Technical overview

The actual connection between the central XProtect Corporate site and the remote VMS site is established through a driver in the XProtect Corporate recording server, in the same way as when connecting to a network camera or a video encoder.

This diagram shows how the central XProtect Corporate site and the remote VMS site are interconnected via the dedicated driver in the XProtect Corporate recording server.

Since the remote site is interconnected via the recording server, the remote site appears in the XProtect Management Client on the central XProtect Corporate site as a kind of multi-channel video encoder, listing the cameras, microphones, speakers, and metadata devices that can be accessed on the remote interconnected site.

Because the interconnected cameras, microphones, speakers, and metadata devices are listed as if they were connected to a video encoder, they can be used and administrated in the central XProtect Corporate site in the same way as any standard camera that is connected directly. The only exception is changing the actual image, audio, or metadata settings on the devices. These settings are controlled on the remote site.

The main advantages of interconnecting remote sites via the XProtect Corporate recording servers are:

Short and consistent login time for the XProtect clients and MIP SDK integrations, regardless of the number of interconnected sites and response time or online/offline state of the sites
Support for remote sites that are not online all the time, for instance, surveillance in vehicles
Support for playing back recordings directly from the remote site
Support for retrieving recordings from remote sites to the central XProtect Corporate site
Full XProtect Corporate device rights, including time-based access rights

Recording and playback options

Milestone Interconnect offers three ways to configure recording and playback across the central and remote sites, each supporting different use cases and providing different functions.

Option 1: Recording only in the remote interconnected site

With this option, all recording and playback are done only in the remote interconnected site, and recording is switched off completely in the central XProtect Corporate site. Using this option, the XProtect Corporate recording servers function only as a gateway to live and recorded video, audio, and metadata from the remote site.

Option 1 user experience:

Users who access the remote interconnected cameras, microphones, speakers, and metadata devices via the central XProtect Corporate site can view live and recorded video, audio, and metadata as normal
Users on the central XProtect Corporate site can use many of the advanced XProtect Corporate features, such as XProtect Smart Wall, bookmarks, alarms, etc. regardless of whether the product running the interconnect site supports this feature or not
Users who access the interconnected site directly can view live and recorded video, audio, and metadata and use their local system as normal

Option 2: Recording only in the central XProtect Corporate site

With this option, recording is switched off in the remote interconnected site. All video, audio, and metadata are streamed to the central XProtect Corporate site and recorded based on the defined rules in the XProtect Corporates site.

Option 2 user experience:

Users who access the remote interconnected cameras, microphones, speakers, and metadata devices via the central XProtect Corporate site can view live and recorded video, audio, and metadata as normal
Users on the central XProtect Corporate site can use many of the advanced XProtect Corporate features, such as XProtect Smart Wall, bookmarks, alarms, etc. regardless of whether the product running the interconnect site supports this feature or not
Users who access the interconnected site directly can view live video, audio, and metadata, but they cannot play back recordings because this is done only in the central XProtect Corporate site

Option 3: Recording is done on both sites

With this option, recording and playback can be done both on the remote site and on the central XProtect Corporate site. This allows the central and remote sites to independently control what to record in each system. Furthermore, it allows recordings to be retrieved (copied) from the remote interconnected site at a later point and be stored in the central XProtect Corporate site.

One use of this type of setup could be if the central XProtect Corporate site loses connection to the remote site at times, and thus misses some recordings. In this case, the central XProtect Corporate site can be configured to retrieve the missing recordings automatically for the periods when communication with the remote site is unavailable.

Another reason for this type of setup could be that the central XProtect Corporate site is configured to view and record the video with a lower quality than on the remote site. This configuration can be useful for reducing the bandwidth load between the remote and central site, while still providing the user with situational awareness and access to retrieving high-quality recordings when needed. For this case, retrieval of recordings from the remote site can be controlled via time schedules, events, or manual requests by XProtect Smart Client users.

Option 3 user experience:

Users who access the interconnected site via the central XProtect Corporate site can view live and recorded video, audio, and metadata recorded in the central XProtect Corporate site, but not immediately from the remote interconnected site
Users on the central XProtect Corporate site can use many of the advanced XProtect Corporate features, such as XProtect Smart Wall, bookmarks, alarms, etc. regardless of whether the product running the interconnect site supports this feature or not
Users can request recordings that are not present in the central XProtect Corporate site to be retrieved from the remote site
Administrators can configure the central XProtect Corporate site to automatically retrieve recordings from the remote sites based on schedule, events, or automatically after the loss of communication with the remote site
Users who access the interconnected site directly can view live and recorded video, audio, and metadata and use their local system as usual