I often get asked what is the best method of viewing my new HDCVI camera system. My response varies and that is because not everyone has the same needs. In my personal opinion, Techpro Security Products PSS (Pro Surveillance Software) is the best all around application for viewing a single unit or hundreds of units. One of the best things with this software is that it is my favorite four letter F word, FREE! Another really nice thing about this software is that you can change almost every configuration of the recorder right from the software, so you can literally configure a hundred recorders without ever having to leave your computer and physically touch any of the recorders.
Another really nice feature of the software is that you can configure it to automatically launch at start-up of your computer and have it continue where you left off when you shut it down. I find this to be a very handy feature, so that I don’t have to think about the layout of the cameras every time I open the software.
Getting Started
The first thing you will want to do is grab the DVD disc that came with your new HDCVI recorder. You will take this and insert it into the DVD drive of your computer. This is what your screen should look like.
Once you put the disk in your computer, you will want to select the “Tools & Resources” folder to open. Under here you will see this.
You will open the TechproSS-PC folder, which will give you these options.
Select and run the setup. You will install this like any other program you install on your computer following all the prompts. Once the program is installed you will see the PSS icon on your desktop.
Once you double click the icon, a Login box will appear.
Here you will be prompted to login to the software. Incase your program does not automatically populate the username and password, they are defaulted as “admin” for both the username and password. Note that it is in all lower case for both fields.
Once you are logged into the software, you will have a range of different options. The interface will look like this.
Now the default look, will show a PTZ controller on the right side of the screen where my device list is showing. I will go over how to change this later on in this article. The next thing you will need to do is to add devices to your software. On right side options, you will see “Config Manager”, this is where you go to add the devices.
Once you open the “Device Manager”, you will be able to add the device by the smart search option or by a manual add. The smart search option, searches for Techpro Security Products devices that are on your network. If the device is going to be accessed only inside of the network, this is the only way you need to add the device. If you are installing the software on a laptop and plan on accessing the recorder remotely, then you will want to use the manual add option. You will also want to make sure to use the EXTERNAL IP address of the location or the ddns account information.
On the screenshot above, you will notice that it is only asking for the username and password.
This is because I was using the smart search option and all the other information will be populated. The screen for the manual add is slightly different, but asks for this information as well.
Once the device is added to your list, you will be able to select the “Device List” on the upper right side of the screen.
When your device is logged in you will see a plus symbol to the left of the title of the device. You hit the plus symbol and the list of cameras will drop down. Now if you do not have the plus symbol it means that your recorder hasn’t logged in. If you double click on the title, this will attempt to login to the unit. Now if you are still not getting a plus symbol, watch for a slide up of information at the very bottom right of the screen. This will be where you get the information for why the unit is not logging in.
Software Configuration
Now that you have successfully inputted your HDCVI recorder into the software, we can now configure the software to make your life easy! One of the first things that I like to do is to go into the Configurations at the very bottom of the window of the software.
Once you have clicked on the “Config” button at the bottom, you will need to select the “Option” option. This will open the software configurations and look like this.
In this dialog box, you can have the software automatically login to PSS, so that you won’t be prompted every time you start the program for the username and password. You can have PSS auto run when the computer starts up. One big thing that you will want to make sure is selected in this dialog box, is the “Login all devices” in the upper left side of the box. In here you can also have the software automatically start a “Task”. A task is a specific set of cameras in a specific configuration that you configure. To set up a task, you will go to the “Config Manager” section on the right side of the screen.
You will title the task to what will make sense to you. Then you will select the amount of cameras that you are looking to have be displayed. Once you have filled this information in, you will want to click “OK” to save the scheme task. Now that you have the task saved, open the desired cameras in the appropriate window/s. You will then right click with the mouse in one of the windows, and choose the option “Add All Windows To Task”. This will have a pop out window that list the tasks that you have created, select the one that you want the current setup to be assigned to.
Now that you have the system up and operational, here are a few things that you can do with the system conveniently and easily. You can pull footage from any of the connected devices, through the Playback button at the bottom of the screen. You can configure which of the Tasks you want to run in the viewing screen under the Task button at the bottom of the screen.
You can control any PTZ that is attached to the system with the PTZ Direction section on the right side of the screen.
With the systems that are connected you can also change almost all the configurations of your recorder from this software, that you can do at the recorder itself. To access the configurations of your recorder, you need to open the Device List on the upper right of the program. You will then right click on the device you want to configure. Select the Advanced option, which will have another sub-menu pop out. You will then select on Device Config.
Once the configuration dialog box pops open you will see almost all the same options that you would see on the main menu of the recorder itself. This is how I do most all of my configurations of my devices. I honestly haven’t touched my recorders in years from being able to do everything remotely.
This software can make your life with your security system simple and actually pleasing, especially if you have multiple recorders deployed!
