Tutorial

The basic user interface is simple and intuitive and is based on drag’n’dropping the cameras into views.

1. Manage Cameras

First, let’s register some RTSP cameras.

  • Navigate to Configuration / Configuration Dialog / Camera Configuration

  • Choose a slot for the camera

  • Choose RTSP Camera from the drop-down menu

  • Type in the camera information (ip address, user, password, etc.)

  • Remember to enable recording if you want that (see “6. Playback” below)

  • Repeat for all cameras

  • Press SAVE

  • Close the window from the upper-right (X) as usual

You should also give an estimate of the number of hd-ready, full-hd, 2K etc. streams in Memory Configuration tab, as Valkka pre-reserves all resources. That can be done in:

  • Configuration / Configuration Dialog / Memory Configuration

2. Viewing Cameras

Let’s see a list of installed cameras and view their live video

  • Navigate to View / Camera List. The camera list widget appears on screen

  • Navigate to View / Video Grid / 2x2. A 2x2 grid appears on the screen

  • Drag and drop cameras from the camera list widget into the 2x2 grid

  • You can open as many video grids on the screen as you please

  • Note that even if you view the same video in multiple grids, the camera stream is decoded only once

  • Note that you can also do drag and drop between video grids

  • Double-clicking on the video, maximizes the video size

  • Double-clicking again, restores the normal size

3. Removing Cameras

  • Right-click on a video in the video grid

  • Choose Remove Camera

4. Saving and Loading the Layout

Camera views can be saved, and recovered for the next time when you use Valkka Live

  • Navigate to File / Save Window Layout. Now your view layout is saved

  • When starting the program again, navigate to File / Load Window Layout

5. Machine Vision

  • Open a machine vision terminal from the Machine Vision menu

  • Drag’n drop a camera to that terminal

6. Playback

NEW

The experimental playback feature is now enabled by default. Do the following to see the recorded video:

  • Navigate to View / Playback Video Grid / 2x2

  • Drag’n’drop the camera you want to see recorded video for into the grid

  • Click your mouse in the timeline where you want to seek. Use the mouse wheel to zoom in/out in the timeline

  • When you press the “limits” button, the timeline zooms within the limits of all your recorded streams

You ideally want 1-2 key-frames in a single block in order to achieve efficient seeking of the recorded video.

Blocksize can be adjusted in:

  • Configuration / Configuration Dialog / Recording Configuration

We recommend adjusting your camera’s keyframe interval to one keyframe per second and then setting your camera’s bitrate & valkkafs blocksize accordingly.

Read more about the block-based filesystem in here