Motion detection & exclude regions (properties)

When you configure video and recording for specific cameras, adjusting motion detection is important because it may determine when video from the camera is recorded, when email notifications are generated or when hardware output, such as lights or sirens, is activated. Time spent on finding the best possible motion detection settings for each camera may help you later avoid unnecessary recordings and notifications. Depending on the physical location of the camera, it may be a very good idea to test motion detection under different physical conditions such as day/night or windy/calm weather.

Before you configure motion detection for a camera, you should configure the camera's video properties including compression and resolution.

Cameras that do not support multiple simultaneous video streams cannot connect to the surveillance server and the Management Application at the same time. Milestone recommends that you stop the Recording Server service when you configure such devices for motion detection and PTZ.

Enable	Enable or disable the built-in motion detection.
Show grid	Turn the grid on and off. Turning the grid off may provide a less obscured view of the preview image. You select the areas to exclude from motion detection the same way as when the grid is visible. When the grid is turned on, the preview image is divided into small sections by a grid. To define areas which should be excluded from motion detection, drag the mouse over the areas in the preview image while pressing the mouse button down. The left mouse button selects a grid section and the right mouse button clears a grid section. Selected areas are highlighted in blue.
Include All	Quickly select all grid sections in the preview image. This can be useful if you want to exclude motion detection in most areas of the image, in which case you can clear the few sections in which you do not want to exclude motion detection.
Exclude All	Clear all grid sections in the preview image.
Manual sensitivity	Enable this functionality to adjust the Sensitivity slide for motion yourself. Drag the slider to the left for a higher sensitivity level, and to the right for a lower sensitivity level. The higher the sensitivity level, the less change is allowed in each pixel before it is regarded as motion. The lower the sensitivity level, the more change in each pixel is allowed before it is regarded as motion. Pixels in which motion is detected are highlighted in green in the preview image. Milestone recommends that you do not enable manual sensitivity because: With dynamic sensitivity, the system calculates and optimizes the sensitivity level automatically and suppresses motion detections that come from noise in the images. Dynamic sensitivity improves motion detection at nighttime, where the noise in the images often triggers false motion. The system is not overloaded from too much recording. The users are not missing results from insufficient recording.
Sensitivity	Use this setting to determine how much each pixel must change before it is regarded as motion. With a high sensitivity, very little change in a pixel is required before the system regards it as motion. Areas in which motion is detected are highlighted in green in the preview image. Select a slider position in which only detections you consider motion are highlighted. The more you drag the slider to the left, the more of the preview image becomes highlighted. This is because with a high sensitivity even the slightest change in a pixel is regarded as motion. As an alternative to using the slider, you may specify a value between 0 and 256 in the field next to the slider to control the sensitivity setting.
Motion	Adjust the Motion slider so that motion detection is only triggered by the required level of motion. The selected motion level is indicated by the black vertical line in the Level bar above the sliders. The black vertical line serves as a threshold. When motion is above (to the right of) the selected level, the bar changes color from green to red, indicating a positive motion detection. Alternatively, specify a value between 0 and 10000 in the field on the left to control the motion setting. The more you drag the slider to the left, the more positive motion detections you see because less change will be needed to trigger a positive motion detection. The number of positive motion detections may also affect the amount of video you record, the amount of notifications you receive and more.
Keyframe Only	Select Keyframe only if you want motion detection to take place only on keyframes of the video stream to reduce the system resources used on motion detection.
Detection interval	Specify how often motion detection analysis is carried out on video from the camera. The default is every 240 milliseconds (close to once a quarter of a second). The interval is applied regardless of your cameras' frame rate settings. Adjusting this setting can help lower the amount of system resources used on motion detection.
Detection resolution	Specify whether the full image or a selected percentage of the image should be analyzed. For example, by specifying 25%, every fourth pixel is analyzed instead of all pixels, reducing the system resources used but also offering less accurate motion detection.