Genetec leveraged the edge-recording capabilities of IP security cameras and encoders of selected vendors to develop a feature that not only records and stores video on the edge, but that also allows segments of video to be hand-selected for long-term storage on Omnicast’s Archiver. The Video Trickling feature is available in version 4.7 of Genetec’s video surveillance solution, Omnicast.

“Reliability is one of the most important aspects of video surveillance for many customers,” says Francis Lachance, Product Manager at Genetec. “Our aim was to further enhance the reliability of video surveillance and video archiving. We worked closely with our partners’ engineers to leverage each other’s expertise and innovative technologies and are very happy with the result.”

Video Trickling is an evolution of the edge-recording functionality already available in Omnicast which offers the possibility to directly playback video that is recorded on edge devices. Video Trickling allows for recorded video on edge devices to be moved and stored by the Omnicast Archiver server for long-term archiving.

With the Video Trickling feature, the operator retains complete control over which video will be transferred and when by creating rules within Omnicast. Transferring video from the edge-device can be based on three different modes including on schedule, on event or manually. The amount of video being transferred can also be controlled based on filters such as time ranges, playback requests, events, alarms, video bookmarks, and an interval when a unit is offline.

The Video Trickling feature provides benefits to customers in a variety of scenarios, but the main benefits are increased reliability and bandwidth optimisation. Instead of continuously streaming video from the camera to the Archiver, only select video will be transmitted, thus significantly increasing efficiency of the network usage. Also, in the event that the network connection is highly utilised or the connection between the security camera and the Omnicast Archiver is intermittent, the video transfer can then be scheduled while the network demand is low or just after the connection is re-established.

Video trickling can also be used as a serverless option for remote sites where constant video streams cannot be transferred over the WAN. Utilising the storage from the security cameras instead of a full server means less IT resources will be needed and having no server will contribute to additional cost-savings.