Recording on motion events in OnGuard

Setting up cameras connected to Lenel NVRs to record on motion in order to preserve space on the storage drives or to receive alarms at the monitoring stations is fairly simple, but there are a few considerations to understand.

 

To record on motion, select Event Recording for each camera. Continuous can only be selected in cases where Key Frame Only is selected as the frame rate for H.264 and MPEG4 cameras, or time lapse when the MJPEG code is used. Continuous recording and Event Recording cannot both be checked, or  recording failures may occur.

 

There are two methods to configure motion: via the camera or via the recorder. Select only one method must be selected; do not select both methods. 

 

Camera Method: In System Administration, on the Event Mode tab, configure the camera to detect motion and flag the recorder to know when to begin recording. To activate, select a timezone. If recording on event, select the timezone during which recording should occur (it will only record during this timezone). To inform the recorder to look for the flag, select Trigger Camera event mode. If you are only configuring an alarm and recording will occur continuously, the timezone is determined when the alarm is sent to Alarm Monitoring.

 

IMPORTANT: To properly set the flag, some camera manufacturers, like Axis, require a Motion Window be set on the camera. Failure to do so will result in loss of video and possible memory leaks on the recorder. It is important to know if your camera requires this before setting the camera to motion. 

 

Video Recorder Method: This method does not require any additional configuration beyond the standard camera configuration. Just like in the camera method, recording can be configured to start on event (record on motion), or recording can be continuous (simply receive motion alarms). In System Administration, go to Digital Video > Video Processing. In the Recording column, select Event to record on motion, or select Normal to record continuously and only receive motion alarms. 

 

With video processing, the recorder CPU is analyzing video and detecting motion, which means there is a greater demand on the recorder as it attempts to store video. In some cases, this demand will be more than the recorder can handle. In these cases, it is better to configure the camera to handle motion. 

OnGuard (All Versions)