Issue:
Adding a camera, disabling or re-enabling the camera, restarting the exacqVision server service, or rebooting the exacqVision Server, causes the server to set the camera’s timezone, for all cameras that allow it, to Coordinated Universal Time (also known as Universal Time Coordinated, UTC, UTC+0, UTC+00:00, “Z time”, or “Zulu Time”). This is preferred for global video recording and playback time synchronization because UTC does not observe Daylight Savings Time (DST) changes. This camera configuration change is therefore normal, desired, and expected behavior for video management as a whole. However, if the expectation is that the camera’s on-screen display (OSD) must display the local time for video clip exportation in MPEG-4 (MP4) format, changing the camera’s timezone or turning off the camera’s OSD negatively impacts this use-case.
An override switch is now available for cameras that make use of the Dahua IP camera plugin (DahuaIpPi). These include:
- Illustra Essentials
- Storm
- IntelBras
- Riva Flex
- VidicoreGmbh
- CP Plus
The override will prevent the server from setting the timezone on the camera to UTC+0 as would normally occur. This will only affect the camera’s internal timekeeping and its corresponding on-screen display (OSD). The exacqVision Server’s OSD will remain unaffected and be subject to its own internal clock timezone setting.
Override commands:
To prevent the server from setting the camera’s timezone to UTC+0, use:
#timezone=camera
Example: 192.168.1.168#timezone=camera
To allow the server to set the camera’s timezone to UTC+0 (same as default):
ipaddress#timezone=utc
Example: 192.168.1.168#timezone=utc
How to use:
For a camera to be added to the exacq Server, append the #timezone=camera override command to the Hostname/IP address field of the exacqVision Client > Add IP Cameras > IP Camera Information section. On an already connected camera, add the override to the existing camera Hostname/IP address entry, set the camera timezone through the camera’s webpage interface, and allow the camera to reconnect.
Explicitly adding the #timezone=utc override command to the Hostname/IP address field of the exacqVision Client > Add IP Cameras > IP Camera Information section or simply removing the override command from an existing camera Hostname/IP address entry will immediately cause the camera to reconnect and be set to UTC+0 by the server.
Workaround:
None available.
Version Fixed:
Development build 20.09.119
Release build 20.12.0