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NovaVMS Manual

Add a camera to an existing site

Add a camera to an existing site

Use this procedure when the site already has at least one online gateway and you are adding another camera to the same LAN. Gateway ONVIF is the default; for rooftop or off-LAN cameras use the Direct RTSP flow instead (see Related).

Procedure

  1. Confirm the target gateway shows the green Online dot in Gateways → List.

  2. Mount the camera. Fasteners: 4 × M4 × 30 mm stainless screws into anchors rated ≥ 20 kg pull-out. Torque 0.6 N·m.

  3. Run Cat6 through the arm. Leave 150 mm service loop inside the housing and form a 40 mm drip loop below the gland.

  4. Terminate T568B. Test with a cable meter (all 4 pairs, <100 m). Reject any run with a split pair.

  5. Re-apply PoE at the switch. Verify 802.3af (Class 3, 12.95 W) link-up within 10 seconds.

  6. On the camera’s built-in web UI, set NTP to your site’s NTP server. ONVIF discovery fails if clock drift exceeds ±5 seconds.

  7. In Gateways → (your gateway) → Discover cameras. Wait up to 30 seconds for WS-Discovery multicast.

  8. Select the new camera. Enter ONVIF username and password.

  9. Name the camera (≤100 chars, unique per site), pick the site, set recording duration (default 30 s, pre-buffer 5 s, post-buffer 5 s).

  10. Click Add camera. Camera enters pending, then online within 1–3 seconds.

  11. Open the camera’s Live tab. Confirm first frame renders within 5 seconds and the FPS matches the camera’s configured rate (typically 15 or 25).

  12. Label the camera in the UI and tag the physical patch panel port with the same name.

Common variations

  • Camera not on the gateway’s LAN — use Direct RTSP mode instead. Gateway discovery only crosses the gateway’s LAN broadcast domain.
  • Camera has no ONVIF, only RTSP — use Direct RTSP with rtsp://user:pass@ip:554/… URL.
  • Two cameras same model, same default name — rename the first camera before discovering the second to avoid the uniqueness clash.

If this didn’t work