Surveillance Station is a video management system that delivers live monitoring, recording, notifications, centralized management, and video analytics across Synology systems (including NAS, NVR, etc.) and supported clients.

• Surveillance Station is available through a web-based interface, Synology Surveillance Station Client, VisualStation, Local Display, and DS cam.
• Surveillance Station integrates with 20,000 IP cameras from 200 brands, ONVIF devices, and Synology LiveCam (compatibility list).
• Surveillance Station is compatible with I/O modules, door controllers, IP speakers, SIP speakers, joysticks, and POS systems (compatibility list).
• Event detection supports video analytics and instant notifications.
• Centralized management can cover 50,000 cameras on 5,000 multi-site Synology storage systems.

Requirements

• Synology Surveillance Station Client runs on Windows 10 and macOS 11 or above.
• Browser: Google Chrome
• CPU: Core i5 or above (Learn more)

Formats

• Supported video formats: MJPEG, H.264, H.264+, H.265, H.265+, MPEG4, and MxPEG.
  Supported video formats may vary by client device specifications. (Learn more)
• Supported streaming tunnel formats:
  RTSP over TCP, UDP, HTTP
  SRTP over UDP
  RTMP over TCP
• Supported camera audio codecs: PCM, AMR, G.711, G.726, and 16-bit PCM-LE.
  Supported audio codecs may vary by camera specifications.
• Supported map formats: BMP, JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and SVG.
• Supported interface languages: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese Brazil, Portuguese European, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.

• Surveillance Station supports ONVIF Profile S, with additional H.265 video compression and edge storage integration.
• Surveillance Station is compatible with over 20,000 IP cameras from 200 brands (compatibility list).
• A single Synology storage system supports up to 600 IP cameras.
• Camera connections support HTTPS and SRTP.
• RTMP integrates devices without fixed IP addresses, such as drones and body cameras.
• Cameras can be batch-added online and offline by importing pre-filled .xlsx lists, importing configuration files, or scanning an IP range.
• Multi-streaming can use separate resolution, frame rate, bitrate, and image quality settings.
• Event detection types include motion detection, tampering, and PIR.
• PTZ controls are available on compatible cameras.
• Automatic camera patrol can be triggered by schedule, detected events, or I/O alarms.
• Camera information display settings can customize timestamp, format, and camera position.
• Exposure mode settings reduce image noise caused by light exposure or day-night mode switching.
• Field of View settings allow supported cameras to capture images at wider angles.
• Integrated Advanced Events include AXIS ACAP applications, Hikvision Smart Events, and Dahua IVS.
• Camera groups help manage large camera deployments.

Limitations

• IPv6-format IP addresses are not supported.
• Event detection types, PTZ controls, day-night mode, and Field of View adjustments are available only when the camera supports those features.

Monitor Center

• Monitor Center provides a centralized interface for viewing live video from multiple cameras.
• Custom layouts can contain up to 100 channels.
• Sequential layouts rotate layouts in a set order periodically.
• Alert layouts automatically jump to a layout when an event is triggered.
• Camera group layouts display all cameras in a group.
• I/O widget channels display device status and allow manual event triggers.
• Interactive maps provide quick access to devices and alerts and integrate with OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, and custom tile servers.
• The alert panel displays alerts triggered by camera events, DVA tasks, I/O modules, door controllers, and transaction devices across all layouts. It also lets you customize alert triggers and quickly access bookmarks.

Camera Controls and Snapshots

• OSD (on-screen display) buttons control drag and zoom, manual recording, camera information display, and audio or digital output for external devices.
• Camera operation buttons control zoom, focus, iris adjustment, auto-pan, the PT control cursor, and auto object tracking.
• Fisheye Dewarping can display fisheye footage in rectilinear or panoramic views.
• Snapshots can be blurred, masked, and downloaded.

Privacy and Watermarks

• Static privacy masking covers sensitive areas in camera views.
• Dynamic privacy masking for Synology Camera covers people in camera views.
• Text watermarks can be overlaid on live camera feeds to reduce data leakage.

Performance and Operation

• Dynamic stream adjustment can respond to display size or event detection.
• GPU acceleration can reduce CPU load for smoother display.
• Joystick control provides an alternative operation method.
• Live Broadcast sends live camera streams to YouTube.

Limitations

• Monitor Center cannot display footage when total camera resolution exceeds the graphics card capacity of the client computer.
• Joystick, Fisheye Dewarping, Smart Search, and codec support vary by client device specifications. (Learn more)
• Drag-and-drop map uploading is supported only in Google Chrome.
• A Google Maps API key is required to use Google Maps in Surveillance Station. (Learn more)
• Recordings with removable privacy masking can be downloaded only from Synology Surveillance Station Client.
• Only Synology Camera can be configured with unremovable privacy masking.
• Dynamic privacy masking is applied only to live view for spectators without playback permissions.
• DS cam does not support dynamic privacy masking; users must use Surveillance Station or Surveillance Station Client to view masked cameras.
• GPU acceleration supports only H.264 and H.265, depending on the client device graphics card.
• Audio output is available only over HTTPS.
• Live Broadcast supports only H.264 streaming.

Recording Modes

• Recording modes can be started manually or scheduled for each camera. Options include continuous recording and recording triggered by motion detection, people and vehicle detection, or custom events.
• Pre-recording and post-recording settings include 5 to 300 seconds of footage before or after events.
• Recording truncation saves clips from 1 to 240 minutes.
• Dual Recording saves an additional set of camera recordings with different resolution, FPS, schedule, and retention settings.
• Edge Recording keeps recording on cameras with microSD card support when cameras disconnect from Surveillance Station.
• Smart Time Lapse condenses long recordings into short clips with a customizable time compression ratio.

Recording Player

• Monitor Center includes recording timeline features.
• Recordings can be played back, labeled, and bookmarked.
• Recording Player controls include play or pause, next or previous second, forward or reverse, fast forward or rewind 10 seconds, next or previous event, fast forward, and slow motion.
• Image enhancement can adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness.

Download and Protection

• Recordings can be downloaded as MP4 or AVI files.
• Separate recordings can be merged and downloaded as one file.
• Text and image watermarks can be overlaid when downloading recordings.
• Downloaded recordings can be password-protected.
• Recording encryption secures recording access in Surveillance Station and the file system.
• Share links allow users without Surveillance Station accounts to view and download recordings.

Storage

• Recording storage can be customized per camera with encrypted shared folder options.
• Recording rotation can be triggered by retention time or storage size.
• Recording indexing synchronizes recordings listed in Surveillance Station with actual files in File Station.

Backup and Archiving

• Hyper Backup can back up Surveillance Station system configurations and recordings to local or remote Synology NAS devices, remote rsync servers, WebDAV, OpenStack servers, and public clouds such as Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure.
• Archive Vault archives recordings to remote servers with customized time range, camera, and event-mode settings.
• Surveillance365 requires a C2 OneStorage plan subscription and uploads recordings in H.264 and H.265 formats to Synology C2 cloud storage.

Limitations

• Videos cannot be locked during the recording process.
• Pre-recording or post-recording settings over 10 seconds may affect system performance because memory consumption increases.
• 300-second pre-recording or post-recording settings are available only on Synology models with 4 GB or more memory.
• Recording watermarks are available only on Synology Surveillance Station Client.
• Recordings with watermarks cannot be authenticated by Synology Evidence Integrity Authenticator.
• Watermarks cannot be overlaid when selected recordings to merge and download are in different resolutions.
• Encrypted recordings cannot be shared through links.
• Encrypted recordings cannot be accessed through SMB or File Station.
• Encrypted shared folders cannot be accessed through NFS.

• Synology Camera and DVA Series models support video analytics. The number of available intelligent video analytics tasks varies by DVA series model. (Learn more)
• Available AI detection features vary between Synology Camera and DVA series models. (Learn more)
• Supports integrated video analytics from compatible third-party cameras, including AXIS ACAP applications, Hikvision Smart Events, and Dahua IVS. See Camera Support for compatibility details.

Object Detection

• Object Detection detects people and vehicles and supports Crowd detection based on the number of people in an area and Loitering detection based on how long they remain in the area.

Intrusion

• Intrusion Detection detects people or vehicles crossing a configured virtual fence.

Loitering

• Loitering detection triggers events when people or vehicles stay over a set time.

Crowd

• Crowd detection triggers events when occupancy in detection zones exceeds the limit.

Vacancy

• Synology Camera supports vacancy detection that triggers events when occupancy in detection zones remains below the limit for a specified period.

Smoke Detection

• Smoke Detection on BC800Z detects smoke at an early stage within specified areas.

• Smoke Detection and License Plate Recognition cannot be enabled simultaneously because of camera performance optimization.

Face Recognition

• Face Recognition on DVA Series models can register up to 10,000 user profiles with customized members, local DSM users, domain users, and LDAP users.
• Face Recognition detects covered and uncovered faces.
• Face Recognition can ignore faces smaller than a set size.
• Face Recognition results can be played back, downloaded, and locked.
• Face Recognition is available on CMS recording servers and failover servers. (Learn more)

License Plate Recognition

• License Plate Recognition identifies global alphanumeric license plates. (Enhanced the accuracy in specific regions)
• License Plate Recognition supports prefix matching rules.
• License Plate Recognition supports up to 10,000 customized license plates from 1 to 64 characters.
• DVA7400 and DVA3221 detect vehicles traveling slower than 40 km/hr.
• DVA1622 detects stationary vehicles.
• BC800Z detects vehicles traveling slower than 20 km/hr.
• License Plate Recognition reports can be downloaded as HTML or XLSX files.

Semantic Video Search

• DVA7400 supports searching for events using natural language.
• DVA7400 supports configuring tasks for generating AI summaries.

Attribute Search

• Attribute Search detects a person’s upper and lower clothing colors, as well as a vehicle’s type and color.

Instant Search

• Instant Search can quickly find people, vehicles, or motion within a specified area and time range in Synology Camera recordings.

Smart Search

• Smart Search can find motion detection, missing object, foreign object, camera occlusion, focus lost, and no-idle zone events.

• People Counting and Vehicle Counting can merge counting tasks to combine numbers from multiple tasks.
• DVA People Counting and Vehicle Counting reports can be downloaded as HTML or XLSX files.
• Synology Camera counting reports can be downloaded as XLSX files.

• Surveillance Station sends instant notifications through SMS, email, mobile devices, and webhooks.
• Notification content can be customized for each event.
• Notification sources include servers, IP cameras, I/O modules, external devices, and clients (Surveillance Station Client and VisualStation).
• Notification combination options reduce excessive messages.
• Notification muting options reduce interruptions.
• Supported email providers include Gmail, Outlook, QQ, and customized SMTP servers.
• Email notifications can include up to 10 recipients.
• Event snapshots can be attached to email notifications.
• Push notifications are supported on DS cam.

Limitations

• Only administrators can modify notification settings.
• Event snapshots cannot be attached when notification combination is enabled.

Action Rule

• Action Rule automates surveillance workflows by triggering configured actions when specified events occur or according to a schedule.
• Action Rule can initiate actions such as recording and sending notifications across connected surveillance devices.
• Action Rule supports webhooks as both event triggers and action responses, enabling automated workflows with third-party systems.

Home Mode

• Home Mode applies recording, notification, stream, and action rule settings according to the user's Home location.
• Geofence triggering uses DS cam device locations with a GPS radius from 100 to 500 meters.
• Home Mode can be activated manually or according to a one-time or recurring schedules.
• GPS and Wi-Fi assistance improve positioning accuracy.

Limitations

• Each action rule supports up to 5 trigger events and 5 actions.
• Home Mode is not supported on servers in a CMS structure.
• Geofence can be set up only through DS cam.
• GPS and Wi-Fi assistance may increase mobile device power consumption.

• CMS uses a host server as the centralized platform for managing Surveillance Station features on paired recording servers and failover servers.
• Recording servers can be grouped into administrator-defined sites for multi-site management.
• One host server can manage up to 5,000 recording servers and 50,000 IP cameras. (Learn more)
• CMS supports cross-domain deployment. (Learn more)
• CMS supports connections through QuickConnect ID, IP address, and FQDN.
• Servers can be batch-updated online and offline.
• IP cameras and their recordings can be migrated between servers.
• Automatic failover can protect recording servers by transferring to multiple failover servers. (Learn more)
• Recordings, snapshots, and archived recordings can be restored from failover servers back to recording servers.

Limitations

• All servers under CMS must run the same minor version of Surveillance Station.
• The CMS host server must run the highest Surveillance Station version within the group. If all servers run Surveillance Station 9.2.x, the host server must use the highest available 9.2.x version within the group.
• Servers under CMS do not need to run the same DSM version.
• CPU performance may be affected when more than one-third of the recommended camera count is installed on the host server. (Learn more)
• Failover downtime depends on the number of cameras transferred and the CPU computing power of the failover server.
• Camera migration works only through SMB services.
• Surveillance365 cloud backup is not supported on failover servers.

• User permissions can be customized for sites, servers, IP cameras, I/O modules, and applications such as Monitor Center, Maps, Recording, Log, Snapshot, and Home Mode.
• Administrator privileges grant full control over all functions and Surveillance Station settings.
• Site admin privileges grant full control over all functions and permissions for managing recording servers and users within a site.
• Manager privileges grant full control over all functions.
• Spectator privileges allow users to view and operate only authorized functions.
• Account activation schedules can be customized per user.
• Inactive accounts can be signed out automatically.
• Dual Authorization enhances security by requiring credentials from an authorized supervisor to temporarily elevate a user's privileges for restricted functions. Up to 20 supervisors can be authorized.
• Domain and LDAP services are supported.

Limitations

• Administrators and site admins can manage privilege profile settings.
• Users can be added to groups only from DSM Control Panel.
• Synology NVR servers do not support domain or LDAP service.

Log Management

• System logs record all Surveillance Station system operations.
• Event logs record camera, I/O module, Face Recognition, Deep Video Analytics events, and corresponding recordings.
• Logs can be downloaded as HTML or XLSX files.
• Log rotation can use day, size, or log number.
• Logs can be sent to syslog servers.

System and Device Management

• The built-in NTP server can synchronize time across devices.
• The beep sound can be muted temporarily on NVR Local Display.

• Each Synology storage system includes two or more default device licenses, depending on the model datasheet. (Learn more)
• Extra licenses allow scalable surveillance deployment.
• CMS host servers can fully manage licenses of recording servers.
• Offline license management is available through Surveillance Station Client and DS cam.
• Licenses can be migrated between Synology storage systems.
• Device licenses can be migrated to failover servers during failover.

Limitations

• Default licenses cannot be deleted or migrated.
• Some surveillance devices may require more than one license. (Learn more)
• Default licenses of Synology storage systems running as failover servers cannot be used.