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

[chemixt]

Solved

Actually the date and time stamp is included in the Arlo file when you download the file to a pc.  I do not know why the Arlo sight does not mention this. If you have a directory full of arlo downloaded files, You can actually use windows file explorer to both sort the files and show the original time stamp in the detailed view.  To do so follow the instructions:

1. Use file explorer to open the folder where the downloaed files exist

2. Change the explorer view to detailed. (View>> Details)

3. Right click on the header bar of the file listing area, then scroll down to "More..."

4. Scroll down the list to find "Media Created" then click the box. 

5. you may have to move the column widths in the view header to make it show, or drag and drop the header box to position it where you like it. 

Once you do this for a directory, this view will remain until you change it again.  

Note you must be in the "detailed" view to see this information. But it clearly shows the Date and time that the video was recorded as displayed on the app when you download using the android or ios app.  This is different then the default date that is normally displayed by windows file explorer. That shows the date the file was donwloaded.  But the created date is recorded in the meta data, and it does record the date and time that the media was originally created (recorded), and this should be admissable in court.  Another tip is if you wish to use the original file that is on the Arlo servers, you should extend your recorded time by logging into you account and changinf from the basic suscription.  Subscribing to the retained service  will keep your files for 2 months, until you can get the police to download the file from Arlo servers.  That way there is no way to modify the meta data. 

[m_z]

@chemixt Thanks for your ideas!

About the metadata - unfortunately, modifying it to whatever you want is trivial, and so I doubt it would hold up in court.

About downloading from the Arlo servers - that might be better, but that puts quite some constraints on the user, and even then I'm not 100% sure it would work.

Bottom line - Arlo had so much time to do something about it, and they decided to keep quiet.

One more idea for Arlo, related to your "metadata" idea - what they could do, is to add to the file metadata some core information, e.g.

ArloMetadata: Recorded at date X, by Arlo device serial number Y. Video content checksum cd98f00b204e9800998ecf842.

And then sign it cryptographically by adding e.g.

ArloMetadataSignature: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e

ArloMetadataPublicKey: www.arlo.com/arlo_public_key

Then, one can always get the public key, and verify the "ArloMetadataSignature" matches the content of "ArloMetadata", and also that the video checksum matches the video stream. This way, there is no way for the user to modify the ArloMetadata tag and have it signed the same way, as only Arlo has the private key.

Or something like that - that should be doable with a pure software update. Arlo? Please? 🙂

[ltorres321]

chemixt

I dont think your Understanding the issue here. I know the file name has the datetimestamp and yes its very useful to sort in the file system and what have you. The problen is that the video recordsing itself doe not have a timestamp of the actual recording.  If someone was to question the time of the event it is made really difficult to track that down. A file name with a timestamp is not acceptable for a $200 camara. A file name can be changed and can because an issue up for debate.  I know because I have a court situation where time of occurance needs to be shown and the task is not easy. The only place you can see true time is in the cloud service where you see videos. Once thy are not there your done for unless you can provide a screen shot of the file with time  it took place. I will never recommend this product to no one unless that issue is staightened out. I spent $2000 on this system so for now I am going to have to eat it. I have nevr seen a servalance camara that did not provide a time while recording, so when i bought the camara I thought it wasnt being displayed because I just had not figured ot the setting for it. Once I found out it was a feature that did not exists I was upset. Unfortontly due to the circumstance   

[hearsay]

I just had this problem when I gave the police some footage.  The first question they asked was where was the timestamp.

The other problem is that after the daylight saving adjustment, time before daylight savings went into affect were changed as well. For example, an event that happened at 6:30pm on November 2nd, on November 4th the timestamp changed to 7:30pm.  That was confusing to tell the police as well.

[VBerggren]

When is this going to be applied to each video!!!

I want a time & Date on each flipping video

Every time I need to submit a video either to the police or to Airbnb resolution center, they want a date and time stamp. 

Please get this addressed!!!

sincerely,

VBerggren

[alien_scones]

Its not going to happen.

The camera hardware isn't capable of it.  The datetime is not encoded into the video.  Arlo can't even add the datetime even in the cloud post-processing. 

[VBerggren]

That needs to be fixed. 

[AB1965]

I would like to be able to have a time stamp on the video while it is live streaming so I could see exactly what time things occur.

[jcnetworks4g]

Please add date & time stamp within the video itself.  Having date & time stamp on the video makes it incredibly hard for anyone to manipulate the actual video.  Right now, the filename and date & time of the file can be easily manipulated, but not when the live date & time is embedded within the video stream at a corner of of the video.

I am considering changing my video camera system to Panasonic Homehawk which does include the live date & time stamp as part of the video stream.  As many have said, having a camera monitoring system that is not capable of providing court admissable, or even contributing, video evident makes it a ineffective product.  And my family is also considering dropping Arlo products as a result of this lack of time & date in video feature.

Can't this feature be added via an OS or path upgrade?

[jcnetworks4g]

Lack of date & time stamp feature on the cameras is a big problem if it cannot be resolved via a patch upgrade.  If a new camera is coming out that has this fix, at least offer customers an upgrade program to exchange their existing cameras to just have this fix.

Repeat my previous questions:

1. Can't the date&time stamp add within video feature be added via an OS or path upgrade?

2. Is this feature in the future roadmap for Arlo?