Retrieval of remote recordings (Edge storage)

The ONVIF driver supports retrieval of remote recordings from a device (edge storage) using ONVIF Profile G. The communication protocol for Edge Storage is always RTSP. When the device is configured to live stream on RTP/RTSP/HTTP/TCP, the protocol for retrieval of recordings will be RTSP over HTTP, otherwise it will be RTSP. When RTSP over HTTP is selected and HTTPS is enabled the retrieval will be done using RTSP over HTTPS.

The ONVIF driver exposes the edge storage functionality only if the device implements ONVIF Profile G. For the driver to enable edge storage, there is a requirement that the device must fulfil.

The device must implement the following ONVIF services:

  • Recording

  • Replay

  • Search

  • Media or Media2 (if the device has any on-board media sources)

  • DeviceIO (if Media2 service is supported)

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: Currently the ONVIF driver needs Media or Media2 service for Edge Storage support. And if Media2 service is available the ONVIF driver needs DeviceIO service. If these services are not available Edge Storage will not be supported.

While the device is added in the Management Client, the driver will retrieve all services that the device supports. If all the mentioned services are implemented, the Edge Storage functionality will be available in XProtect. The automatic retrieving in Management Client will be available as well as the “Retrieve” button in the Smart Client.

  • Management Client

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  • Smart Client

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If one of these does not show in the Management Client or the Smart Client, then this means that Edge Storage is not available and therefore some of the important services are not implemented by the device firmware.

The retrieval of Video, Audio and Metadata is done in three steps. When a retrieval of specific time interval is requested first a video recording is searched for and then retrieved. After that is complete, audio is searched for and retrieved. Then last, metadata recording is searched for and retrieved.

For more information on Edge Storage see Milestone Edge Storage White Paper.

Video Edge Storage

The ONVIF driver supports retrieving recordings from the device with the following codecs: JPEG, MPEG4, H.264, and H.265. The ONVIF driver supports retrieval of edge storage video from multichannel video devices (multiple video sources) as well as retrieval from single channel devices. For the details of the edge storage retrieval flow see section Edge Storage retrieval workflow page Edge Storage retrieval workflow and for technical requirements a multichannel device needs to fulfil see section Requirements for Edge Storage on Multichannel devices. page Requirements for Edge Storage on Multichannel devices..

Audio Edge Storage

The ONVIF driver supports retrieval of remote audio recordings with the following audio codecs: G.711, G.726, and AAC. This is applicable for single channel and multichannel devices. Support for single channel audio edge storage is available since XProtect Corporate 2018 R1* and Device Pack 9.6. Multichannel audio edge storage is available since Device Pack 9.7. For more technical information see sections Edge Storage retrieval workflow and Requirements for Edge Storage on Multichannel devices..

✓

XProtect Corporate 2018 R1 comes with Device Pack 9.5, so for support of audio edge storage an update of the Device Pack to version 9.6 or newer is required.

Metadata Edge Storage

The ONVIF driver supports retrieval of remote metadata recordings from device’s storage. Metadata Edge Storage is supported from XProtect 2019 R1 or later and Device Pack 10.8 or later.