🎞️Backfill

Fix recording gaps

Overview & Motivation

When a recorder fails, it stops recording video until it is restored, creating a gap in the stored content. To maintain a comprehensive media database, it is necessary to add any missing content back to it.

Methods

Restore from the Edge

Edge Retrieval

What is this about

Edge restoration refers to the process in which each XProtect recorder retrieves missing content from the edge recording copy on the camera. This is a native XProtect feature.

How do I set this?

Milestone XProtect natively supports edge restoration when cameras have edge recording capability. This behavior is controlled by the parameter "Automatically retrieve remote recordings when connection is restored," as shown in the picture below:

How does RMF help?

RMF synchronizes the "Automatically retrieve remote recordings when connection is restored" parameter between the primary and secondary recorders. As a result, when edge recording is available, each recorder automatically fills in the missing content.

Restore from the Redundant Recorder

What is this about

In this method, each recorder retrieves locally missing content from the other recorder that is recording the same camera.

How does RMF help?

Currently unsupported in RMF; however, stay tuned for updates.

Comparing the two methods

Increasingly, most cameras now feature edge recording capabilities. Edge recording is the only solution to mitigate camera network failures and addresses all other causes of missing content at the recorders. It is a superior option. However, many deployments still utilize legacy cameras that lack edge storage or have compliance issues preventing edge recording. In these cases, restoring content from a redundant recorder remains an option.