Bookmarks

Macula Monitor offers an opportunity to mark any specific moment in time so that it can be easily found in the Playback mode later. It is possible to add bookmarks from live, instant playback, regular playback and smart search modes, as well as instant playback mode in the investigation tabs. Bookmarks are displayed and can be searched through in the regular playback mode.

The bookmark overlay control may be absent in the following cases:

• your currently logged user does not have permissions to add bookmarks - in this case, the bookmark control may be absent for specific channels only

• the control had been hidden via application settings (by default, it is enabled)

Also, the bookmark button will be greyed out for orphaned archive tracks in the Playback mode (orphaned tracks are recordings that have no active channel associated with them).

Bookmark Properties

Bookmarks have multiple severity levels, each one introduced with a different color on the timeline. The default level is Critical; this severity level is also displayed for all bookmarks created before installing this version.

Bookmarks in the alarm pane also have a status, which allows you to use them for case management. If you have sufficient user permissions, you will be able to change the bookmark status when the bookmark is opened for editing from the Alarm pane or in the search mode in playback.

Bookmark status can be:

• New: the bookmark has been created but has not been commented by anyone (used for case management)

• In progress: once a new bookmark has been modified, its status is automatically changed to In progress to indicate that the case is being handled

• Closed: operators can manually assign this status to indicate that the case is closed

• Hidden: also manually assigned

Hidden bookmarks will not appear in search.

Add Bookmarks

You can add bookmarks from almost any viewing mode by clicking the corresponding overlay icon in the bottom left corner of the video.

Select your desired channel by clicking it in live, playback, instant playback or smart search mode.

Among the overlay controls in the bottom-right-hand corner of the channel, locate the bookmark icon and click it once. In playback mode, the New bookmark button is located in the bottom-right-corner of the whole viewing area, near snapshot and video export controls.

Bookmark dialog box will appear, offering you to fill in the details. Several details are available in the dialog box:

• Channel: displays the currently selected channel name, cannot be changed

• Time: bookmark time - inserted automatically but can be adjusted (see details below)

• Title: bookmark name, e.g., Motion or Person detected (empty by default), which can be later searched by

• Severity: severity level fro your reference, from low to critical (critical is the default one)

• Description: user comments - a detailed description of what has happened (empty by default)

• Create alarm: the target bookmark will appear in the alarm pane of the subscribers

Bookmark time is automatically inserted using the following logic:

• Live mode: the moment of time when you pressed the bookmark button

• Instant playback: the currently played moment, the play marker position

• Playback: the currently played moment, the play marker position

• Smart search: the incident timestamp

and the timestamp in the bookmark details can be changed at this step by using the calendar or manual insertion (keyboard) for date and click + mouse wheel or keyboard for time.

While you are adding a bookmark, playback (regular or instant) will proceed in the background without being paused.

After you have filled in all the desired fields, click Save to add the bookmark at the selected moment in time. Your newly created bookmark will be available in the bookmark search in Playback mode from now on. Also, all bookmarks are visible on the timeline: these look as tiny flags, their color depending on the severity level. You can hover your mouse cursor over any of the bookmarks to get a tooltip with the bookmark timestamp and title. In order to see the description, double-click any bookmark on the timeline.

You can change the default bookmark colors via Macula Console, under Bookmark policy in the server settings. This is a system-wide property: for Macula Global systems, make sure to open the central server settings.

After you change the color related to a certain severity level, all bookmarks with that severity level will start using the new color. If the bookmarks are already opened somewhere (e.g., on the timeline of a Macula Monitor), simply refresh the timeline to see the new color: remove the channel from the view and add it anew. In instant playback mode, switching to live and back will do the trick.

Search Bookmarks

All the added bookmarks will be visible in regular playback and also in the instant playback modes, each bookmark being denoted as a colored flag. Hold your mouse cursor over the bookmark to see its name and exact time; double-click a bookmark to open a detailed description in a separate dialog box.

In order to search for and view the existing bookmarks added both by you and other users, go to the playback mode by switching to the Playback tab on the upper panel of Macula Monitor. Choose a layout of your preference either by loading an existing one or by filling the viewports with channels of your choice.

In the upper-right-hand corner, press the Bookmark search button in order to open the bookmark search panel.

Here, you have two options: search by bookmark creation time (i.e., when the bookmark was added, regardless of its location on the timeline) and/or by actual bookmark timestamp (its position within the timeline). Define the search parameters:

• Time: choose whether you want to search by bookmark time, its creation time, or both at the same time

• Date: set desired date and time range for bookmark time, its creation time, or both

• Channel: select a channel from the drop-down list (one of those present in the layout)

  • if you wish to search for bookmarks for all channels present in the layout, choose the "All visible in layout" option

  • choose Everywhere to include absent channels into the search

• Title: optionally, enter a bookmark title or a part of it (without wildcards) to refine your search results

• Description: optionally, enter any part of the bookmark's original description

• Severity: choose target severity levels (all included by default)

• Status: filter search results using bookmark's alarm status (by default, hidden bookmarks are excluded from the search)

When you have entered all the search conditions, press the Search button to obtain the bookmark list.

Search results will appear in the list in the bottom of the search panel. Single-clicking a bookmark will auto-locate it on the timeline, allowing you to see the exact moment, to which the target bookmark has been bound: click the Play button on the archive playback panel to start playback.

You can also double-click any bookmark either in the list or on the timeline to open it and view its contents in a separate dialog box. Understandably, you will not be able to change any bookmark details.

Found data can be saved into a CSV file (comma-separated values) that can be later parsed or opened with MS Excel-like applications. To do this, simply click the Export CSV... button below the search result list and specify your desired file name and path.