Thumbnails need to be the triggering event

[AikaneKai]

Instead, it's a good 2 seconds into the video.  That means that I very often can't tell from the screenshot if I have to open and review the video.  This is such a waste of time to have to open almost every single video. 

This is such a bad design decision.

[AikaneKai]

I'm finding it difficult to believe that there isn't support for this.

Scenario:
I have a screen full of thumbnails of recordings.  I glance at them to see if anything stands out (i.e. car pulling into my driveway, someone walking past the camera, etc).

I see nothing but the 'empty' scene.  There's no indication of what triggered the recordings.  I open the first video, and there's 2 full seconds of someone walking past the camera, then they're out of frame.  That 'empty' frame is what gets turned into the thumbnail, after the person is out of frame.  Shouldn't it be a frame of the actual movement that began the recording, the very first frame of the recording, and not 2 full seconds later?

I'd love to be able to see at a glance, hey, there's a person there who shouldn't be there.  Maybe I need to watch this video first!

Does no one else have this issue?

[Dannybear]

The camera recording trigger is from the infrared motion sensor rather than any video changes.
It can start recording almost instantly (within a second) for battery only cameras (ac powered gives you a 3 sec preroll).
The thumbnail shot is about 2sec from the recording start time.

Suggestions would be to externally power the camera with the ac charger.
Or move the camera position to better trigger on motion earlier.
There are smart notifications with a subscription that catalog the video content for you but will not change the thumbnail and you still get multiple recordings, just not as many notifications.

[AikaneKai]

Thanks for the response.  I honestly can't tell if you understand the situation or not, so I'll simplify.

The thumbnail should be of the first frame in the video (or maybe in the case of nighvision, the 10th frame or so, so the illumination has had time to fully come up).

I'm not concerned with the mechanism that triggered the recording.  I am concerned with the thumbnail being taken from 2 full seconds into the recording rather than early enough to represent the movement that triggered the recording.

[StephenB]

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@AikaneKai wrote:

The thumbnail should be of the first frame in the video (or maybe in the case of nightvision, the 10th frame or so, so the illumination has had time to fully come up).

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I do get what you are saying, though I think this also depends a bit on whether the camera is on AC power (and supports foresight).  With foresight, your suggestion could also end up giving you an empty thumbnail, since the video starts ~3 seconds before motion is detected.

The ideal solution would grab the first "interesting" frame.  Maybe the first frame with motion? 

[Dannybear]

@AikaneKai

I suspect that there are limitations to what you’re asking from arlo.

The process of generating the thumbnail is likely dependent on I-Frames contained in the recording which is every two seconds so nothing inbetween unless you reprocess it after the recording is completed which is probably impractical.