How to playback video on Hikvision CCTV system
There are various ways to playback video on a CCTV system. The following is a guide to how to playback video on a Hikvision system, including:
Instant playback CCTV guide
How to use Smart Search on Hikvision CCTV
How to switch between Hikvision’s mainstream and sub-stream
How to select Fast view - to scan through video footage on CCTV system
How to watch historic recorded footage on Hikvision CCTV
How Instant Playback works
Instant Playback on Hikvision systems enables the device to play video files recorded in the last five minutes. If no video is found, it means there was no recording during the last five minutes.
Step 1 On the Live View window of the selected camera, move the cursor to the window bottom to access the toolbar.
Step 2 Click (the timer icon) to start instant playback.
Playback Interface
How to play video
Step 1 Go to Playback.
Step 2 Select one or more cameras in the camera list.
Step 3 Select a date in the calendar.
Step 4 Click Play on the toolbar to start playing the video.
Step 5 You can use the toolbar in the bottom of the playback interface to control the playing and perform a series of operations. Refer to the section on Playback Operations.
Playback Interface
Playback Toolbar
Step 6 You can click the channel(s) to execute simultaneous playback of multiple channels.
Note 256x playing speed is supported.
How to Play Tag Files
Video tag allows you to record related information such as people and locations of a certain time point during playback. You can use video tag(s) to search for video files and position the time point.
How to Manage Tag Files
Step 1 Go to Playback.
Step 2 Search and play back the video file(s).
Step 3 Click (the tag icon) to add the tag.
Step 4 Edit the tag information.
Note A maximum of 64 tags can be added to a single video file. Playing Tag Files
Step 5 Go to Playback.
Step 6 Click Tag button.
Step 7 Click Custom Search on the left bottom to enter the Search Condition interface.
Step 8 Click Smart Search on the top right corner.
Step 9 Enter the search conditions for the tag files, including the time and the tag keyword.
Tag Search
Step 10 Click Search.
Search Tag Files
Step 11 On the search results interface, select a tag file and click to start playing the video.
Tag Playback
How Smart Search works on Hikvision CCTV syetms
Using Hikvision’s Smart Playback mode, the device will analyse the video containing the motion, line, or intrusion detection information, mark it in green, and play it at normal speed. Video without motion will be played in at 16x speed. The smart playback rules and areas are configurable.
Step 1 Go to Playback.
Step 2 Start playing the video files by channel or by time.
Step 3 From the toolbar at the bottom of the playing window, click the motion / line crossing / intrusion icon for search.
Playback By Smart Search
Step 4 Set the rules and areas for smart search by line crossing detection, intrusion detection or motion detection event triggered recording.
Line Crossing Detection
1) Click the (diagonal line) icon.
2) Click on the image to specify the start point and end point of the line.
Intrusion Detection
1) Click the (square) icon.
2) Specify four points to set a quadrilateral region for intrusion detection. Only one region can be set.
Motion Detection
1) Click the (bottom left square) icon.
2) Hold the mouse on the image to draw the detection area manually.
3) Click (the magnifying glass icon) to search the matched video and start to play it.
How to Playing Event Files
Play back video files on one or several channels searched by event type (e.g., alarm input, motion detection, line crossing detection, face detection, vehicle detection, etc.).
Step 1 Go to Playback.
Step 2 Click Custom Search on the left bottom to enter the Search Condition interface.
Step 3 Click Smart Search on the top right corner.
Step 4 Enter the search conditions for the event files, e.g., time, event type, file status, people appearance (for face detection, human detection, etc.), and vehicle information (for vehicle detection event).
Step 5 Click Search.
Step 6 On the search results interface, select an event video file / picture file and click it to start playing the video or double-click it to play the picture.
Event Files
Step 7 Click (the back arrow icon) or (the forward arrow icon) to select the previous or next event.
How to Play by Sub-Periods
The video files can be played in multiple sub-periods simultaneously on the screen.
Step 1 Go to Playback.
Step 2 Select Sub-periods from the drop-down list in the upper-left corner of the page to enter the Sub-Periods Playback interface.
Step 3 Select a date and start playing the video file.
Select the Split-Screen Number from the drop-down list. Up to 16 screens are configurable.
Interface of Sub Periods Playback
Note According to the defined number of split-screens, the video files on the selected date can be divided into average segments for playback. E.g., if there are video files existing between 16:00 and 22:00, and the 6-screen display mode is selected, then it can play the video files for 1 hour on each screen simultaneously.
How to Play Log Files
Play back record file(s) associated with channels after searching system logs.
Step 1 Go to Maintenance > Log Information.
Step 2 Click the Log Search tab to enter Playback by System Logs.
Step 3 Set search time and type and click Search.
System Log Search Interface
Step 4 Choose a log with a video file and click (the blue triangle icon) to start playing the log file.
Interface of Playback by Log
How to Play External Files
You can play files from external storage devices.
Before You Start
Connect the storage device with the video files to your device.
Step 1 Go to Playback.
Step 2 Click (the file icon) at the left bottom corner.
Step 3 Select and click (the blue triangle icon) or double-click to play the file.
External File Playback
Different Hikvision Playback Operations
Normal/Important/Custom Video
During playback, you can select the following three modes to play the video.
Normal: Video files from continuous recordings
Important: Video files from event and alarm recording triggered recordings
Custom: Video files searched by custom conditions
How to Set Play Strategy in Custom Mode
In the Custom video playback mode, you can set the playing speed separately for normal video and important / custom video, or you can select to skip the normal video.
Step 1 In the Important / Custom video playback mode, click (the custom video icon) to set the play strategy.
When Do not Play Normal Videos is checked, the device will skip the normal video and play the important (event) video and the custom (searched video) only, in normal speed (x1).
When Do not Play Normal Videos is unchecked, you can set the play speed for the normal video and the important / custom video separately. The speed range is from x1 to xMAX.
Note You can set the speed in single-channel play mode only.
Editing Video Clips
You can take video clips during playback and export the clips.
Step 1 In Video Playback mode, click (the scissors icon) to start the video clipping operation.
Click (the bracketed scissor icon) to set the start time and end time of the video clip.
Click (the disc icon) to export the video clips to the local storage device.
How to Switch Between Main Stream and Sub-Stream
You can switch between the main stream and the sub-stream during playback.
Click the playback icon (with the 1 in a circle) to play the video in main stream.
Click the playback icon (with the 2 in a circle) to play the video in sub-stream.
NoteThe encoding parameters for the main stream and sub-stream can be configured in Storage > Encoding Parameters.
How to Select Thumbnail View
With the thumbnails view on the playback interface, you can conveniently locate the required video files on the time bar.
In the Video Playback mode, move the mouse to the time bar to preview thumbnails of the video files.
Thumbnails View
You can select and double click on a thumbnail to enter full-screen playback.
Note Thumbnail view is supported only in 1x single-camera playback mode.
How to Select Fisheye View
You can enter the fisheye expansion view during the video playback.
Step 1 Click (the fisheye icon) to enter the fisheye expansion mode.
180° Panorama ( 180 icon): Switch the Live View image to the 180° panorama view.
360° Panorama (360 icon): Switch Live View image to the 360° panorama view.
PTZ Expansion (PTZ icon): The PTZ Expansion is the close-up view of a defined area in the fisheye view or panorama expansion, and it supports the electronic PTZ function, which is also called e-PTZ.
Radial Expansion (Radial icon ): In the radial expansion mode, the whole wide-angle view of the fisheye camera is displayed. This view mode is called Fisheye View because it approximates the vision of a fish’s convex eye. The lens produces curvilinear images of a large area, while distorting the perspective and angles of objects in the image.
How to Select Fast View
Hold the mouse to drag on the time bar to get a fast view of the video files.
Step 1 In Video Playback mode, hold and drag the mouse through the playing time bar to fast view the video files.
Step 2 Release the mouse at the required time point to enter full-screen playback.
Note Fast view is supported only in the 1x single-camera playback mode.
Digital Zoom
Step 1 In Video Playback mode, click in the toolbar to enter the digital zoom interface.
Step 2 Move the sliding bar or scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in/out of the image to different magnifications (1x to 16x).
Digital Zoom
How to Select POS Information Overlay
In Video Playback mode, click (the text box icon to overlay the POS transaction information on the playback video. When the playing speed is higher than 2x, the POS information cannot be overlaid on the video.
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