Adaptive playback (explained)

Adaptive playback is a configuration that allows the use of adaptive streaming in playback mode.

Adaptive playback requires two recording streams, a primary and a secondary stream. If both streams are enabled in the Management Client, both streams will be recording.

  • If you play back video from a period before the secondary recording was configured, only the primary recordings will be played back.

  • If you play back video that was recorded after the secondary recording was configured, the video is played back from the primary or the secondary recording depending on what matches the client view size the best.

Availability

Available functionality depends on the system you are using. See the complete feature list, which is available on the product overview page on the Milestone website (https://www.milestonesys.com/products/software/xprotect-comparison/).

Enable adaptive streaming

You can enable adaptive playback together with adaptive streaming on the Advanced tab in Smart Client profiles and it must also be enabled in XProtect Smart Client under Settings > Advanced > Adaptive streaming. For more information about enabling adaptive streaming in XProtect Smart Client, see Enable adaptive streaming.

Edge recordings

Optionally, you can use edge recordings for adaptive playback. Edge recordings allow you to view sequences of a stream with a different, usually a higher, resolution than the remainder of the stream. For example, you can record a primary stream with a low resolution and merge recordings from a high-resolution source. You can enable the merged-in edge recordings when browsing the data.

Edge recordings are stored in the media database and the resolution of these recordings is set on individual cameras.

Resolution of played back video

When using adaptive playback, the resolution in the played back video is determined by the current resolution settings for the primary and the secondary recordings. That is, in playback, the choice of either the primary or the secondary stream is based on the resolution that is currently set up for the respective recording streams.