Milestone Systems, the networked video management software (VMS) product company, has released XProtect Essential+ as a free entry product.
Bjørn Skou Eilertsen, Chief Technical Officer, Milestone Systems, pictured, says: “XProtect Essential+ is a game changer for our open platform community. Essential+ allows anyone to start right. Any user can now benefit from the power of add-on solutions from our partners. Developers can use our rich programming environment now to create tomorrow’s add-on solutions to XProtect. They can install Essential+ and get our Software Development Kit for free. Add cameras and you are good to go. It’s that simple to start developing solutions for this rapidly growing business segment.”
By including the Milestone open platform programming in the free Essential+, Milestone says that it’s handing over the keys to innovation to developers. The software and SDK can be downloaded at no cost from the Milestone website. Documentation, eLearning courses and an online developer forum are among resources to which open platform software developers gain free access. The firm says that XProtect VMS products are built on Microsoft and other industry standards, so any Microsoft-certified developer can start developing.
Milestone also offers marketing support for developers, as solutions can be entered in the online Milestone Solution Finder that showcases the integrations to a global audience. The Milestone alliance partner team also offers certification with testing and documentation.
The free XProtect Essential+ 2017 R2 supports up to eight cameras from more than 6,000 supported devices. This enables the user to pick and mix camera models and brands. Processor-intensive video decoding can be offloaded to the graphics card. This can save up to 80 per cent in processing power, according to the company. The full Milestone programming environment (MIP SDK and advanced rules engine) are supported. This includes metadata handling for analytics. Upon installation, the users of the free XProtect Essential+ will gain free access to the Milestone online support community dedicated to XProtect Essential+. And XProtect Essential+ can be upgraded to XProtect Express+ or other XProtect products if the need arises for extra functions for interconnecting systems, encrypting video recordings or more features.
