Playback
Playback plays what the NVRs recorded. Sphere does not store video: it searches the NVR for recordings and streams them from the NVR through the connector, like live video. Playback needs the Operator or Tenant admin role (Roles and permissions).
Choose cameras and a day
- On the left, Cameras lists the tenant's cameras by site and NVR, like Live view; Search cameras filters it by name. Tick the cameras to play back: up to 64 together (Up to 64 cameras play back together.). The header counts them (3 of 64 selected); Clear unticks them all.
- Choose the Date (today by default); Previous day and Next day step through the days. Future days cannot be chosen.
Sphere asks each camera's NVR for that day's recordings (Searching the NVR for recordings…). The day runs from midnight to midnight in the browser's time zone. The cameras and the day are part of the page's address, so a bookmark or a copied link opens the same selection.
The single camera page of Live view has a Playback button that opens this page with its camera ticked.
The players
The selected cameras play side by side above the timeline, in a grid of the same splits as live view (Splits). Layout chooses the split. It grows by itself to hold the selection: splits with fewer tiles than selected cameras are disabled in the picker. Each player shows its camera's name and has Save a snapshot and Full screen, like the live tiles.
The timeline
Each selected camera has a row on one shared timeline, coloured by Recording types:
| Colour | Type |
|---|---|
| Blue | Continuous |
| Amber | Motion |
| Red | Alarm |
| Green | Manual |
| Grey | Other |
- Six rows show at once; with more cameras, the rows scroll.
- Zoom: 24 h shows the whole day, 1 h one hour of it (Previous hour and Next hour move the hour).
- Hovering shows the time under the pointer.
- No recordings on this day. means the NVR found nothing for that camera. The NVR returned only part of the day's recordings. means it found more than 2,000 recordings for the day: part of them is not shown.
Play
- Click the timeline to play every selected camera from that moment, in sync.
- Or type a time in Play from and choose Play.
A camera that recorded nothing at that moment says Not recorded at … instead of jumping ahead, so all players show the same moment. If no selected camera recorded at that moment, playback starts at the next recording of any of them. Nothing is recorded from that moment on this day. means there is nothing to play after the chosen time.
Each playback runs for at most one hour, and ends earlier at the end of the camera's recording or of the day; then click again. Position shows the time being played, and a line marks it on the timeline. Stop stops every player.
Seeking (another click, another time) opens new playbacks from the new moment: the NVRs stream from there, so it takes a few seconds, as the first start did. A player shows End of the recording when its playback has reached its end.
Playbacks stop as soon as you leave the page: there is no grace period as for live streams, and closing or reloading the tab ends them at once, so they do not hold the NVR's playback slots.
Limits
- Each NVR serves at most 4 playbacks at once by default; a camera beyond that says Too many streams are open for this site or NVR. Playbacks also count towards the connector's limit of open streams (Limits).
- Recording times are converted with the NVR's time zone. If recordings appear shifted by some hours, set the NVR's Time zone in Sphere (NVRs).
- Playback streams the recording as recorded: an H.265 recording may not play in the browser.
- While the tab is hidden for more than 60 seconds, the playbacks stop (Paused while the tab is hidden); when the tab is visible again, they start over from the moment you chose.