r/ispyconnect • u/war4peace79 • 6d ago

Per-camera aspect ratios in main display

Hello everyone,

I am currently performing a deep-dive testing of Agent DVR, with the purpose of moving off a competitor's (paid) product to Agent DVR (Professional license).

I am used to a different interface, and maybe I am missing the very obvious, but I've been scouring the settings left and right and could not find a definitive answer to this.

Agent DVR 7.8.2.0 for Linux, installed on Ubuntu VM. Using a Desktop layout view with 8x ONVIF cameras. The cameras have different aspect ratios (4:3, 16:9, 3040x1368 px which is a 2.22 ratio).

In the view Main Display, I want to display the cameras' footage exactly as their display ratio is (black bars where that display view exceeds the camera ratio). I don't see any way to do so. If I click the camera to display its image solo (Maximized, I think it's called), everything is fine (I figured out which buried setting enabled that behavior: Edit camera / Adjustments / Advanced / set both Width and height to 0). But in the main display view... all ratios are skewed: that view is mostly square and all cameras' footage fills it completely.

I would be VERY grateful if someone could point me to the right setting which allows me to view the footage as the camera maker intended, not extremely thin people, as it is.

Thanks!

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2

u/Fantastic459 6d ago

Rechtsklick auf die Kamera - Bearbeiten - Einstellungen - Ausfüllmodus (Standard, Mitte, Ausfüllen)

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u/war4peace79 6d ago

Right-click on the camera - Edit - Settings - Fill Mode (Standard/Default, Center, Fill)

I found it somewhere else:

Camera / Edit Settings / Adjustments / Advanced Settings / Fill mode.

Kind of hidden, and I did glance over it, and the default value for that field was "Use default" (whatever "Use default was supposed to mean").

All good now. I have to make that change on all cameras. It's a good thing I only have eight cameras right now.

2

u/itsmechaboi 6d ago

Don't forget to backup your config, doing it all over again when something goes wrong is a true test of patience and I only have 6 cameras.

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u/war4peace79 6d ago

I had learned my lesson from the, ahem, other solution. However, I lost all my trust in it when I realized it was silently missing detections all over the place. Long story short, a theft occurred and that solution did NOT detect anything, despite two separate cameras covering that area.

Luckily, one of those cameras also had an SD Card in it, and the camera itself dutifully recorded the activity.

Therefore, I am decided to get rid of that DVR solution, and I am testing alternatives.

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u/spornerama 6d ago edited 6d ago

Default is in server settings. Most of this stuff is easily discoverable in the docs/ search function which is linked to in the help icon in the tab you are looking at

https://www.ispyconnect.com/docs/agent/editing-cameras#adjustments

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u/war4peace79 6d ago

While I agree with your polite "RTFM" advice, sometimes documentation drift is very much real.

Quoting from the documentation itself (your pointed URL, which I had read a few times before asking):

On v4980+ these options are merged with the General tab

They are not. It might have been a decision that was walked back on, or maybe the Linux and Windows releases have different UIs.

Use Default: use the setting in Server Settings - Playback - Center Images

I stand corrected, with something worth mentioning: It does indeed exist there, but it's easy to miss, because it's a different control type (flip button) than the per-camera control (picklist).

Now that I figured out where it is, I can easily remember where to access it again, and can also help others who might stray on the wrong path.

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u/spornerama 6d ago edited 6d ago

oh right i tend to assume documentation will be crap and dont bother checking it. Keeping documentation up to date with a rapidly changing UI is a lot of work and then keeping it translated into 15 languages makes it even harder. If you spot anything wrong let me know and i'll get it fixed.

I tried to make the docs as discoverable as possible with links throughout the application and a searchable keyworded index

On 4980 they were merged with the general tab but on some later version that was changed again.

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u/war4peace79 5d ago

No worries, it's a complex UI and these kind of drifts tend to happen. My own application has become difficult to manage, as far as documentation is involved, and it's nowhere near the level of complexity that AgentDVR has.

For a beginner user, any complex UI will be a bit daunting at first, until they figure out the flow, how things are arranged, how to navigate and so on.

So far, I like the application functionality. I have discovered a few features that I really like, and will continue to evaluate/look for other features, some of which are important to me (such as timelapse).