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

[eddsum4727]

Date and Time stamp is very important for security camera purposes. Please include it on screen in each video clips. Having need to capture a picture before playing video or need to translate the file name from Eposh time to human time is ridiculously inconvenient to manage and store video clips. Please sort it out! 

[Claims1234]

Hey everyone, I need to find a solution for this date and time stamp on downloaded clips. i work for attorneys and law enforcement agencies that allow me use remote cameras. Now in the court of law, if these videos do not have date and time stamp embedded on the actual clip. they get suppressed and my company takes a big hit. Can anyone recommend any video format software or website in which I can convert this clips and have the date and time stamp burned onto the actual clips? Note: I understand the whole Epoch and Unix system, but that does not help with burning the actual Date and Time Stamp on the actual clip. Nick

[ArchTX]

I wish the videos had a time-date-stamp option (for when you save them offline). I don't see any such thing anywhere in the Arlo Web Portal settings. Am I missing something?

The next best thing would be if the filenames (when downloaded) included a date-time coding (such as YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS), as many cameras do by default.

[jguerdat]

Downloading with the Android app (and, I suppose, iOS) results in an easily identifyable filename. Use of a browser gets you a filename that is epoch time - the number of seconds since 1/1/1970. There are online epoch time converters to make it human-readable.

[Amrat]

Hi all experts,
There was break in next door and cops were after video footage from my arlo camera. When I downloaded it to my PC there is no time stamp on it like we view in app. Also when i d/l it on IPhone it’s not same running sec by sec time stamp.
So why is arlo not providing this feature like Ring doorbell . It would be to their advantage also by adding arlo logo with it.
For security camera this feature is a must in court of law. As they require files with out any manipulation.
I get others have suggested about entering file name to a site to decipher information but I am not after that.
Why can’t we have this feature??
Thanks
Regards
Amrat

[ddt1270]

I'm mostly a Windows 10 user and was previously relying on the Media Created timestamp on the .MP4 files that I have downloaded in order to show the time the recording was made.  However, since 03/19/2019 the Media Created property is blank on all the Arlo MP4 files that I download whether they are downloaded via the Android application or the Windows application.  Why is this important property no longer provided? 

Also, why are all motion recordings automatically saved as "motionRecord.mp4" in Windows whereas the same recording downloaded in Android is named with the full file name such as "cameraname_03_20_2019 1_50_47PM_1553107847276.mp4"?  Why not name the windows files like the Android download, or something meaningful like cameraname_yyyymmdd_hhmmss.mp4?

[otolorenzo]

Since a few days, downloading the recording files in the properties, details, origin, multimedia element created, the date and time of recording no longer appears. Therefore it is necessary to have recourse to the epoch converter as in the past to extract the date and time of recording from the file name, a real waste of time. Because you have removed the date and time of recording of the multimedia element created in the properties of the file. Please ask the developers to re-store the date and time of the video recording in the file properties. Shame!

[kburgess]

I'll just my comment to the slew of the previous ones.  I just purchased this product a few days ago, and was very impressed with it.  It was going to do exactly what I needed.  However, without the date and timestamp, I think I'll have to return it.  I hope they resolve this issue.

[ShayneS]

Hi @otolorenzo @kburgess

The timestamp in the title of the video can be converted using a Epoc & Unix Timestamp Converter. 

[srwilliams]

PLEASE modernize your technology to allow the (circa 1970's) ability to embed the time and date stamp on the video image/recording. The work-around using Epoch date format for the file name and meta data can be easily manipulated and therefore the video image is not admissable by police and courts.  Why is something so simple made so difficult by Arlo (especially after the multiple cries for help in this and other forums).  This is a major impediment for making your solution a serious consideration for business security - as well as weakens your home security solution considerably.