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ACTi Knowledge Base

Category: Educational Note

Sub-category: Application

Model: ACM Series, TCM Series and KCM series

Firmware: ACM: v3.12.15; TCM: 4.07.15 (UPnP), 4.09.17 (Bonjour)

Software: N/A Author: Wells.Wei

Published: 2011/02/11 Reviewed: 2011/05/10

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How to Find Cameras using IP Utility, UPnP or Bonjour

Contents

Introduction

ACTi IP Utility

UPnP

Bonjour

Reference

Introduction

Have you ever wanted to access one of cameras, but you couldn’t remember its IP address?

What if there is a convenient tool to search and list all cameras? You just need a few clicks and

the Web Configurator of your target camera will show up immediately.

ACTi offers three ways to find ACTi cameras conveniently, ACTi IP Utility, UPnP and

Bonjour.

IP Utility is a software tool from ACTi to run on windows PC. After download from website, you

don’t have to install it. You just double-click the .exe file and IP Utility will find all ACTi cameras

in the network.

UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) technology is a networking protocol built in in Windows

system. You just need to confirm UPnP function is enabled in ACTi camera at first. Then, you

don’t have to install any software and you can use the network search in windows system to

find out ACTi cameras.

Bonjour is a service discovery protocol by Apple Inc. This useful software tool can be

downloaded from website for free. After we install Bonjour on PC and confirm this function is

enabled in ACTi cameras, we can use Bonjour to easily search for ACTi cameras.

You might be interested to know the detail about how do they work. We will introduce the

step-by-step procedure to set up.

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ACTi IP Utility

Download IP Utility software from ACTi website:

http://www.acti.com/ip_utility

Un-zip it and execute “IP Utility” in the folder

Waiting for few seconds and all ACTi cameras in your network will be listed on IP Utility

software.

These are the detail information on cameras, such as model name, MAC address and serial

number. You can find the camera you are looking for from this information.

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You just click the IP address of camera on IP Utility and Web Configurator will be opened.

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UPnP (Universal Plug and Play)

UPnP technology is a standard protocol built in Windows system. This function is enabled in

ACTi cameras by default. If the function is enabled before you install the cameras then, when

you want to find a camera, you can just use the network search in Windows system.

Confirm UPnP function is enabled (Default is enabled)

ACM series (Firmware version is v3.12.15 or later)

Setup UPnP

Type the Friendly Name with which you can identify the camera, ex: Model name – Location,

and press Apply.

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TCM series (Firmware version is v4.07.15 or later)

Setup Network UPnP

Type the Friendly Name which you can identify, ex: Model name – Location, and press Apply.

Search ACTi Cameras in Network

After install cameras on the site, you can choose “Computer” on the start menu of windows

system.

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Click “Network” item. It will list all ACTi cameras in “Other Devices” .

Here are the ACTi cameras with friendly name. You just can double-click on this and the Web

Configurator of camera will open in your default browser. If your default browser is not Internet

Explorer, just copy the web address to IE and open again.

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Bonjour

We can use Bonjour to discover computers, IP devices and IP cameras on network without

manual configuration. Bonjour uses industry standard IP protocols to

allow devices to automatically discover each other without the need to

enter IP addresses or configure DNS servers. That means while you get

IP cameras in the beginning, you can use Bonjour to find IP

cameras without doing any IP address configuration on your PC

and cameras. Look at the procedure below. We will guide you how to confirm this function is

enabled on ACTi cameras and how to install Bonjour software tool for searching ACTi

cameras.

Confirm Bonjour function is enabled (Default is enabled)

ACM series (Firmware version is v3.12.15 or later)

Setup Bonjour

Type the Friendly Name which you can identify, ex: Model name – Location, and press Apply.

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TCM series (Firmware version is v4.09.17 or later)

Setup Network Bonjour

Type the Friendly Name which you can identify, ex: Model name – Location, and press Apply.

Install Bonjour software tool

You can download Bonjour software tool from the below link.

http://actiftp.hosting4less.com/ACTIGENERAL/AP&Manual/Tools/BonjourSetup.exe

*The version is v1.0.106 for windows 32bit. ACTi has completed tests on this version.

Click “Next”

Select “I accept” and press “Next” after reading the License Agreement

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Press “Next” after reading the Information

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Press “Install”

Press “Finish”

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While the installation of Bonjour is finished, you can find the Bonjour’s button on the command

bar of IE browser.

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Search ACTi Cameras on Network

Press “Bonjour” button on command bar of IE browser. You can see the ACTi cameras list on

the left.

According to the Bonjour friendly name, you can double-click the camera and access to the

Web Configurator.

Reference

UPnP

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play

Bonjour

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software)

Apple Inc. website, Bonjour FAQ: http://developer.apple.com/networking/bonjour/faq.html