EvoCam 4 User Guide
Contents
1. EvoCam 4 User Guide About EvoCam EvoCam is the ultimate live streaming and security camera software for OS X EvoCam features industry standard H 264 video and AAC audio streaming With support for both RTSP over HTTP and HTTP Live Streaming using HTML5 EvoCam can be viewed using Safari on OS X iPod Touch 3rd generation or later iPhone 3GS or later and iPad without the need to install an app Network configuration is simple too with only one port to forward on your router EvoCam also features Actions a powerful and flexible way to perform a variety of tasks when certain conditions occur You can use Actions to create timelapse movies record movies when motion or sound is detected publish a webcam image on a web server via FTP or integrate EvoCam with your security system or home automation software About this User Guide Please read this user guide to familiarize yourself with EvoCam s features You can access this user guide from within EvoCam by choosing Help gt EvoCam User Guide and you can print it using File gt Print Please support Evological It is your feedback that allows our products to continue evolving so please send all feedback to support evological com And of course there s no better way to show your appreciation than purchasing our software Thank you for choosing EvoCam Evological support evological com Contents Documents Canvas and Items Page 3 Describes how EvoCam man2. camera IR illumination This example shows how to control IR illumination on a PTZ network camera tell application EvoCam tell document Example ir off camera item video ir on camera item video ir auto camera item video end tell end tell 22 Example 6 Controlling a PTZ network camera go to preset position This example shows how to move a PTZ network camera to a preset position Note preset positions are not supported on all network cameras tell application EvoCam tell document Example go to ptz preset camera item video preset name doorway end tell end tell 23
3. Actions are organized into sets A set contains a list of one or more time periods one or more conditions and one or more actions A set is active whenever any of its time periods are active The set will be triggered whenever any of its conditions occur When a Set is triggered its actions are performed simultaneously in no particular order except for any actions which play sounds or speak text which are performed in the order they appear in the set See below for more on reordering elements in an action set An action cannot be triggered again until it has completed except for the Record movie action which will extend recording by the specified duration if it is still recording Time periods conditions and actions can be reordered in the set by clicking anywhere in the empty space in the element and dragging vertically up or down Order is only important for actions which play sounds or speak text Time periods and conditions can appear in any order You can control click an element in the list to show a contextual menu with commands specific to that element For example actions which can be cancelled have a Cancel action command actions that email or upload files have a Show transcript command Enabling Multiple Action Sets A document can have multiple action sets For example you could have one action set which is active only on weekends and another active only on weekdays Use the Options gt Show Multiple A
4. Input Input number for video servers with multiple inputs only Username Username required by camera you may need to use an administrator account to control pan tilt zoom or nightvision Password Password required by camera Using an unsupported network camera To use an unsupported network camera with EvoCam you will need to know the path to either a JPEG image or Motion JPEG stream in addition to the above information Model Choose Custom Network Camera Path Path to either a JPEG image or Motion JPEG stream EvoCam 4 Limitations EvoCam 4 does not support all of the cameras supported by EvoCam 3 Also support for RTSP is limited to select network cameras Please contact us to request support for your camera in EvoCam 4 providing access details for your camera if possible 20 Scripting About scripting EvoCam supports AppleScript scripting allowing you to write scripts to change many of EvoCam s settings and control PTZ network cameras You can view EvoCam s AppleScript dictionary by dropping the EvoCam application s icon onto the AppleScript Editor application s icon Using the Run script action to send commands to EvoCam In addition to using AppleScript Editor to write scripts and create script applications that control EvoCam you can also use the Run script action to send commands to EvoCam itself For example you could use a periodic condition to run a script every minute to update a text it
5. Noise Gate slider determines how much each pixel has to change before being considered motion If your camera is particularly noisy i e you see speckling in the sensor when no actual motion is occurring you may need to increase this setting to filter out the noise To calibrate a sensor item first make sure Show motion is enabled then set the Noise Gate slider to its left most position and slowly adjust it towards the right until you see only slight speckling in the sensor area Then adjust the Threshold slider to set the amount of motion that needs to occur before the sensor is triggered When no motion is occurring the sensor s border will be green When motion is detected the sensor s border will flash red If the sensor is currently ignored as the result of an Ignore all sensors action for example the sensor s border will be gray Lighting changes due to clouds and movement of objects or shadows due to wind can sometimes trigger EvoCam s sensors To reduce false triggers try to position sensor items over a smaller area rather than the entire canvas Streaming About Streaming EvoCam features industry standard H 264 video and AAC audio streaming With support for both RTSP over HTTP and HTTP Live Streaming using HTML5 EvoCam can be viewed using Safari on OS X iPod Touch 3rd generation or later iPhone 3GS or later and iPad without the need to install an app Network configuration is simple t
6. Simple intruder alarm This example shows a typical intruder alarm scenario where if either motion or sound is detected EvoCam announces Intruder and sends an email with an image attached During these time periods Or Always no time periods specified When any of these conditions occur r cA When any sensor detects motion When sound is detected Gm d4 Perform these actions ur TA Speak text Intruder TA Email image 19 Network Cameras About network cameras In addition to the built in camera and audio inputs on your Mac you can use a wide range of network cameras with EvoCam Network cameras also known as IP cameras have their own built in web servers which EvoCam connects to in order to receive video from the camera EvoCam also supports several video servers which are similar to network cameras but are instead used to connect composite video cameras to a network so they can be accessed as network cameras Using a supported network camera To use a supported network camera with EvoCam you will need to add an entry for the camera in the Network Cameras section of EvoCam s Preferences Enter the following information Name A descriptive name for the camera for example Office IP Address IP address of the camera including the port number if necessary Model Choose the appropriate model setting for your camera Protocol Whether to use RTSP for video audio streaming from the camera
7. ages documents and how items are added to the canvas to define the contents of the image which is broadcasted or recorded Streaming Page 6 Describes how to use EvoCam to stream live video and audio from your Mac over the Internet and how to connect to EvoCam as an administrator to view and control cameras Recording Page 10 Describes how to use EvoCam to record video and audio Actions Page 11 Describes how to use EvoCam s Actions to perform tasks when certain conditions occur Actions allow for an almost unlimited amount of customization and enable complex tasks such as creating timelapse movies recording when motion is detected or allowing EvoCam to communicate with other software for home automation and security applications Network Cameras Page 20 Describes how to use network cameras with EvoCam Scripting Page 21 Describes how to use AppleScript commands to change EvoCam s settings and control network cameras Documents Canvas and Items Documents When EvoCanm is first launched it will automatically create a new document window A document represents a single broadcast or recording with video and audio streams You can have multiple documents open simultaneously each document is completely independent and video audio devices can be shared between documents Documents must be open to be active However you can hide a document but leave it active using File gt Hide and Leave Active To show a previously h
8. cript Clock Displays the current date and time in a variety of formats Clock items can only contain a single font style Ticker Displays a scrolling text message loaded from a plain text file or RTF Rich Text Format file Any changes to this file outside EvoCam will be reflected in the ticker item when it returns to the top of the file Displays an image or movie file Media items can also periodically load an image from a URL Uniform Resource Locator so you can incorporate content such as weather information in your image Once you have created an item you can adjust the item s properties using the Inspector Colors and Fonts palettes For camera items which are associated with a pan tilt zoom capable camera you can control the camera and adjust its nightvision settings using the Controller palette Sensor Items Sensor items are special items that do not appear in the broadcast or recorded image Instead they define the areas of the image where you want EvoCam to analyze for motion Each sensor item can be individually enabled or disabled and you can choose whether the sensor item highlights motion occurring inside it using the Show motion setting The Threshold slider determines how much overall motion needs to occur to trigger the sensor The Motion bar graph shows how much motion is currently occurring The sensor will trigger if this amount reaches the amount set on the Threshold slider The
9. ction Sets menu command to enable multiple actions sets for a document Once multiple action sets are enabled you can add remove or rename action sets 11 Time Periods The following time periods are available from the 4 Ba popup menu Each time period can be individually enabled or disabled If no time periods are enabled the set is never active If no time periods are specified the set is always active Time Period Description Daily All day every day weekdays weekends or a specific day of the week Daily within time range Within a start and end time every day weekdays weekends or a specific day of the week Daily when it is daytime nighttime When it is daytime nighttime every day weekdays weekends or a specific day of the week Daytime hours are from sunrise to sunset automatically calculated using the location specified in EvoCam s Preferences Daily when any camera detects daylight When any camera detects light above the specified level every day weekdays weekends or a specific day of the week When document is online offline Whenever the document s Online state is equal to the specified state To toggle the online state of the document use File gt Online 36L This allows you to quickly toggle scheduled actions or scheduled recording on and off or switch between an online set of actions and an offline set of actions When computer is
10. e 15 Action Description Email image Emails an image using the default email settings specified in EvoCam s Preferences Send email Sends an email to a specified address with a specified subject and message optionally including the image as an attachment Run action set after delay Runs the specified action set after a specified delay allowing you to daisy chain action sets Run script Runs the specified AppleScript script Run shell script Runs the specified shell script file Send image to workflow Sends the image to the specified Automator workflow Send HTTP request Sends the specified HTTP request ignoring any returned data Play sound Plays the specified sound file Speak text Speaks the specified text using the current text to speech settings in System Preferences Bounce application icon Causes EvoCam s icon to bounce in the Dock when EvoCam is not the frontmost application Go to PTZ preset Moves the camera attached to the specified camera item to the specified PTZ preset Set camera IR illumination mode Sets the IR illumination mode of the camera attached to the specified camera item Ignore all sensors Invalidates all of the document s sensor items for the specified duration allowing you to limit how often actions are performed Ignore named sensor Invalidates all of the document s sensor items with the speci
11. em with a custom clock format Example scripts The following pages show example scripts for common tasks enabling web server access setting the title of a text item triggering actions and controlling a PTZ network camera In each example the document name is Example change this to the name of the document you want to be the target of the command Example 1 Enabling web server This example shows how to enable the web server tell application EvoCam tell document Example set http enabled to true end tell end tell Example 2 Setting title of a text item This example shows how to set the title of a text item on the document s canvas tell application EvoCam tell document Example set title of text item message to Good morning end tell end tell 21 Example 3 Triggering actions This example shows how to trigger a document s actions Note the document must have an enabled When triggered from a script condition tell application EvoCam tell document Example trigger actions end tell end tell Example 4 Controlling PTZ network camera pan tilt zoom home This example shows how to control pan tilt zoom on a PTZ network camera tell application EvoCam tell document Example pan left camera item video pan right camera item video tilt up camera item video tilt down camera item video home position camera item video end tell end tell Example 5 Controlling PTZ network
12. er appending the movie to another movie file and deleting the local movie file Add image to timelapse archive Adds the image to a named timelapse archive document in a specified folder creating the archive if necessary Export timelapse archive as movie Exports a timelapse archive as a named movie in the specified folder optionally uploading the completed movie to the FTP server and optionally deleting the local movie file Leave the movie name blank to use a timestamped movie name Upload timestamped image to server Uploads a timestamped image to the FTP server Upload named image to server Uploads a named image to the FTP server replacing any existing image on the server Upload x most recent images Uploads the specified number of most recent images to the FTP server using the specified filename prefix Images are renamed each time a new image is uploaded so that the newest image is always Prefix001 jpg Save timestamped image Saves a timestamped image in the specified folder Save named image Saves a named image in the specified folder replacing any existing image in the folder Save x most recent images Saves the specified number of most recent images in a folder using the specified filename prefix and index ordering With chronological ordering images are renamed so the newest image is always Prefix001 jpg With sequential ordering each index is used in sequenc
13. fied item name for the specified duration allowing you to limit how often actions are performed by a specific sensor Set named text item contents Sets the contents of all of the document s text items with the specified item name to the specified text Occurrences of lt TIME gt lt DATE gt and lt SONG gt are replaced by the current time current date and current iTunes song name respectively 16 Warning Icons If an error occurs while evaluating a condition or performing an action a warning icon will be shown in the Actions tab Click the warning icon for more information on how to resolve the issue For emailing and uploading actions clicking the warning icon will open a transcript of the session showing the error Viewing an Action s Transcript To view the last transcript for emailing and uploading actions control click on the action and choose Show transcript from the popup menu Example Action Sets The following pages show example action set configurations for common uses of EvoCam uploading a webcam image to a server recording movies when motion is detected creating timelapse movies and creating a simple intruder alert system 17 Example 1 Uploading a webcam jpg image to a web server every 30 seconds This example shows a typical webcam scenario where EvoCam replaces an image named webcam jpg on an FTP server every 30 seconds 24 hours a day During these t
14. hen the sound level from the document s audio input device exceeds a specified level When triggered manually When the Now button is clicked This condition will override any time periods specified When triggered from a script When the trigger actions AppleScript command is received by the document When triggered from administration page When the Actions gt Trigger Actions menu command is used in the Remote Administration web interface When triggered by HTTP request When the HTTP request shown is received by the web server An optional parameter can be specified allowing you to create different HTTP requests for different action sets 13 Condition Description When document is opened When the document is opened When stream is viewed When the document s stream is viewed via the web server When stream is viewed by named user When the document s stream is viewed by the specified user via the web server 14 Actions The following actions are available from the Le dd popup menu Each action can be individually enabled or disabled Actions are performed simultaneously with the exception of actions which play sounds or speak text which are performed in order Action Description Record movie Records a timestamped movie of the specified duration in a specified folder optionally uploading the movie to the FTP serv
15. hoose a window to view start or stop recording for a document or trigger a document s actions To choose a window use the Window menu to choose the desired window To revert to showing all windows choose Window gt All To start or stop recording for a window first select the window using the Window menu then choose Actions gt Start Recording or Actions gt Stop Recording To trigger any action sets which have a When triggered from web server condition first select the window using the Window menu then choose Actions gt Trigger Actions from the menubar Recording About Recording EvoCam can record everything on the canvas to a movie file You can use the File gt Start Recording menu command or the Start Recording button in the document s toolbar to start recording Note If you are using Actions to record movies when motion is detected you don t need to start recording yourself the action will do its own recording Also actions don t use the segmenting or deleting options in the Recording tab Destination folder All recordings are saved in the destination folder Click the folder icon or drag in a new destination folder to specify another location Segmented recordings When using EvoCam to record continuously you should check the Record in 1 hour segments checkbox This will cause EvoCam to automatically start a new timestamped recording every ho
16. idden window use File gt Show Hidden To reduce overhead when EvoCam is not recording or streaming a document choose Options gt Auto Connect to Cameras When this option is selected camera items will only be active when the document is actively recording or streaming Note this option cannot be used in conjunction with motion detection or actions which use still images saving uploading emailing archiving etc You can specify in EvoCam s Preferences whether documents from the previous session are automatically re opened when launching EvoCam Settings Most of the settings for a document are located in the area on the left of the document s window These settings can be hidden using View gt Hide Settings For more information on the controls in the settings pane please refer to the Streaming Recording and Actions chapters Canvas The area on the right of the document s window is the canvas The canvas is where you define the overall size and layout of the image that is broadcast or recorded The content of the image including video from cameras is provided by objects called items Items can be positioned on the canvas manually or using Autosizing where the item snaps automatically to a preset location on the canvas even if the canvas is resized By default EvoCam adds a camera item whose Autosizing is set to Fill Canvas a text item whose Autosizing is set to Bottom Left and a clock
17. ime periods Or Always no time periods specified When any of these conditions occur r Ti Every 30 seconds Perform these actions utr Al Upload named image to server Name webcam jpg Example 2 Recording for 1 minute when motion is detected from 9am to 5pm This example shows a typical security scenario where EvoCam records for 1 minute when motion is detected by any sensor item on the canvas between 9am and 5pm During these time periods Or M Everyday from 9 00 AM to 5 00 PM When any of these conditions occur Or T When any sensor detects motion Perform these actions re ad Ti Record movie for 1 minutes Folder Desktop gt Advanced Note To limit how often recording can occur add an Ignore all sensors action to the above scenario For example to limit recording to one movie every 5 minutes TA Ignore all sensors for 5 minutes 18 Example 3 Creating a timelapse movie This example shows a typical timelapse scenario where EvoCam adds an image to a timelapse archive every 5 seconds between 8am and 6pm on weekdays and between 10am and 2pm on weekends During these time periods Or f Weekdays from 8 00 AM to 6 00 PM M Weekends from 10 00 AM to 2 00 PM When any of these conditions occur Or ov Every 5 seconds Perform these actions Ee Dd TA Add image to timelapse archive Folder Desktop Name Timelapse Example 4
18. in use not in use Whenever the computer s user activity state is equal to the specified state Access for assistive devices must be enabled in System Preferences gt Accessibility to allow EvoCam to determine if the computer is being used Note EvoCam does not run if the computer is off or asleep 12 Conditions The following conditions are available from the O popup menu Each condition can be individually enabled or disabled If any enabled condition occurs the set s actions will be performed If no conditions are specified the set s actions will never be performed Condition Description Every x seconds minutes hours Periodically with any time interval expressed in units of seconds minutes or hours To hide or show the progress bar control click on the condition and choose Hide Show progress bar from the popup menu Every day at a specific time Periodically every 24 hours at a specific time of day When any network camera connection fails When the connection to a network camera is lost or the connection stalls When any sensor detects motion When any of the document s sensor items detect motion When named sensor detects motion When any sensor item with the specified item name detects motion Leave the sensor name blank to use all sensor items otherwise specify the sensor s name as shown in the Inspector palette When sound is detected W
19. is reserved for use by EvoCam s Remote Administration feature Restricting access to a document s stream To restrict access to a document s stream add one or more users to the list in the Streaming tab Each user can be individually enabled or disabled If no users are specified or the special Everyone user is enabled in the list the document s stream can be viewed by anyone without using a password Otherwise the stream can only be viewed only by the enabled users in the list using their password Configuring your network to allow access to EvoCam from the Internet Note that the IP address shown in the Address field is often private to your local network and not accessible via the Internet Private addresses are usually in the 10 0 1 x or 192 168 1 x address ranges In these cases you will need to configure your modem router and or AirPort base station to forward requests on port 8080 through to the computer running EvoCam Before setting up port forwarding on your router we recommend you configure your Mac to have a static IP address on your local network this prevents your port forwarding settings becoming invalid if your Mac gets a new IP address from your router s DHCP server which might happen if your Mac or your router is restarted Here is an example network configuration for your Mac showing how to configure a static IP address with both AirPort and non AirPort routers Configure IPv4 Manually IPv4 Add
20. item whose Autosizing is set to Bottom Right You can choose which items are added to new windows in EvoCam s Preferences The size and background color of the canvas can be adjusted using the Inspector palette Items Items provide the content of the image including video from cameras and overlays containing text images and timestamps A special Sensor item is used to specify an area of the image which should be analyzed for motion these items don t appear in the broadcast or recorded image A document can have any number of items on its canvas Items are usually layered in order of creation but you can use the Items menu or the Forward and Backward controls in the window s toolbar to arrange items in the desired order The following items can be placed on the canvas ee Displays the video stream from a camera or video input device To combine video streams from multiple cameras you can add several camera items to the same canvas To choose the camera or video input device use the controls in the Inspector palette Sensor Analyzes the video stream for motion Sensor items are used to trigger actions in the Actions tab See Sensor Items below for more information on calibrating a sensor item and the Actions chapter for more information on how to use sensors to trigger actions Text Displays a text message Text items can contain multiple font styles and support changing of their text via AppleS
21. oo with only one port to forward on your router Enabling EvoCam s web server If any open document has Enable web server checked EvoCam s web server will automatically be enabled You can use EvoCam s Preferences to specify global web server settings that apply to all documents such as the web server port to use or whether to advertise EvoCam s server via Bonjour on your local network EvoCam automatically selects the appropriate streaming method to use depending on the viewer s browser For Safari on both OS X and iOS EvoCam will use HTTP Live Streaming For FireFox EvoCam will use RTSP streaming using the QuickTime plugin For Chrome EvoCam will use Motion JPEG A Wi Fi connection is highly recommended when using an iPod iPhone or iPad Make sure your data plan includes sufficient or unlimited data if you intend to connect to EvoCam using a cellular connection Accessing documents via EvoCam s web server EvoCam automatically assigns a unique prefix to each new document This prefix not the document s name is used to determine the URL of that document when it is accessed via EvoCam s web server For example if your EvoCam server s IP address is 1 2 3 4 and the document s prefix is 1 then the URL for that document would be http 1 2 3 4 8080 1 stream html When working with multiple documents it is important to make sure each prefix is unique The prefix must contain only alphanumeric characters and the prefix admin
22. ress 10 0 1 201 or 192 168 1 x for non AirPort routers Subnet Mask 255 255 255 0 Router 10 0 1 1 or 192 168 1 1 for non AirPort routers DNS Servers Leave blank or use servers specified by your ISP Most routers need the following information when setting up port forwarding Protocol TCP IP External Port 8080 Internal Port 8080 Internal IP Address Use address shown in Streaming tab After you ve configured your router to forward requests through to EvoCam you will be able to connect to your router s public IP address to access EvoCam If you don t know your public IP address visit our IP address page to find out http Awww evological com ip html If your IP address is dynamically assigned by your ISP and changes periodically we recommend you use a dynamic DNS service This allows you to register a textual address and map it to your numerical IP address You then run a small background application on your Mac which updates the DNS servers automatically whenever your IP address changes When using a dynamic DNS service your EvoCam server is always accessible at the same URL and you can put links to it from another webserver without having to specify the IP address Please check the EvoCam FAQ on our website for more information on this topic and links to helpful resources Using customized HTML To customize EvoCam s web pages you can provide a folder containing a replacement stream html file along with any other conten
23. t Such as images or stylesheets required by the stream html file In your custom HTML use an lt evocam gt tag where you want the video stream for the document to appear EvoCam will replace this tag with the HTML markup necessary to display the stream Choose File gt Customize HTML to specify a folder containing custom HTML content for a document Enabling Remote Administration EvoCam s Remote Administration feature allows you to access open documents from a single URL control pan tilt zoom cameras start or stop recording or trigger a document s actions You can use EvoCam s Preferences to enable Remote Administration and specify an administrator username and password Once Remote Administration is enabled you can go to http 1 2 3 4 8080 admin where 1 2 3 4 is your EvoCam server s IP address to view an overview of any open windows for which the web server is enabled Remotely controlling pan tilt capable cameras Pan tilt capable cameras can be controlled simply by clicking towards the edge of the camera item in the direction you want to pan tilt For example click towards the left edge of a camera item to pan left To zoom in or out on zoom capable cameras hold down Option while clicking in the lower half of the image to zoom in or the upper half of the image to zoom out Remotely controlling recording and triggering actions The Remote Administration web interface has its own menubar which allows you to c
24. ur Deleting old segments When segmented recording is enabled EvoCam can automatically delete any segments older than a specified age from the destination folder You can choose to delete segments at a variety of intervals from 1 day to 1 month Standby recording buffer EvoCam s standby recording feature allows recording actions specified in the Actions tab to start recording video and audio 5 seconds before the action was triggered This is useful for motion or sound detection where you want to include the 5 second period before the motion or sound was detected in the recorded movie Recording continuously according to a schedule To control when EvoCam continuously records you can add one or more time periods to the list in the Recording tab EvoCam will start and stop recording automatically during these time periods Note Recording cannot be manually started or stopped while any time periods in the recording schedule are enabled Also EvoCam will always record in 1 hour segments when recording according to a schedule 10 Actions About Actions Actions allow you to perform a variety of tasks when certain conditions occur You can use Actions to create timelapse movies record movies when motion or sound is detected publish a webcam image on a web server via FTP or integrate EvoCam with your security system or home automation software Use the Actions tab in the document window to configure actions Action Sets
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