Swann Communications 2013

Setting up the Swann HD IP cameras

Connecting the cameras to the network
The Swann IP cameras are connected to the network with Category 5/5E/6 cables. The cameras
feature Power over Ethernet for ease of connection and preferably are connected to a PoE enabled
switch or router. If that is not available, the camera can also be powered by a PoE injector situated
between the router and the camera, or by connecting a 12V DC switch mode power supply (min
0.5A) to the 12V pigtail on the camera.
NB: You should only use the PoE system *OR* the 12V power supply, not both. Using both could
cause damage to the camera.

Installing the software

To find the cameras after you have them connected, you will need to install the software. At the
time of this document being produced, the software is Swannview Plus. This software is
downloadable from our public FTP at www.swann.com/downloads and may also come on a disc with
your camera. If you cannot locate it, please contact us for directions.
Installing the software follows common Windows conventions for software installation.

Only the Client is required to configure the cameras, but the other selected options could be useful
depending on your intended setup. For this document, will will be concentrating entirely on the
Client software.

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As this states, the Client requires WinpCap (a 3rd party program) to locate the cameras on the
network. You may already have this installed, in which case it is fine to skip installing it.

The software has completed installing.

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Locating the cameras on the network

Upon starting Swannview Plus, you will get a prompt to create a password for the software. This is
not necessary, but you may wish to have that additional protection on the software.

Here I have entered a simple password and used the auto-login function so that entering the
password is not required on program start.

The application will then start the Wizard. We are not concerned with the wizard for the purposes
of these instructions, so cancel out of the wizard and you will be presented with the main screen. To
locate the cameras, we need to go to Device Management.

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Once in Device Management, select Show Online Devices to see a list of detected devices on the
network. You will see our standalone camera there at the bottom of the list.
Note that the standalone camera does not have the right subnet address and therefore is not
currently accessible from the software or browser. To correct this, we can use the software to give
the camera a new IP address with the right subnet.

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To do this, we select the camera from the list. The Network Information area will activate and
populate the fields there. Next, I assign an IP address with the correct subnet of 192.168.99.*, and
fill in the admin password for the camera (default 12345). Finally, we hit Modify to push the
settings to the camera.

Now that we have the camera on the same subnet as our PC and other devices, we can login to it.
Click on Select Device. Click Yes on the dialog that appears.

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The Add Device dialog appears. You will need to fill in a name and the user/password (default:
admin/12345). Then click on Add.

Now that the camera is entered on the software, we can change the settings. Click on Remote
Configuration.

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In here you will see various options for configuring the cameras. Probably the most important one
here is the Network menu.

Here I am changing the IP addressing to DHCP (Auto-obtain). Note that the camera will not request
an IP address until it is rebooted. Other options are located here as well, including the ports that the
camera uses.

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Camera Configuration
Now that the camera is located on the network, we need access to the camera options. The first
requirement here is to have the camera entered into a control group. If you left the Export to
Group option ticked in the Add Device dialog earlier then the camera will already be in a default
group. However, you might want to add multiple cameras to the same group etc. so we will briefly
cover this component.
From the Control Panel, select Import Camera.

On the left are all the devices youve added to Device Management. On the right you can create
groups and arrange the outputs of various devices into groups.

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Here I have added some additional devices to demonstrate. Note that you can have feeds from
different devices in the same group. Now that the camera is in a group, we can adjust its other
settings.
Go to the Control Panel and select Camera Settings.

You can see in the selection box that only cameras that were added to a group are included in the
Camera Settings screen.
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Hmmm, the camera is showing the wrong time. Internet (time) to the rescue! Click on Device
Settings.

This opens the Device Parameters screen as seen earlier. Click on Network, then the Advanced
Settings tab, and finally NTP.

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Youll have to turn on NTP, and then enter in some NTP server settings. Here are some that will
work here. DO NOT call us to ask what time zone youre in, thats what Google is for.

Now the correct time! Other important settings here are the video quality and the picture settings.

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This camera depicted is the HD800. As such, it only does HD rather than full HD 1080P. The sub
stream is the small stream used on remote (typically mobile) connections.

The picture settings have the basic sliders for image adjustments. Also here is the Advanced Settings
button for more in-depth configuration of the camera output.

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The Advanced Settings open up a range of further customisations. We will not be examining the
individual options in this guide, but this is a useful reference for the options that can be adjusted.

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