Milestone Expert 2017: How To Set-Up Continuous Recordings With External Events Flagged?

How is generic events not supported?

Generic events are listed as supported for all XProtect versions in the official comparison chart.

Sorry - bad phrasing on my part.

Generic events are supported, however they don't trigger a new sequence and/or time-line marker to be applied as they do in XProtect Professional. I believe the intent is to generate bookmarks in these "corporate-based" versions (Pro+, Expert, etc.), but it's a show-stopper here since the mobile app can't browse through the bookmarks.

Hi Brian,

I want to make sure I understand this:

"Even if I do enable motion detection, only the _FIRST_ motion event correctly creates a sequence. Subsequent events only mark the timeline, but no new sequence is created."

Can you clarify that?  Are you saying that if you are recording continuously but have motion detection enabled, then the timeline only shows the red the first time motion is triggered and never shows it again?  Are you doing server-side motion detection or camera based?

Any other details you can provide?

Thanks

Hi Jared,

Thanks for looking into this.  Yes - you are correct.  If I enable motion recording over continuous recording (server based), it only creates a single red-mark on the time-line for the FIRST motion detected.  Any motion even after this will not create a red-mark until the recorder service is restarted.

FYI, I don't have any need to use server-side motion detection (the goal here is for external TCP events to create the red-marks / sequences), but out of desperation I figured that I could make a clock appear on the video overlay --> trigger server-side motion --> create a sequence.  For a brief moment, I really patted myelf on the back for that one :-)

If it helps I have a Milestone ticket from around a year ago when I began troubleshooting this.  Support was hepful, and eventually confirmed the findings - saying that "this behavior is by design".  It's MSC237212.

I also posted around the same time to the Milestone forum here.

- Brian

Hi Brian,

I further verified with R&D that a Generic Event doesn't tag video as a sequence in the Corporate/Expert products and the new plug products.  It is by design but I didn't dig into why.

On the motion detection though, I was not able to duplicate what you are seeing.  I setup a camera for continuous recording and every time motion is triggered on the camera, it shows up as red on the timeline and is treated as a separate sequence.

The only possible solution I could think of is having the Generic Events trigger an Alarm.  With the newer software, you can view the alarms in the Mobile app and play the video back from there.  That way, they would be able to move between the different events.

Hi Jared,

Thank you again for your time with this.  The alarm trigger is a great idea.  I'll try this and report back.

As far as the motion recordings...I admit that I haven't tested this since last March (with Expert 2017 R1), but at that time I believe Bo Andersen from Milestone support confirmed those findings.  When I re-install Expert 2017 R3, I'll try this again.

Does moving between alarms in the mobile software require 2018, or is this something supported in 2017 R3?

Thanks,

- Brian

Hi Brian,

The alarm functionality in the Mobile app is available in the 2017 R3 software.

Thanks,

Jared