NoldusViso – Manage devices
Last updated: Nov 09, 2026
Every camera, microphone and other source that NoldusViso can record is registered once, and from then on lives on the Devices page. This chapter covers adding devices — usually by letting NoldusViso scan your network for them — and what you do with a device after that: check that it is ready, look through it and control it, change its settings, find out why it is not ready, and take it out of service when it needs maintenance.
The Devices page is the single inventory of your setup. Each device shows a status badge, and a device that is not ready explains itself in plain language instead of leaving you guessing.
Important note: Disabled is a statement of intent, not a recording switch. Disabling a device stops it from being offered when someone builds a new scenario source; it does not stop a recording that is already running, and it does not break a scenario that is already bound to that device.
Prerequisites
The Devices page is visible to Administrators, Technicians, and Researchers/Trainers. Students/Trainees and Guests do not see it — see User Accounts and Roles.
Adding a device, and changing one — editing its settings, enabling or disabling it, rebooting it, or deleting it — is reserved for Administrators and Technicians. Scanning the network additionally needs a System or Organizational level role, because a scan generates network traffic.
Researchers/Trainers have read-only access: they can find devices, read status and diagnostics, but they do not get the edit controls, the actions menu, or the live preview.
A device that is currently in a recording cannot be reconfigured until that recording ends.
1. Add devices by scanning the network
On the Devices page, select Add Device. The dialog that opens scans your network and lists what it finds.
In IP address or first 3 numbers of it to search, type either:
the first three numbers of an address, for example
192.168.1, to search that whole network; or- a complete address, for example
192.168.1.55, to find one device.
Optionally, fill in Username to try and Password to try: the credentials your cameras use. NoldusViso tries them only on devices it recognizes; where you leave a field empty, it tries the manufacturer's default instead.
- Select Scan network for devices.
A progress bar counts the addresses as the scan works through them, and each device appears in the list the moment it is found — you do not have to wait for the scan to finish.
NoldusViso then checks every recognized device on its own, a few at a time, with those credentials. The icon in front of each device tells you the result; hover over it, or tab to it, for the explanation:
Success (check mark) — the device connected and is ready to be added. Its live picture replaces the type icon, and small icons next to its name show what it supports: audio, PTZ (pan, tilt and zoom) and push-to-talk.
Error (exclamation mark) — NoldusViso could not connect, for example because the credentials were wrong. The explanation says why.
- Warning (warning triangle) — NoldusViso did not recognize the device.
Devices NoldusViso does not recognize — printers, routers, but also, for example, an RTSP camera without ONVIF — are listed separately under Unknown. They are not checked, and the credentials you typed are never sent to them.
Fix a device that shows an error or a warning. Select the device to open its settings and correct them — for an Unknown device, first choose its Device type — then select Apply settings under them to apply and test the new settings. The icon updates with the new result. A changed device also shows Apply settings in its row once you close it, and Reset to defaults puts back the settings the scan filled in.
A found device can also be an audio-over-IP (Dante) microphone. NoldusViso lists a Dante device it recognizes as a Microphone straight away; for any other device, choose Microphone as its Device type: the settings change to the multicast address, port, channels, sample rate and encoding the microphone streams on. Fill in at least the multicast address and select Apply settings; NoldusViso then checks that audio arrives on that address, and the explanation says what is wrong if it does not.
Choose what to add. Only devices marked Success can be ticked. Tick the ones you want and select Add selected devices. When you scanned for a complete address, that one device is ticked for you once it connects. Changing a setting on a ticked device unticks it until you apply it again, so an untested setting is never added. Nothing is saved until you select Add selected devices: devices you leave unticked are not added.
Devices that are already registered are left out of the results while Exclude devices that are already added is ticked, as it is at first. Untick it to see them — for example to add another stream of one — before or after the scan; there is no need to scan again, and the choice is remembered in this browser. Such devices are marked Already added and keep their own name, type and tags. NoldusViso checks them on its own only when you typed both a username and a password to try — never with a manufacturer default. Otherwise, change its settings — for example type its credentials — and select Apply settings; a credential field left empty uses the credentials already stored on the device. A check changes nothing on the device: only adding it saves the settings it was checked with, and adding does not enable a device that was disabled on purpose.
Add another stream of an already-added device. Open its row and select Add another stream — this needs NoldusViso to know the device's hardware identity; without one, the device cannot get more streams. For a camera, choose one of its ONVIF profiles that is not already added; for a device without ONVIF, type the stream's path. The choice appears as its own row, nested under the device, with its own status and preview, and is ticked automatically. Add it with everything else by selecting Add selected devices. A device with more than one stream shows how many in its row, for example 2 streams. Trying to add the same stream twice — for example from two open browser tabs — is refused: This stream is already added.
A device the scan cannot find — for example on another network — can be added by hand with Add device manually.
For a Dante microphone, select the (i) after Multicast address: it explains why NoldusViso cannot detect Dante devices, how to create the AES67 multicast flow NoldusViso receives in Dante Controller, and gives a command for Linux, macOS or Windows that lists each AES67 flow with the values to fill in. Use Dante Controller to discover and configure the devices themselves.
Important note: a scan only reports what answers on the network. A camera that is switched off, or on a network NoldusViso cannot reach, does not show up; see System Requirements for the ports the scan uses.
2. Find a device in the inventory
Open Devices in the sidebar. The list shows every registered device with its name, type and status badge, and the header summarises how many are ready — for example 12/14 ready.
To narrow the list:
- Search by name;
Filter by device type (IP camera, screen capture or microphone), by status, or by tag;
Group by type or by tag to see the inventory the way your rooms are organised.
Next to a device's name, small icons show what it supports: audio, PTZ (pan, tilt and zoom) and push-to-talk. Hover over an icon, or tab to it, for what it means.
Refresh status re-reads the status of every device in the list at once.
3. Read a device's status
Each device carries one of four badges:
- Connected — the device is reachable and delivering what it should;
- Not Ready — something is wrong; the device says what, and what it blocks;
- Disabled — someone deliberately took this device out of service;
- No recent data — NoldusViso has no fresh evidence about this device.
A device that is not ready shows the reason under its name — for example Device is not responding on the network or Device rejected the stream credentials — together with what the problem blocks (video recording, audio recording, camera control, live view) and when its status was last confirmed.
Status is evidence-based, so it can be older than this moment. Use Recheck on the device to ask NoldusViso to verify it right now.
4. Look through a camera and control it
Open a device to land on its Overview tab. Overview shows the device live — the same tile you get in a scenario — so the quickest way to confirm a camera is doing its job is to look through it. Beside the picture, above Recheck, icons show what the device supports (audio, PTZ, push-to-talk).
From the tile you can:
- Watch the live image, and unmute and adjust the level of the device's audio;
Pan, tilt and zoom a camera that supports it: drag on the image to move, use the zoom buttons, or scroll;
Recall a stored position with the numbered preset buttons (five slots), and store the current position with the save button;
- Use push-to-talk on a device that supports talkback.
Important note: a device that is part of another user's active recording shows an In recording label instead of the image. This is deliberate: privacy rules mean you do not get to look through a camera that is recording someone else's session.
5. Change a device's settings
Open the device and go to the Configuration tab. It opens read-only; select Edit to change:
Device type, Name and Tags — these are how you and your colleagues find the device later. To add a tag, type it and press Enter;
IP address, and the Stream path with its RTSP port, or the multicast address for an audio-over-IP device;
- Credentials used to reach the device;
- The camera profile the recorder should use.
Select Save to apply, or Cancel to discard. If you leave the tab with unsaved changes, NoldusViso warns you.
While not editing, a camera or screen-capture device with a known hardware identity also offers Add another stream from this device. It opens a small dialog: choose one of the device's ONVIF profiles, or type a stream path for a device without ONVIF, select Check to test it, then Add — this saves it as a new device and opens it. The device's Overview tab lists Other streams of this device as links, so you can jump between a device's streams from there.
Important note: the settings grouped under On the camera — the NTP time server, the audio encoder settings, and applying a profile to the camera — live on the camera itself, not in NoldusViso. Each one is written to the camera the moment you apply it, so Save and Cancel do not affect them.
Some settings can only be changed in the camera's own web interface. Where that is the case, NoldusViso says so and gives you a link to open it.
6. Diagnose a device that is not ready
The Diagnostics tab lists the conditions NoldusViso checks for that device — reachable, authorized, stream probe, media flowing, clock synced, storage writable, subscription live, configuration converged, ingestion alive — with the result of each and the reason for any failure. Only the conditions that apply to the device's type are shown.
Work down the list in order: a camera that is not Reachable will fail everything below it, so fix the network or the address first, then credentials, then the stream.
The Activity tab tells you the history side of the same story: when each condition last changed, when it was observed, when its evidence expires, and which part of the platform reported it. It also shows the device record itself — when it was added, its configuration revision, and its physical identity.
Note: NoldusViso keeps each condition's current state and when it last changed — not a full change log. Longer history lives in the platform logs.
A clock that is out of sync deserves its own check: Time Sync on the Devices page lists each device's own time, its drift against the NoldusViso appliance, and the time server it uses. From there you can point a camera at the application server or a public NTP server, or enter your own address. Recordings from devices whose clocks disagree cannot be aligned reliably, so treat drift as a real problem rather than a cosmetic one.
Device problems also reach you without you looking: the Notifications bell reports a device whose condition has failed, with a link straight to that device. For watching devices during a live recording, see Monitor ongoing recordings and device status.
7. Take a device out of service, reboot it, or remove it
Disabled / Enabled — take a device out of service, or put it back. A disabled device is no longer offered when someone builds a new scenario source, and it is excluded from scheduling and from status notifications. Use this for a camera that is being serviced or moved.
Reboot — restart a camera that is misbehaving. NoldusViso asks you to confirm, because the camera is unavailable for 30 to 60 seconds and any active recording using it is interrupted.
Detect — re-read what the device is capable of, after a firmware update or a change on the camera itself. The feature icons (audio, PTZ, push-to-talk) follow what it finds.
Test speaker — on a device with a speaker, confirm the talkback path works.
Delete — remove the device from NoldusViso entirely. This is irreversible: there is no undo, and the device's status history goes with it. Prefer Disabled unless the device is really gone.
Before you delete or disable a device, check which scenarios use it — removing a source a scenario depends on means that scenario can no longer record it.