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

[DanTheCameraMan]

I have just bought Arlo Q system and although very impressed overall I can't believe it doesn't include a time and date stamp on each clip. I thought was a basic fundamental feature on any CCTV system particularly when footage needs to be produced to the Police or to a Court.

Netgear I see this is a hugely popular request... please make it happen!

[Shrick]

Fully agree, at least an option to have it or not!

[-henry]

+1 for this feature request.

If Nest Cam is able to incorporate this feature, Arlo certainly should be able too.

[m_z]

Ha, the Nest's approach with adding subtitles to the videos is very interesting. Maybe that could be a solution for some users, but it wouldn't help with things like watching videos online, or even seeing how "live" the trasmission is. And I'm not sure if it would hold up in the court, as modifying those would be trivial.

[lw1]

Please incorporate the date and timestamp in the file name.  It is very difficult to find the correct video after it has been downloaded, because the file names have no easily recognizable date and file info embedded in them.  Trying to convert from the current naming convention to actual date and time when browsing through downloaded files is a non-starter.  Browsing by looking at the file thumbnails doesn't work if I'm looking for a specific date and time.

A good solution would be to allow the user to set the format (from a selection fo date/time formats), and then use that format to create the file name.

An even better solution would be to embed the date/time (as described above) in the filename, and then make the first few frames of the video show the starting video frame overlaid with a date/time stamp, followed by the actual video frames.  That way, if the filename (with the date/time embedded) is not visible, it is still available by scrolling back to the starting frames of the video, where it would be visible along with the starting frame of the video.

I use Mac OSX and an iPhone.  I download and look at videos in the Quicktime player on OSX, and using the Photos app on iOS.

[BigKev123]

THIS HAS BEEN AN ISSUE FOR 2 YEARS NOW AND IT IS UNACCEPTABLE, GET WITH THE PROGRAM NETGEAR. THIS WAS A HUGE OVERSIGHT ON THE DEVELOPERS PART AND NEEDS TO BE FIXED, SECURITY CAMERAS USED AS LEGAL EVIDENCE ARE PRETTY MUCH USELESS WITHOUT THIS DATA.. EMBEDDING DATE AND TIME INFO INTO THE FILE IS USELESS AS THE FILENAMES CAN BE EASILY ALTERED!! STOP AVOIDING THE ISSUE AND IMPLEMENT A FIX

[_nd345]

+1 This is a basic feature of all security systems.  It is a necessity.  Epoch-time filenames is not a solution.  Date/Time stamp overlay is a proper solution.

[Rdur]

Great idea.

[petedude]

If this hasn't been done already, could Netgear please release a software update to place a timestamp (human time, not epoch) on the video image. This is critical when presenting video recordings to police and courts of law. Thanks.

[bryanburke]

Folks I have had 4 Arlo cams for 3 years. Repeated requests for time/date stamp have been ignored and apparently always will be. Together with time delay and amateurish motion detection I wouldn’t recommend the system under any circumstance.