By Sean Patton, Published Oct 10, 2019, 10:22am EDT
Network Optix released Nx Witness 4.0, proclaiming new features like a deep learning analytics metadata SDK, increased H.265 support, and UX improvements made the software "stronger and more full-featured than ever before."
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Great report, thanks. I'd be interested in a pole to see what end users use multi-layer mapping. I agree that I've rarely been asked for this feature or seen it used on VMS that has it available. I'm not saying it isn't valuable; Google Maps integration could save time and money on operations, but does a system need to scale to a large size or geography before layout organization is too cumbersome? Maybe advanced mapping is always better than layouts, but the end -user is just happy with status quo?
Getting the SDK and UI tuned up and cyber enhancements to prepare for the incoming surge of 3rd party analytics and AI solutions is a great development priority. I'm looking forward to 4.1 which will hopefully address the organizational, system awareness, and notification shortcomings.
I agree with the thought that advanced mapping is a niche requirement looking at the broad surveillance market. However in my experience, at the "top" of the market related to camera count (1,000+ cameras) and high-touch end-users (airports, casinos, corrections, public safety/police, universities) it is a very strong requirement.
One "fix" is to title the camera with a number or code before the camera title. A1 Northwest Gate, A2 Southwest Gate. Now your gate cameras are all together logically, as an example. Not perfect, but it can help, especially since you can easily search for resources in the search bar.
The Networks Optix - NX Witness has very poor performance when it comes to Hanwha Hardware. All of the features and camera control, including the detection and creation of specific, important, Video Profiles that WAVE Auto Creates with X-Series and Q-Series Camera especially; therefore in their desire of restricting any direct SUNAPI Integration Feature available in WAVE are completely unavailable and limited extremely. This has almost made me want to drop Selling Hanwha Hardware because there is no reason HANWHA is not sharing the SUNAPI feature in WAVE with other Nx Witness and OEM’s - Understand there thinking but it’s forcing some of us to reconsider the Use of Hanwha Cameras and Equipment when the don’t offer those same features with NX also.
Can you clarify what features and camera control are missing in NxWitness? There were a few items that Hanwha said were not supported in Nx (e.g. Thermal temperature, shock detection), however camera controls, analytic events, etc. were supported in the S, X and Q series cameras we tested with:
I think UM#3 is talking about recording to an embedded NVR appliance versus a Windows or Ubuntu OS server. It certainly isn't "very poor" performance, but it does limit some features, which is why the license cost is 75% less.
Has anyone else noticed smearing across all the on screen cameras when loading up layouts in 4.0? I'm also finding 4.0 to be very laggy and not responsive when trying to load different layouts it takes time and sometimes 4-6 seconds until it responds. These issues were non existent in 3.2
I also noticed an extreme slow down when using NX Cloud... This is accross the board, whether using 3.2 or 4.0
I just updated my server at home and I am seeing faster app load times on my iPhone X. I also have a W10 PC and the app opens quicker than with 3.2. I don't have any smearing issues either. I have heard about issues with some fisheye cameras, but my Samsung fisheye is working fine too.
We did not find any issues with any video smearing in 4.0. Neither with switching between layouts. NxCloud performed as solidly as it did in our earlier Network Optix / Hanwha Cloud Access Test, and I would estimate 30-40% of the client testing I performed was connected remotely using NxCloud.
It looks like we need to actually download the 4.0 software (Spectrum)? All of the DW servers that we are connected to via the DW Cloud are all showing that they have the most current version (3.2).
You can download directly. Click here. Then click on release notes. On the fifth page you will see:
IN-CLIENT UPGRADE INFORMATION o Build Number: 29787 o Password: dag4db
Within Spectrum on the update page just select the drop-down menu that says Latest Available Update and choose specific build.
I believe they do this between major upgrades but I have seen DW do this on minor upgrades as well. Often times this would lead users to be more aware of what they are doing since updates can sometimes go wrong and making it so easy to click update can leave some in a world of hurt if the entire system goes down. This is only my assumption based on what I have seen in the past versions since around 2.x.
If server-side processing - is it dependent on how fast the underlying hardware is? I'm asking because I'm wanting to install it on my mac to manage my cameras and wanted a uniform way of configuring video motion alerts across my cameras
Yes, but, the impact is minimal. I'm new to NX, but I have a few sites with 30ish cameras running on micro i3's. The server CPU usage is super low. The motion runs against the low res stream, so it's quite efficient. I've ran 100ish additional "TestCameras" (NX software camera) and the load increased marginally. Running the Client app is where you'll see the CPU/GPU demand rise, but I've found that NX's adaptive scaling works pretty well.
NX by default uses dual streams, hi and low-res. You can force it to use the primary/hi stream for motion, but I've not tested that or felt the need too. The motion against low-res has been great so far in my testing.
But if you do not have a secondary stream, I *guess* it would use the primary for motion automatically. Using Dual streams is what helps the Client run smoothly though. If using a large grid layout, there's no need really for hi-res only streams. It shows low-res and then auto scales when you open up that stream.
Enabling 2nd low-res stream for motion is critical for high res camera networks to perform seamlessly on Nx setup (5MP cams and above). Forcing on primary stream will see indirect network error on random cameras popping up every now and then.
We have deployed 4K Fisheye @5.5Mbps VBR X 40 and Nx performed extremely well with zero jittery. And smart motion search with 2nd stream is 100% spot on.
There is an RTSP firmware version available for Wyze, and if loaded correctly you can configure RTSP streams on WAVE. So, yes. I have done it here in the lab.
Does anybody know if how NxWitness handles existing camera video footage after installation? For example if a camera has 30 days of video footage after installing NxWitness..do we need to do anything additional to get NxWitness to "process" it?
Video is processed as it comes in. The live stream comes in and motion is processed and it is put in a RAM buffer and then writen to disk. Are you referring to exisiting video from an earlier version of NX? If so, the video and motion indexes are retained. You can specify a user-defined retention period per camera as desired if you need more days of video for a specific camera. You can also import recorded media from an SD card, or other device or from another VMS as a "virtual camera", and it can process the motion records right then when you import...
U6, you do not need to do anything additional, just make sure the storage with the existing footage is attached to the VMS. The server should scan the existing archive at startup and make it available for viewing etc( even if the archive was recorded on another machine by another server with other cameras).
I could understand why you would want this. I would like to take a used Mac Mini and use it as a server as it is fairly reliable for an all in one.
However, I can also understand why a developer wouldn't want to make a server version for mac. A big reason I would think is user base. There may be a lot of Mac users that integrators service. The user doesn't need to touch the server, but happens to have a Mac for their main machine. The integrator chooses and off the shelf server or builds a reliable server with more space for hard drive storage. Apple is limited in their machine options and past the Mac Mini, I don't see any option as I don't know anyone that would buy a the new Mac Pro just to install Nx Witness.
If they offered a Mac option tomorrow, I'm still not sure that I would use it for an install. i may perhaps play with it in a test lap. At this point, Windows has been fairly stable for a server. They do make the Linux server version as well, but this can run on many more machines and isn't limited to just the Apple ecosystem.
Any luck Kyle with getting it to work with Docker? I tried installing it on VirtualBox and can't get it to add my devices
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Comments (43)
Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
Great report, thanks. I'd be interested in a pole to see what end users use multi-layer mapping. I agree that I've rarely been asked for this feature or seen it used on VMS that has it available. I'm not saying it isn't valuable; Google Maps integration could save time and money on operations, but does a system need to scale to a large size or geography before layout organization is too cumbersome? Maybe advanced mapping is always better than layouts, but the end -user is just happy with status quo?
Getting the SDK and UI tuned up and cyber enhancements to prepare for the incoming surge of 3rd party analytics and AI solutions is a great development priority. I'm looking forward to 4.1 which will hopefully address the organizational, system awareness, and notification shortcomings.
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Undisclosed #2
in what way? burned into the video as an overlay?
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Jon Dillabaugh
10/11/19 04:11am
The cameras are only sorted by server if you are an admin. Viewers and other non-admins get an alphabetically sorted list.
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Undisclosed Integrator #3
The Networks Optix - NX Witness has very poor performance when it comes to Hanwha Hardware. All of the features and camera control, including the detection and creation of specific, important, Video Profiles that WAVE Auto Creates with X-Series and Q-Series Camera especially; therefore in their desire of restricting any direct SUNAPI Integration Feature available in WAVE are completely unavailable and limited extremely. This has almost made me want to drop Selling Hanwha Hardware because there is no reason HANWHA is not sharing the SUNAPI feature in WAVE with other Nx Witness and OEM’s - Understand there thinking but it’s forcing some of us to reconsider the Use of Hanwha Cameras and Equipment when the don’t offer those same features with NX also.
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Undisclosed Integrator #4
Has anyone else noticed smearing across all the on screen cameras when loading up layouts in 4.0? I'm also finding 4.0 to be very laggy and not responsive when trying to load different layouts it takes time and sometimes 4-6 seconds until it responds. These issues were non existent in 3.2
I also noticed an extreme slow down when using NX Cloud... This is accross the board, whether using 3.2 or 4.0
Anyone else experiencing this?
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Undisclosed Integrator #5
It looks like we need to actually download the 4.0 software (Spectrum)? All of the DW servers that we are connected to via the DW Cloud are all showing that they have the most current version (3.2).
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Undisclosed End User #6
Does NxWitness support video motion detection in place of the camera's?
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Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
There is client side motion detection with multiple sensitivity zones
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Undisclosed End User #6
If server-side processing - is it dependent on how fast the underlying hardware is? I'm asking because I'm wanting to install it on my mac to manage my cameras and wanted a uniform way of configuring video motion alerts across my cameras
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Undisclosed End User #6
Just out of curiosity are wyze cameras on the HCL with NX?
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Undisclosed End User #6
Does anybody know if how NxWitness handles existing camera video footage after installation? For example if a camera has 30 days of video footage after installing NxWitness..do we need to do anything additional to get NxWitness to "process" it?
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Sergey Bystrov
11/12/19 05:57pm
U6, you do not need to do anything additional, just make sure the storage with the existing footage is attached to the VMS. The server should scan the existing archive at startup and make it available for viewing etc( even if the archive was recorded on another machine by another server with other cameras).
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Undisclosed End User #6
Are there any plans to have Nx Witness server running on Mac? There doesn't seem to be server version on the website - just the desktop client.
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Kyle Folger
Thanks. I may try this for fun on a Mac Mini. I hadn't personally tried to use the server on a Mac.
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Undisclosed End User #6
Any luck Kyle with getting it to work with Docker? I tried installing it on VirtualBox and can't get it to add my devices
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