Playback (Archive) Mode

Select Playback tab to switch to archive playback mode. Your current layout will be used and recorded video streams will be displayed for channels with enabled recording. If you wish to load footage from a different channel or channels, or use a different layout or layout template, use the Resources panel on the left:

  • Layouts: double-click your desired layout to load it

  • Layout templates: double-click your desired layout template to load it, then double-click or drag and drop the channels of your choice to fill the viewports

  • Channels and webpages:

    • double-click a channel to load it automatically within the current layout (first, empty viewports are filled, then non-locked channels are replaced one by one)

    • drag and drop a channel onto any viewport to load it there

By default, the layout is synchronized with the live view as you switch between Live and Playback tabs. However, you can disable this synchronization by allowing different layouts for live and playback in the Application settings, under Usability (scroll to the bottom to see this setting).

All channels will be listed under the servers from which they originate; or, if you have chosen to merge resources in the connection properties, they will form an alphabetically sorted list. Each channel can be clicked and expanded in order to access recordings of its main an/or secondary stream, as well as separate tracks recorded on failover servers. Use the search field on top to quickly find the desired channel.

All the footage having no associated active channels will be available under Orphan archive tracks. Such recordings include footage from removed channels, renamed channels and also old product archive.

Also, if your current user account does not have permissions for certain channels but has access to a server's recordings, all channels will be also listed as orphans.

Macula archive is protected with watermark. If archive contents have been modified with third-party tools, a warning will be displayed during playback and a critical level entry will appear in the Alerts section.

Timeline

The timeline in playback is an outline of the archive recordings, and it is displayed below the video. Depending on your application preferences, it may look different, but the logic remains the same. Use the timeline and controls on/next to it to browse through recordings.

The description below will let you better understand how the timeline works and improve your archive browsing experience by revealing some tips.

Stripes on the timeline represent different recorded data streams. Legend:

  • the yellow vertical line denotes current playback position

  • time intervals show the timeline scale; click and drag left/right to move the timeline

  • hover your mouse over the timeline to see a thumbnail (stream/bookmark preview)

  • use your mouse wheel to zoom the timeline in and out (current playback position will be used as center)

  • the narrow red horizontal line shows recorded video

  • the white line (a little bit wider than the white one) indicates motion

  • the red line (a little bit wider than the cyan one) shows recorded incoming audio

  • the wide semi-transparent white line denotes VCA metadata*

  • the wide dark green one in the background is external textual data

  • bookmarks look like little flags of different colors (colors for various severity levels can be customized via Macula Console)

The visualization of data tracks (layers) is non-continuous, with the timeline overlay of the target color only present during periods containing the corresponding data.

*Earlier Macula versions had a continuous timeline stripe for VA metadata. Starting from v.1.20.0, metadata are displayed similarly to motion, with the timeline overlay only present during periods with analytics detections.

The video footage outline is shown twice by default: the upper timeline displays the contents of the currently selected stream, with the corresponding channel name shown on the left; the lower timeline shows a content summary for all the channels currently present in the viewport layout, both timelines being synchronized. The second timeline with summary can be optionally disabled via Application Settings. You can also choose to have a separate timeline for each channel.

Timeline selection can be created as follows:

  1. Click the timeline once to put the playback marker onto the desired starting position

  2. Click the selection marker icon below the timeline to mark the beginning: the corresponding mark will appear on the timeline

  3. Place the playback marker to the end of the desired interval

  4. Click the selection marker again to create the selection

  5. Click the selection marker again to discard the selection

Once the target interval has been highlighted on the timeline, you can browse the timeline as usual; the selection will only be discarded if you click the selection marker icon once again or switch to other tabs (live etc.).

The created selection can be used for archive related actions where it is necessary to choose an interval (e.g., export video clip, delete or protect a part of the archive).

The timeline appearance is indicative and not 100% accurate, i.e., gaps in the archive may not be visible at certain zoom levels. For example, one-minute long gaps will not be visible on the two-week scale. To see more details, zoom in using your mouse wheel or using timeline controls.

Overlays and Playback Controls

The following viewport overlay controls are available in the playback mode:

  • Upper left:

    • X - close the stream and free the viewport

    • viewport lock status: unlocked (default) or locked; unlocked means that the video in this viewport can be replaced by other camera if you double-click or drag it from the Resources

    • camera name

  • Bottom left: stream details

    • motion detector status: running = motion present, standing still = no motion detected

    • video codec of the stream

    • picture resolution, abbreviated

    • stream frame rate, FPS (only displayed up to 4x playback speed)

    • Bottom right: controls

  • audio ON/OFF: disables or enables audio playback

    • DPTZ controls ON/OFF

    • aspect ratio (auto/stretch to fill viewport/original)

    • motion grid ON/OFF

The playback mode controls are located at the bottom of the window:

  • far right and far left of the timeline:

    • timeline start and stop timestamps

    • use the <> arrows and drag left to zoom out/drag right to zoom in the timeline

    • yellow arrow indicates the location of the nearest footage if it is not present on the timeline at the time (this can happen, e.g., after zooming the timeline)

  • playback controls:

    • use the Play/Pause button to start playback

    • click and drag along the timeline to move the current cursor position

    • use the < > arrows near the Play button to go one frame back/forward

    • -/+ steps: click to go back/forward with a step of 10 seconds, 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour or 1 day

    • |< >| arrows: go to the very beginning/very end of the footage

  • playback speed:

    • during playback, drag the blob to adjust playback speed from +/-0.5x to +/-128x (you can use mouse wheel for this, too)

    • the Pause button duplicates the main pause control

    • when paused, set playback speed to start playing video (without pressing the Play button)

  • additional controls on the left and on the right of playback controls:

    • go to the next/previous motion

    • I and II markers can be used for selection

    • clock button: go to a specific date and/or time

    • bookmark: add bookmark

    • camera button: take a snapshot of the currently selected channel

    • camera with a layout: take a multichannel snapshot

    • video button: export a piece of video

The behavior of the controls can be adjusted via application settings. This includes timeline presentation, stream selection for playback, as well as preferences for video and snapshot export.

In the application settings, under Usability, you can define how your mouse wheel controls the playback speed:

  • contiguous: wheeling in different direction increases or decreases the speed to the next value

  • pause: decreasing the speed will drop it to zero, pausing the playback

Calendar

Click the Archive Calendar button in the top right corner to toggle an additional panel containing archive calendar view. This control allows you to see for which dates and time intervals the footage is available, and to switch to some particular period quickly.

Units of time (months, days and hour intervals) marked with a blue underline contain footage for at least one channel currently displayed.

Relative Search

You can search by the relative time interval in Playback -> Bookmarks, VCA Search, External service search. The search will return relative interval from now on and back as much hours or days as you will provide as a number of units.

Bookmarks and VCA Event Search

The Bookmarks button in the top right corner opens up an additional panel that allows you to browse the existing bookmarks. You will find more information on this in the Bookmarks section of this document.

Similarly, the VCA button next to the Bookmarks button in the top right corner provides video analytics event search functionality (recorded VCA events from server): please refer to the VCA Events section of this manual for further details.

Archive Protection and Deletion

It is possible to mark a certain part of the archive and use the selection for further deletion, or protect a part of the archive from being removed. Special user permissions are required to allow this functionality.

If you choose to protect a specific part of the archive, it will be impossible to erase it from the Macula Monitor application, and that part of the archive will also be ignored by server when applying quotas. To disable protection, you need to log into the server via Macula Console and change the archive protection settings.

If you choose to remove a part of the archive, it will be erased permanently with all related auxiliary information (audio, motion metadata etc.). Protected intervals cannot be removed; when such an action is attempted, you will get a warning in the Alerts section.

When you delete a part of the archive, it is erased immediately. This action cannot be undone. Please mind applying all the necessary security precautions (e.g., take care of a good administrative account password and review user permissions) to avoid undesired data loss.

When you protect a short period of the archive (e.g., several minutes), in fact, the whole file containing this period is protected from erasing. Therefore, intervals adjacent to protected period will also be locked. You can verify the exact protected interval by opening Macula Console >> Monitoring section >> Archive statistics >> Protected intervals.

General steps for both these actions are:

  1. Mark the beginning and the end of the target interval on the timeline using the markers below the timeline

  2. Use the buttons in the bottom right corner to either remove a part of the archive or protect it from deletion

You can skip the first step and press the delete/protect buttons without any selection on the timeline; then, the last five minutes of the recordings will be used as the target interval.

All footage that has been protected from erasing can be un-protected via Macula Console, by logging with an administrative user account with corresponding privileges. Until then, the protected part of the archive cannot be erased by user actions (as described above) or by automatic erasing based on quotas.

Protected archive is excluded from recording quotas and will not be overwritten. Also, such footage is protected from manual deletion. Therefore, when protecting a large part of the footage, make sure that the target storage has sufficient free space, and set lower storage quotas, if necessary.

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