difference between downloading schedule and recording schedule
The video recording plan and download plan are two typical mechanisms within the cloud-based video recording and server-side video recording mechanisms of the unified communication platform, SmartEye. However, they have a significant difference.
Taking specific application scenarios as examples,
In industries such as smart construction sites, power operation and maintenance, equipment inspection, power inspection, and railway inspection, workers wear law enforcement recorders or smart helmets for outdoor inspection tasks. Typical needs of owners are as follows:
1) Record the entire process of homework;
2) I don't want to consume 4G/5G data, as it's too expensive. I hope to save it on the server using WiFi;
Based on this industry-wide customer requirement, let's analyze which video recording and storage mechanism should be applied.
A) The mechanism of the video recording plan is that within a specified time period and using a designated network access method (WiFi or 4G/5G), as long as the device is connected to the smarteye platform, it will immediately start recording on the server. This is equivalent to opening an invisible client on the server that continuously pulls streams from the device and writes the real-time streams into the video files on the server's hard drive. That is, the video files are created and generated on the server;
B) The mechanism for the download plan is that within a specified time period and using a specified network access method (WiFi or 4G/5G), as long as the device is connected to the smarteye platform, the platform software will automatically retrieve and compare the existing historical video files on the device and download them to the server's hard drive. Note: These video files are already created on the device, not generated on the server. The server simply downloads and saves the existing files to the hard drive;
Both the video recording plan and the download plan have settings for selecting networks, meaning that both can choose to use WiFi. Therefore, when the device is connected to the platform via 4G/5G networking, neither of these two mechanisms will work;
However, based on this actual application scenario, there is no WiFi coverage on-site during outdoor work. Therefore, during the eight-hour workday in the daytime, neither of these two mechanisms can function;
After work in the evening, all these devices must be returned to the unit for charging. Once they are back at the unit, there is usually WiFi coverage, at which point both mechanisms can work;
However, the video recording plan is to record the video in real-time, and since work has already ceased after office hours, the video recording plan is not applicable in this situation;
At this time, the download plan can be executed to download the video files recorded by the device for 8 hours of work to the server hard drive via WiFi (it usually takes 8 hours to complete the download);
Another typical application scenario
Workers operating in tunnels and underground utility tunnels wear 4G/5G law enforcement recorders or smart helmets; leaders want to see videos of the operation site, but due to the lack of 4G/5G signals inside the tunnels/underground utility tunnels, the images cannot be transmitted; however, as long as they walk/climb a few hundred meters away from the tunnel or utility tunnel, they can return to a place with 4G signals and transmit the video recordings back to headquarters;
In this situation, the video recording plan is useless because the workers have already left the job site and are not working at this time. Recording the live video feed on the server is useless;
That only works with a download plan. As long as "Wireless (4G/5G)" is checked in the download plan and it is valid for 24 hours, the upload of historical video files will automatically start as soon as the worker enters an area with 4G signal. Therefore, in this case, only a download plan is effective.
However, considering that the download plan automatically downloads all undownloaded video files from the device, and the leader only needs to view a 5-minute video at a specific time point during the 3-hour operation in the tunnel, using the download plan would be too slow. To address such needs, the Smarteye platform also supports manually selecting specific single or multiple video files on the device and manually uploading them to the server platform for the leader to review;
Of course, this function requires the device to have a touch screen, so it is only effective for 4G/5G law enforcement recorders. It cannot be achieved with smart helmets. This function is called "file synchronization" in the law enforcement recorder MCP, which means file uploading.
How to check the execution status of the recording or download plan?
Regarding the video recording plan
Implementing the video recording plan is equivalent to opening an invisible client on the server side that continuously pulls streams from the device and saves them on the server's hard drive.
The video channel opened by this client can be viewed in the "Status Monitoring" section of the "Channels" tab in the SmartEye WEB backend management interface, as shown in the figure below,
Note: The requester for the channel from the video recording plan is NRU, while the real-time video traffic opened by the normal WEB client displays the specific username of the requester,
The bandwidth consumption displayed at the top of the channel page represents the total bandwidth consumption of the actual server, which includes the bandwidth used for file uploads.
Regarding the download plan
The execution status of the download plan can be viewed in the "Web Backend Management" - "Platform Storage" - "Transmission List" section, as shown in the figure below,
Note: There is bandwidth consumption here, which is included in the bandwidth displayed in the channel. It is the sum of the channel bandwidth and the upload bandwidth, that is, the bandwidth consumption displayed at the top of the channel page, which represents the total bandwidth consumption of the actual server, including the bandwidth for file uploads.
Both video files stored on the server and those within the device can be remotely retrieved and played back online via WEB