Work with Timeline

Multi-Recording Playback allows you to simultaneously watch videos recorded on one day or at the same time by different cameras. All recordings are lined up on the timeline. You can easily find the recording you are looking for by clicking a specific time on this day or during the hour, and play it with the recording player on this page.

Recording Timeline

On timeline, various colors represent different events when the videos were recorded:

• : No event was detected
• : Event detected

Find and Play Recordings with Timeline

To find and play recordings with the controller panel:

• Calendar: Click the calendar icon to specify the date.
• Playback:
  • Move the cursor on the timeline slider on the left side to where you want to start watching recordings, and click to start, or to pause, video playing.
  • Click or to go to the previous or next recording.
  • While playing, click or to play the recording backward or forward.
  • While playing, click or to slow down or speed up the recording.
  • While pausing, click or to see the previous or next frame.
  • Click Sync Mode to switch between the following two playback modes:
    • Sync: Play multiple videos recorded at the same time.
    • Non-sync: Play multiple videos gaplessly (not necessarily at the same time).
• Layout:
  • Click Management to configure layout settings. You can also select the customized or default layout from the drop-down menu.
  • Click Show information to show or hide the camera name and recorded time.
  • Click Camera information to show the codec, FPS, bit rate, and video resolution.
  • Click Fixed aspect ratio to preserve the image's original aspect ratio.
  • Click Full screen to see the recording in full screen.
  • Select from the drop-down menu to toggle between 24, 12, 8, 4, 2 or 1 hour mode.
• Filter:
  • Select a specific recording mode in the drop-down menu to filter out sections of time with a specific recording mode.
  • Select Show Events Only to filter out sections of time with events such as motion detection, audio detection, and other events.
• Seek:
  • Set a time and click Go To or click Smart Search to jump to the specified time period of the recording.

To find and play recordings with on-screen buttons:

• Click Snapshot to take a snapshot.
• Click Drag and zoom , and then click and drag with the mouse to digitally zoom in on the selected area. Scroll the mouse to further zoom in/out if needed. Click Reset digital zoom at the top-left corner to return to the default zoom level.
• Mouse over Volume to adjust the volume with the volume bar (for cameras with audio support). Or, click on this button to turn on/off the audio.
• Click Download to open the download page for the current recording. The video clip will be saved in .mp4 format.
  • Download complete file: Download the complete recording.
  • Download a video clip: Specify the time interval of the recording clip you wish to download.
    Note: If the length of original recording file is shorter than 10 seconds, you can only download the complete file.
• Click Image Enhancement to adjust or enhance the image display of recordings.
• Click Camera information to show the codec, FPS, bit rate, and video resolution.

Manage Layouts

DSM admin (or user belongs to the administrators group) and users with the manager privilege can configure layout settings. To customize the timeline display, click Management and follow the steps below.

1. Click Add to create a new layout, or click any existing layouts on the left panel to edit.
2. Enter a layout name in the Name field.
3. Select a type of layout from any of the following. You can click Customize to recompose your layout by using drag and drop, except for 1 Channel and Camera Group. Click Reset anytime you want to reset the layout to the default pattern.
   • 1 Channel ~ 100 Channels: Choose a layout composed of 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 13, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81 or 100 channels depending on your need.
   • : Only one camera group can be dragged to the layout area for arrangement. Depending on how many cameras the group is composed of, an appropriate layout with enough channels, 100 channels at most, will be chosen by Surveillance Station automatically to accommodate the camera group. If the number of cameras exceeds 100, then the rest of cameras will be excluded from the layout.
4. Drag cameras from the left side onto your desired position of the layout, or remove the cameras by dragging them back to the left side of the layout.
   • If your Synology NAS/NVR is a CMS host, you will see the Filter icon on the left panel. Click this icon and choose from the server list to view cameras by server.
   • If you have selected a camera group layout , drag a camera group from the camera group list to the layout position.
   • If you have configured regions or 180° panoramic areas of a fisheye camera, you can drag the regions from the fisheye camera list to the layout position.
5. To see a snapshot of the current layout, click Preview. To preserve the camera's original image aspect ratio to avoid image stretching when you enter live view, tick Fixed aspect ratio and then click Save.
6. To set the current layout as the default page when you enter live view, tick Set as my default. Every user can set his own default live view layout. If the default layout no longer exists, the first authorized layout of a user will be applied instead.
7. To remove an unwanted layout from the layout list, select the layout and click Delete .
8. Click Close when finished.