Demo Driver

This sample shows how to create a device driver using the MIP Driver Framework. The sample includes all supported device types - i.e., cameras, microphones, speakers, inputs, outputs, and metadata.

Before the 2021 R1 release, MIP Driver Framework-based device drivers supported only one video channel per hardware.

The sample does not communicate with a real device, but comes with an application, Demo Driver Device, that acts like a device:

Demo Driver Device application

Note, that Demo Driver Device is using screen capturing and that operation is known for high CPU usage. It means that the actual FPS on the device depends on how much CPU is available on the machine where it is running, and the higher FPS is set, the more CPU is needed. If there is not enough CPU available, the actual FPS can be significantly lower than the value set in the camera settings.

The sample demonstrates

Using

Environment

Visual Studio C# project

To build the Demo Driver, open and build this project:

Running

To try out the Demo Driver sample:

  1. If you have just deployed the Demo Driver, restart the Recording Server Service to make the driver available.
  2. Run mipsdk-samples-plugin\DemoDriver\DemoDriverDevice\DemoDriverDevice.exe as administrator.
    Note: DemoDriverDevice.exe is available here DemoDriverDevice on GitHub
  3. By default, the device will use the credentials root:pass, the scheme ‘http’, the port 22222, and the MAC address DE:AD:C0:DE:56:78. Specify the desired port, MAC address, and credentials, and then select the Start service button.
  4. In the Management Client, use the Add Hardware... wizard with the Manual method to add the Demo Driver device to your recording server. The Demo Driver is found in the driver list in the Other group.
  5. A Demo Driver device will now be added to your recording server.
  6. You can add more Demo Driver devices by starting multiple DemoDriverDevice applications running on different ports and MAC addresses. Be aware that only one of them can have express device discovery enabled.
  7. The demo driver also supports a custom driver command named "DemoCommand". To try this, you will need to make a plug-in or application sending a Server.DriverCommand message.

To use the https scheme you need to have a certificate available in your personal certificate repository on the machine where the DemoDriverDevice.exe is running and then execute the following command in a command prompt run with administrative privileges:

netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:<PORT> appid={<APPID>} certhash=<CERTHASH>

<PORT> should be replaced with the port chosen in the application, <APPID> is any guid (e.g. F86EEB0F-4FDB-4C67-A6D6-C9E910C10E66 - it does not need to correspond to anything) and <CERTHASH> is the thumbprint of the certificate. The latter can be found in the ‘Manage Computer Certificates’ control panel, if you navigate to the installed certificate, double-click it and then you will find the thumbprint in the ‘Thumbprint’ field on the ‘Details’ tab.

Deploying

To deploy the Demo Driver:

  1. Stop the Recording Server Service
  2. From project build output, copy the files DemoDriver.def and DemoDriver.dll (and DemoDriver.pdb if debugging) to %ProgramFiles%\Milestone\MIPDrivers\DemoDriver\.
  3. Start the Recording Server Service

Troubleshooting

If the "Demo Driver" does not appear in the driver list for manual setup in Management Client, make sure the user which is running "Recording Server" has access to the "MIPDrivers" folder.

From XProtect 2023 R1 MIP driver framework drivers are included in the express hardware scan process and the DemoDriverDevice has thus been updated. This will, however, mean that it might also be detected by the ONVIF device driver on previous versions of XProtect, but as it is not ONVIF compliant it will not work with the ONVIF device driver.