Quick Setup


This page is designed to help you get the system up and running as quickly as possible.

First Load

When you first load the application you will be asked to select a device. On most systems there will only be one device, double click to select it. Next you will see the configure device dialog box. The source button allows you to select and configure the video source. If you have multiple video capture devices installed on your system you can use this dialog box to select which one you want to use with ThiefAware. You can also use this dialog box to set values such as brightness and contrast and any device specific options. The format button displays the format dialog box. Make sure the compression is set to RGB24; this is the default value for most devices. This dialog also allows you to change the size of the image. Keep in mind that an image where the sides have been doubled takes up four times as much hard drive space. The other dialogs don't do anything useful at this stage, so ignore them. Click the done button when you're finished configuring the device.

Configuring ThiefAware

Before you really start using ThiefAware, it is a good idea to adjust the application's configuration. Click the configure button and click the monitoring button on the dialog box that appears. This will display the monitoring dialog box. The most important options here are the save location, which is the folder the data files will be stored in and the hard drive space usage limit, which is the number of kilobytes to limit capture data to. Set the hard drive space usage limit about one or two gigabytes lower than what you actually have available so that there is room for file system overhead and the index file.

You may also want to set the frame interval. This is the number of milliseconds ThiefAware waits between capturing each image. An interval of 1000 corresponds to a frame rate of 1 frame per second. To convert values from frames per second to millisecond intervals, divide 1000 by the frame rate. For example, 1000/5 = 200, which is the default frame interval. Keep in mind that you do not need a very high frame rate for security purposes, so it may be worthwhile using a lower frame rate to save hard drive space.

Configuring the Timer

ThiefAware comes with a timer which allows you to decide when monitoring will start and stop. This is handy to avoid recording at times when the motion detector could be triggered unnecessarily. The timer is very basic at this stage. Click the configure button and then click the timer button in the dialog box that appears to access the timer configuration dialog box. Here you can set the start and end times for motion monitoring and recording. Note that if the start time is later in the day than the stop time, the timer will do nothing as it currently only works during the day.

Related Links

Welcome
Using ThiefAware
Configure dialog box