Tuning i-Catcher Console

i-Catcher Console is internally a complex application that continually tunes itself to achieve the best balance between sensitivity and accuracy. After you have installed i-Catcher and understand the general operation, you should spare some time to tune the application. There are two main reasons to tune your i-Catcher Console installation, to reduce the number of false triggers and to increase system performance, these are discussed in more detail below.

Tuning to minimize false triggers

A concern in any event driven monitoring system, is possibility of false movements triggering the system. There are several ways to minimize the chances of false trigger these are summarized below;

Apply masks

Use masks to cover any areas likely to create false triggers. Examples of this might be roads, paths, swaying trees etc. Masks do not have to be visible on the image. See the masks section for more information.

Adjust Sensitivity Controls

Experiment with different sensitivity settings and light condition settings to find the optimal match for your camera/subject.

Set trigger on values

Throughout i-Catcher Console you are able to change the number of movements (in a specified time period) that constitute a trigger. These are set in the fashion "trigger on 3 movements in 8 seconds. If you are watching a corridor or path, then setting these to a higher number movements will eliminate spurious triggers from lights turning on and off, and other interference.

Set minimum trigger level if you have excessive triggers in low light conditions

i-Catcher continually tunes the motion detection algorithm to ensure the best sensitivity in any given light conditions. With some cameras, with slower AGC circuits, this can cause constant false triggers if monitoring in very dark conditions. If you experience these symptoms then you can set a minimum trigger level for the relevant feed, in i-Catcher client detection settings.

Tuning to reduce CPU usage

The number of cameras that can be attached to any given i-Catcher system is related to the overall power of the PC. This includes the speed of the hard disk used for storage as well as the amount of memory, speed of the processor and the graphics card.

Set suitable update rates

All i-Catcher feeds wait for a period of time before requesting another image from the camera device. Setting a long period to wait will result in lower frame rates and lower CPU utilization, conversely higher frame rate can be achieved by reducing this wait period, at the expense of higher CPU utilization.

Run in "only update on motion" mode

i-Catcher has a mode of operation that only updates the feed windows when motion has occurred, this is set on the recording tab of the feed settings. Running feeds in this mode substantially reduces CPU usage.