Time and Date Display on video (Timestamp)

[J_Benson]

Preface: The property management company I work for purchased 8 Arlo cameras to set up around the apartment complex I manage. 

The current system does not provide an easy way to tell the exact time a specific time that an image within a video clip was captured, nor does it provice an easy way to navigate to a specific time within a video. The only mention of an exact time is the time listed when the camera began recording each clip. To find out when a still image within the video was captured, you must mentally add up the amount of time you are into a video and the start time of the clip. Example: I want to find the time 6:32 within a video clip. The video clip states that it starts at 6:30, so I navigate two minutes into the video.

My suggestion is to either add a time and date stamp to the video recording, in an unobtrusive area of the video, perhaps customizeable to which corner it appears in. Alternatively, rather than the time slider at the bottom of the clip playback stating the time into the video clip, it displays the real time the video was taken. Current setup for video playback begins at 00:00:00 and advances to 00:02:00, if video length is set to 120 seconds. Instead, it could start at the real time the video capture was taken and continue along at real time. Example: Video starts at 06:30:27 and the slider at the bottom of the playback advances to 06:32:27.

This would aid in finding a specific time in which an event reportedly occurred, as well as serve for better evidence when assessing a charge against a tenant for littering, as you could print out a screenshot of the video with a timestamp and attach it to a document for issuing a charge. It would also aid in police investigations or as evidence when in litigation. Police often come to my office to request video footage of a certain time and date, and this would assist them. We also have a problem with illegal dumping of mattresses and furniture, in which case we would need a timestamped image to present to police.

Thank you for reading this suggestion, and I hope that a timestamp could be implemented as an optional feature for the Arlo camera system in the future. 

J. Benson,
Ullrich Real Estate

[akendle]

time stamp videos when recording?

[J_Benson]

Hello,

The property management company I work for purchased 8 Arlo cameras for an apartment complex that I manage for them. I have set up one camera to test it out before setting the rest of them up around the property. I have noticed that there is no time and date display on the video playback. Not only that, but there is not even a way to tell what time the video was captured without looking at the start time and then mentally adding that time to the amount of time you are into in the video. (Video starts are 6:58 pm + 5 minutes and 22 seconds into the video = video is at roughly 7:03pm). This is very inconvenient, especially when trying to reference a specific time period after an incident report from a tenant ("Someone threw a rock at my window at 4:30pm"). 

I am not sure how difficult it would be to implement a time and date stamp on the video as it is captured, or alternatively have video clips reference actual time (video clip starts at 6:30pm and runs to 6:33pm, with the slider at the bottom and the minute count at the top right of the video referencing actual time rather than one minute into video, two minutes into video, etc.), but that would be an invaluable feature and infinitely more useful than the current set-up. 

Thank you.

-J. Benson

[J_Benson]

I've also had a problem when viewing a live feed on the camera. When I go to the live view, the "running man" icon (that represents motion activation for recording) deactivates by itself and cannot be turned on by clicking it. I assume this means that the camera will not record when it detects motion while you are viewing a live feed. This seems very inconvenient. This test camera was set up near the front door of my office, so I would like to have it open in the corner of my screen to view a live feed while I am in the office, but I would also like it to begin recording if it detects motion while I am viewing the live feed. Is it possible to configure the camera to do so? The only workaround I have figured out thus far is to simply record continuously throughout the day, however I have also noticed that the Arlo website will routinely log me out every thirty minutes or so, even if I have the live feed on the camera running. There should definitely be an option to stay logged in until you manually log out.

[jguerdat]

Lots of items here.  Let's see if I touch them all.

1) The running man is simply an indicator.  It's enabled for recording if green, disabled if black and red if recording.

2) You can only record or use live view one at a time but you can record WHILE using live view by using the "bullet"/"target" icon visible at that time.  Use either motion detection OR live view for recording.

3) Since this is a battery-operated system, continuous recording is basically a non-starter - you'll eat batteries alive.  While you could use rechargeables to reduce battery cost overall, you'd be changing them on a very regular basis.  It's because of the power requirements that live view stops at 30 minutes, trying to preserve the batteries to some degree.  If you truly need continuous viewing and/or recording, you need a different system.

[J_Benson]

IS there any possibility of a time and date stamp being added in the future?

[JamesC]

J_Benson,

I do not have any information on whether or not this feature can/will be implemented at this time. I encourage you to visit the Arlo Idea Exchange and post your idea there. 

Thank you for the feedback!

JamesC

[JamesC]

Thank you for contributing this is great feedback!

[REisenbeisz]

We download the videos on a daily basis and the file only has the information from when it was downloaded, not when it was taken. It would be nice to have a time stamp on the videos in the corner or something so we know what time each video is taken when it's downloaded.

[deborahpkilgore]

The date is wrong when I look at the cameras. I cannot find out where to change this. My time zone was wrong but I found where to change it. Help please.

[Showguy]

The date will only update on the camera view if you start a live stream. It does not update on its own. Yes it is a bit deceiving and a little bit of a stupid design flaw.