Online Resource Update Capabilities

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Affected Roles: Administrator, Power Users

Related Digital Watchdog VMS Apps: DW Spectrum Server

Last Edit: April 28, 2025

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Overview

Sometimes it is necessary to have a detailed description of resource capabilities in addition to the parameters discovered through an API (either proprietary or ONVIF standard).

This article describes the approach used to address such cases in a way which ensures quick, responsive, and seamless deployment for customers.

All additional device descriptions, parameters, and peculiarities currently available are stored in an online resource capabilities file. The data in the file is specified by the device vendor, model, and firmware version. This file benefit is not restricted just to occasions when device incorrectly reports its characteristics which must be fixed but is used for enabling certain device capability as well.

To include a feature, the customer should send a request to technical support providing a device vendor, model, and firmware version. The appropriate changes are applied to the file. Once changes are reviewed and accepted, they become available in one of the upcoming releases. When the customer restarts the Mediaserver, it checks the version of the online file and compares it to the built-in one. The newer version of the capabilities file is kept.

Common Examples

Analog Encoder License

One of the most powerful features of DW Spectrum is the capability to stream from an NVR with analog cameras. While Professional Licenses are applied to new devices as they are discovered or added to the System, there are Analog Encoder Licenses that can be applied to such NVRs.

If the customer has a legacy NVR based system and wants to switch to DW Spectrum, it is possible to connect the NVR to the System and apply an analog encoder license. Contact your DW Dealer or DW Sales Representative to purchase an analog license for your NVR model.

Multi-Sensor Cameras

By default, once a physical device multi-sensor camera is discovered, it will utilize one Professional License per sensor. As a result, a four-sensor camera will utilize a total of four licenses. All currently supported multi-sensor cameras are registered in the capabilities file and utilize one license per physical device, allowing streams to be recorded from all the sensors.

Advanced PTZ

For details on using PTZ, you can refer to DW Spectrum - PTZ Auto Focus and Camera Control

Advanced PTZ is available for a camera if it:

Supports the AbsoluteMove command
Can return consistent and accurate current coordinates

Once a PTZ camera has been calibrated for Advanced PTZ support, the standard PTZ icon on a camera will be used to activate and utilize the Advanced PTZ feature.

List of Supported IP Video Devices

Digital Watchdog’s Integration List lays out supported IP Video Devices across over 1,200 different manufacturers.

The process of updating the information in the device list is as follows:

Information on new devices is gathered from anonymous reports on the Statistics Server.
Each device is manually verified and approved.
Information on all approved devices is periodically copied to the DW Spectrum Online Database.
The capabilities file is updated with information about the device and becomes available in the monthly patch.

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For More Information or Technical Support

DW Technical Support: https://www.digital-watchdog.com/contact-tech-support/

DW Sales: sales@digital-watchdog.com | www.digital-watchdog.com