Remote Viewing Over the Internet With Sentinel
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Questions
How do I access my picture from another computer using Sentinel Control Center?
Answer
Sentinel is designed so that you can make your live cameras and saved video and still images available to remote users over the Internet. The computer where you run Sentinel and have cameras connected is called the Sentinel Server when you are sharing images over the Internet.
Setting Up A Password
- At the Sentinel Server, open the Options tab then the Remote User subtab:
- You should see ten letters and numbers for your Access ID. They will be 1 through 0 and A through F. The letter O will not appear. Make a note of your Access ID.
- If you see ten zeroes for your Access ID, then your software is not registered.
- Type in a password, retype it in the confirmation field, and click OK.
Enabling Sharing
- To start sharing, all you have to do is click the Connect button:
- If your sharing settings are configured, you are ready to start sharing. When you click Connect, your Sentinel server connects to an X10 server that acts as a gateway for remote users.
- When Vanguard is connected for sharing, you will see some new things in the main program window:
- You can turn off the display of the Internet-related items in the Streaming Options window.
- The Quality slider changes the compression quality of the image you are sending. A more compressed image is faster to send, but doesn't look as good as a less compressed picture.
- The Frequency slider tells Sentinel how often to send video frames to the remote user. A higher frequency gives you smoother video, but will use more bandwidth and might be slower to display. We recommend starting out with the Quality slider in the middle and the Frequency slider turned all the way up.
- At the top of the window are several tools to monitor the status of your online connection.
- The bar on the left shows is a gauge of the data you are transmitting. The bar on the right shows how much you are receiving. Clicking the Status button opens the Connection Status log window.
- The connection status log shows you a more complete picture of your remote connections. You can see how many remote users are connected to your Vanguard Server, how much data you've sent and received, and you can read a log of connection messages.
Accessing Your Server Remotely
Once you have the Sentinel Server configured and running the way you want it, you can access your images from any Windows computer connected to the Web and running Internet Explorer 5 or newer.
- Before you get started, you will need to know your user identification code and password. You can get these from the Remote User Settings window on your Sentinel Server. If you have that ready, direct your browser to:
- The Remote Client looks just like the Sentinel Server, but loads in your browser window. When it is done loading, click the Connect button to open the connection window.
- Enter your Access ID, a name for this connection, and the password for this Access ID (the Username field is optional). Click Connect to make the connection to the Sentinel server. After the first time you connect, the connection information will be saved in the list box. You can just click on a name in the list to automatically enter the connection information.
- Once a connection is established, you have remote access and control of all the features in the Sentinel Server.