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

[phostenix]

Please add me to the list of people who would like the option to have an onscreen date & time on the videos. People expect to see when events happened in the videos we share.

Thanks.

(Arlo Pro 2 owner)

[Montyryno]

Arlo's response to using the epoc and unix time stamp conversion is simply lazy. Many other companies provide such time stamps within the video being shot. I really hope that Arlo corrects this soon as I have purchased an arlo Pro 4 camera kit and may potentially be needing it for court in the near future. I think there is plenty of community support/interest in this topic that Arlo should be taking it more seriously to add the requested time stamp feature as an overlay to recorded footage. I have added a kudos per the recommendation, but seeing how old this thread is, I feel Arlo has no intentions of making any changes. That is frustrating from a users standpoint to see little to no support/concern from the provider. 

[wusnowflake]

Can't believe this thread goes back in time so far.

I have 80 Arlo Pros and life would be so much easier with the ability to add a timestamp to the downloaded videos.

Also would be nice to have the file names reflect this info...like the app does...and not epoch time which requires conversion. 

I'm likely going to be purchasing 100 security cameras soon and this is really starting to get annoying.

I love almost everything else about the Arlo system and don't get how I'm being turned off of them JUST because of timestamps...

[Macahi]

I've read all about the epoch file name and the embedded meta data, but all of that is beyond inconvenient for going through many videos.  This isn't rocket surgery folks.

Arlo/Netgear, please add an empty horizontal bar, the full width of the video at the top or the bottom of the video. Place a date/time stamp in there.  In that way, it's easy to view as a part of the video and it won't cover up anything in the video.  The time/date format should be adjustable in the user settings.  No, this isn't sufficient proof for court, but makes it easily human readable while viewing the video.  For 'official' use, use the meta data and make sure the two match.

[Macahi]

(I put this also under Pro 2 board, but maybe it fits better here?)

I've read all about the epoch file name and the embedded meta data, but all of that is beyond inconvenient for going through many videos.  This isn't rocket surgery folks.

Arlo/Netgear, please add an empty horizontal bar, the full width of the video at the top or the bottom of the video. Place a date/time stamp in there.  In that way, it's easy to view as a part of the video and it won't cover up anything in the video.  The time/date format should be adjustable in the user settings.  No, this isn't sufficient proof for court, but makes it easily human readable while viewing the videos.  For 'official' use, use the meta data and make sure the two match.

[Macahi]

I've read all about the epoch file name and the embedded meta data, but all of that is beyond inconvenient for going through many videos.  This isn't rocket surgery folks.

Arlo/Netgear, please add an empty horizontal bar, the full width of the video at the top or the bottom of the video. Place a date/time stamp in there.  In that way, it's easy to view as a part of the video and it won't cover up anything in the video.  The time/date format should be adjustable in the user settings.  No, this isn't sufficient proof for court, but makes it easily human readable while viewing the videos.  For 'official' use, use the meta data and make sure the two match.

[Macahi]

HEY ARLO

Why did you take my posts and bury them as a comment in an ancient thread?  My new approach to a long-standing, unaddressed issue does not deserve to be buried like this.  This is how you treat your customers?

[Macahi]

I've just read through every single comment in this post - all 4 years worth.  There isn't even a single valid response from Arlo/Netgear.  I don't know why, but it's clear they will not be adding this required feature.

It's time to return your set up if you can, and absolutely post legitimate reviews of this egregious missing functionality.  If I had known the videos didn't have a running time/date stamp, I would not have even considered buying this product.  What an absolute joke.  The problem is, the joke's on us.

POST REVIEWS

[alien_scones]

@Macahi  

your post was combined with this long running thread regarding the timestamp issue.  There's no reason to have 100 threads barking about the same topic. 

regarding the timestamp, the current hardware now is incapable of overlaying a timestamp.  To put a timestamp on the video would require processing the video in the cloud.  that might be an option they could/should offer but for the lawyer types this would be considered "tampering" or "altering".  

In other words, it is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN with the models you have.  The time is encoded in the filename that you download.  

Maybe newer models with have better hardware for a timestamp.  But not the ones we have now.  

[Macahi]

@alien_scones 

>There's no reason to have 100 threads barking about the same topic. 

Yes there is.  They continue to ignore this thread. 

>the current hardware now is incapable of overlaying a timestamp

That doesn't matter.  A properly documented and controlled post-processing is 100% acceptable.  This doesn't require hardware support.  They wouldn't even have to do it at creation time.  It could be done post-post or even at download if needed.

They have the start time as you and others point out.  It's in the file name and it's in the metadata.  All they need to do is some post-processing to add a blank strip at the top or the bottom of the video, put the starting date/time in there, then increment it by 1 second for every second of video.  Easy.

Why do some people like you give in so easily?  Good software development is about creativity.  There's more than one way to accomplish the end result.

[srwilliams]

@Macahi @alien_scones  Although we are all on the same page in terms of getting Arlo to address this problem, to be clear, this is NOT a hardware limitation. In fact its not a limitation at all (and it doesn't need to be uploaded to the cloud to perform the encoding - the camera knws what time it is).  It's simply lazy software development by Netgear, coupled by apathetic management.  The solution just requires software developers/engineers that know what they are doing, and management that is willing to invest in the product.  Their silence on this topic is their way of saying they dont care and just wish we would all shut up.