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Security Monitor Pro
v3.06 |
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Avoid False
Alarms with Masking |
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You have set
up a video surveillance system to protect your property.
So far, so good! Now you’re getting dozens of
alerts every day, because birds fly past a window.
How can you avoid having your motion detection software
alert you whenever a car drives past your front door or
the building air conditioner turns on and blows on some
curtains? |
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There is an
effective remedy in
Security Monitor Pro. Using the “Masking”
feature, you can tell the program to ignore part of the
view from a camera. Motion in the masked area is
ignored. Motion detection alerts are triggered
only if there is motion in the unmasked part of the
video feed. Each camera can have its own
individual mask, so you can block out the window seen by
one camera and the bird cage seen by another. |
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Here’s an
example: You are using security cameras to protect your
business by monitoring key locations like file cabinets,
the entrances to restricted access areas, vital
equipment, the supply room, etc. |
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When you are
away, you want to monitor your desk area. It’s OK
if people enter the room, but you want an alert to be
triggered if someone invades your personal space.
The problem is that there are trees just outside your
window that constantly move in the wind. Placing a
mask over the trees solves the problem. Moving
tree limbs won’t trigger an alert, but Security Monitor
Pro will still detect motion everywhere else in the
camera image. |
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The second
camera monitors the entrance to the conference room.
You want to know who uses it and participates in
important client meetings. The digital clock
should be masked because the moving display can trigger
false alarms. |
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To use the
Masking feature in Security Monitor Pro: |
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1. |
Select the
camera by clicking on its preview. In this case we
will add a mask to Panasonic BL-C10 (camera “1”). |
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2. |
Click on the
Tools menu and then Mask Panasonic BL-C10 (1),
or the mask icon
on the control bar of the Preview window . |
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3. |
A window
appears that explains how to use masking. Click
OK to close it. The mask icon on the control
bar changes to the Unmask icon
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4. |
A rectangle
outlined with red dotted lines appears in the Preview.
You can resize it by dragging any of its edges or
corners with the mouse, and move it by dragging anywhere
inside the box. Move it to the part of the image that
you want to mask and size it to cover the area that
would trigger false alarms. You can only activate or
deactivate masking, or move and resize the mask
rectangle, when monitoring is turned off. |
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The same
methods can be used to mask the digital clock for the
camera that monitors the conference room. |
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To unmask a
camera, select it, open the Tools menu and click
Unmask (name-of-camera), or click on the unmask
icon in the camera’s Preview window. |
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Mask settings
do not change when you switch between camera views,
close the program, or when scheduled monitoring starts
or stops. |
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By not
detecting the motion of your fireplace, curtains, flags,
or aquarium fish, you can drastically reduce the number
of false alarms in Security Monitor Pro. Masking
can save storage space for recordings and snaps, reduce
unnecessary e-mail traffic, and avoid wasting your time
responding to an alert caused by a dog walking past your
window. By letting you focus your attention only
on real problems, it creates a more effective, more
reliable surveillance system. |
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