of a door).
• To define an action to take if the defined event is seen in the future:
  • Click the Response block labeled "If seen:" (5) to display options to save, send email notification and/or play a sound when the event occurs in the future. (Basic and Pro Editions provide additional options.)
• A rule name (1) is automatically generated, but if you want to override this with your own rule name you can click the link to "Customize name."
• Click OK to create your rule. It will appear in the list of Quick search filters in the Search View and the Rules list of the Monitor View
• Tip: You can edit a rule to refine searches of recorded video. For example, if on a given day there are too many clips generated by a rule to review efficiently, you can edit the rule to narrow the search further. In the Search View select the rule and click Edit.

• Anywhere. This is the default, and will find the object anywhere in view.
• Region. Select this option to draw an area on the screen in which to look for objects. A rectangle appears on the screen.




• Tip: Right-click on a point to delete it.
• Tip: Right-click on a region to display a menu of undo options, or to reset the region to the original shape.
• Region options. You can choose from the following options:
• Inside a region . Look for objects when the center of the box drawn around them appears inside the region. Note that parts of the person may be in the region, but he or she will not be considered "inside" unless the center point is inside the region (see examples below).
• Outside a region. Look for objects when the center point appears in the area outside of the region.
• Entering a region. Look for objects whose center point crosses from outside the region to inside the region.
• Exiting a region. Look for objects whose center point crosses from inside the region to outside the region.
• Entering or exiting a region. Look for objects that meet either of the previous two criteria.

• On top of a region. Look for objects where the center of the bottom of the box drawn around the object enters a region. This is helpful in cases such as detecting people walking on a lawn, where the center of the box drawn around the person may appear to enter the region because he or she is closer to the camera, even though the person does not walk on the lawn. In the left picture below, the center of the person is inside the gray area by the door, but the bottom is not. As a result, if you used an "inside region" rule, you would get a match. Since the "on top of a region" rule looks for the center of the bottom of the box, you can see that it is outside the gray region. In the right image, the center of the bottom of the box is inside the region, so this image would be interpreted as a person on the gray area by the door.




• Region name. To the right of the drop-down list you can name your region. This is used when automatically creating rule names. For example, if you called your region "my backyard," the rule name changes to something like "People inside my backyard." (1).

• A "response" is an action that is taken when a defined event is seen through one of your cameras.
• Responses are optional. If you create a rule that takes no action, it is the equivalent of a saved search in the Search view to find your defined event in video that has been previously recorded.
• Note that if you create a rule with no response selected, the schedule functionality is disabled. That is because a rule that is not set to do anything will not turn on your camera, so there is nothing to schedule.
• There are two tabs in the Response block:
• Save clips
• Select the My Computer check box to mark the clip to be saved on your computer.
• Video clips generated by this rule will be kept as long as allocated disk space is available.
• When the allocated disk space is filled, the oldest clips are automatically deleted without interrupting recording of new clips.
• To increase the amount of disk space allocated to saving clips and/or temporary video, click the Settings button, which displays the Options dialog (this dialog is called Preferences on Mac OS).
• Tip: the default rule for each camera saves clips of all moving objects. If you do not edit or delete the default rule, it is not necessary to save clips for additional rules, because all objects are being saved already.
• Even if no clips are marked for saving, all recorded video (whether or not motion is detected) is stored temporarily. The default setting is for two days, assuming there is enough overall allocated disk space available. To change the amount of temporary video stored, click the Settings button, which displays the Options dialog (this dialog is called Preferences on Mac OS).
• Note video that was recorded before the rule was created will not be marked for saving after the fact. For example, let's say you have no rules to mark clips for saving, then you record a day of temporary video, and then create a new rule to save clips of people. You can use the rule to find clips of people in the temporary video, but those clips will be deleted when the temporary video is deleted. Those clips are labeled as "Not recorded from a rule." That is why we recommended keeping the default rule for each camera, which saves all motion clips so you don't have to worry about it.
• (Basic and Pro editions only). Select the check box called My FTP server to mark the clip to be uploaded to an FTP site of your choice. An FTP ("file transfer protocol") site is a website where you can store files on a server instead of on your computer.
• Tip: There are numerous websites that offer FTP file hosting. Some offer a free level for a modest amount of disk storage (typically 1 GB). Enter "ftp hosting site" in your search engine to find these sites. These are not to be confused with FTP applications (or "FTP clients"), which are programs used to upload your files to an FTP site. You do not need an FTP application to upload your videos from SmartBot Video because the program handles this for you.
• Click the Settings... button to display settings to configure your FTP site.




• Host: enter the host name of your FTP site.
• Directory: enter the name of the folder on your site where you want your video clips stored.
• Login user ID: enter the user name you use to log in to your FTP site.
• Login password: enter the password you use to log in to your FTP site.
• FTP port number: usually it is OK to leave this at 21.
• Use passive (pasv) mode: this a type of file transfer where communications is initiated by the FTP client rather than the server. It should be selected except for troubleshooting problems with old FTP servers and some unusual firewall situations.
• Test: click this button to send a test file to your FTP site. A dialog will inform you whether or not the test has been successful. If your FTP site generates an error message, it will be displayed in the confirmation dialog you see after clicking Test.
• The video files names are generated from the rule name and the time and date the video was recorded (the same time as appears in the Search list). For example, a file called "Any object in Front Camera 2010-05-26 13-34-40" refers to a clip recorded by the rule "Any object in Front Camera" that started recording on 5/26/2010 at 1:34:40 PM.
• A few important tips to keep in mind
• SmartBot Video does not manage the video files on your FTP site like it does on your computer. For example, oldest video files are not automatically deleted to make room for new files. Make sure to manage the storage on your FTP site.
• Some FTP servers may have problems with non-ASCII characters in the directory name or your rule name. Avoid symbols other than basic letters and numbers.
• Uploading full clips can take up considerable bandwidth. If you try to upload more than your network connection can support, clips may become backlogged.
• Clips are sent with some delay. SmartBot Video waits until the entire clip can be made before sending it out. If you need less delay, try using a rule that is triggered immediately when a border is crossed, such as crossing a line or entering a region (as opposed to being inside, outside, or on top of a region).
• Other forms of clip upload (SCP, SFTP, http, etc) are not supported at this time.
• Take actions




• Send an email to. Selecting this check box will send an email to the address you specify in the adjacent field, if the action is seen.
• You can separate multiple email addresses by commas, and even send to mobile phones through email gateways. For example, you can use email to send to an AT&T MMS account using the email address @mms.att.net. A list of formats for other carriers can be found here.
• You can also send alerts for different rules to different email addresses.
• Click Settings to display the settings required to configure the email alerts:




• Send email from. This is the address that will appear in the From field of the alert notification.
• The settings for your email account are typically found on the website of your email provider. You can also try to search for "outgoing smtp server" and your email provider's name. The settings above are the correct settings for Gmail. Note that different mail applications have different formats for the login user ID (some require the full email address, some require the part before the @ sign, etc.).
• Note for customers using TLS or SSL: SmartBot Video will properly encrypt the data sent, but will not validate the server certificate. This means that it is theoretically possible (though difficult) for someone to intercept your mail using what is called a "man in the middle" attack. If you believe that this is a possibility, then you may not wish to set up email alerts.
• When you receive an email, it contains a still image of the event that triggered the rule.




• Run the command. (Basic and Pro Editions only). This is an advanced feature for those who can write scripts or applications, or have an existing one that does what they want. Selecting this check box allows you to enter a path name to a script or program in the adjacent field that can be triggered if the event is seen, e.g., "cmd.exe /k start C:\Users\Katie\Desktop\lights.bat." Some examples of what you can do with this feature:
• On Windows, you need to use the MS-DOS (or short "8.3") names of files and folders. For example, "C:\Program Files" needs to be "C:\PROGRA~1". To find the short file names, you can use the "/x" command. For example, to find the 8.3 name of an app called "Application 1," you can do the following:
• Go to the DOS prompt
• Navigate to the directory containing Application 1
• Type: dir appl*.* /x
• That should display the 8.3 version of the file names starting with "appl."
• If you have an X10 home automation controller, you can write a script to turn on a light if something is seen in the camera’s view.
• In general, most commands that can be executed in the Run dialog on Windows or in Terminal on OSX will work in this field.
• Mac owners can use this feature to easily create custom voice sounds. Type "say" and some text to have that text spoken. (For example, if you type "say you are being recorded," then when the event is seen, your Mac will play a digitized voice saying "you are being recorded."
• Play this sound. Selecting this check box will play a sound if the action is seen, on the computer that has SmartBot Video installed.
• Select one of the default sounds or click Browse to select any .wav file.
• You can use this feature while you are sitting at your desk to alert you if someone has entered your building (similar to a chat alert sound when your friends come online).
• Alternatively, you could set up speakers and play a sound to warn intruders that they have been detected (that is the purpose of including the "person