Export video clips from Alta Video

Last modified: Thursday February 02, 2023.

Alta Video enables you to export video clips from your Alta video security systems. You can export clips from Video view playback, from the Search and Search preview tools, from Alarms, from Devices, or from the pop-up alerts issued as a result of rules being triggered. Exporting video clips from each of these areas follows a similar process.

Video exported from Alta Video might not play correctly in software that cannot support multiple resolutions in a single video clip.

We recommend that you use the VLC media player, (for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS and many mobile platforms) or IINA media player for Mac as these have been tested with video clips exported from Alta Video and have been found to work correctly.

Prerequisites

Locate the video clip of interest from Video view playback, from Search, from Alarms, from Devices , or from a pop-up alert.

Task

  1. Log in to Alta Video.
  2. Navigate to the tool or pop-up alert of interest.
    To enable the Export features:
    • Video view — make sure you are in Playback mode.
    • Search — define all your search parameters and then Play button open or Select video button select the video clips to be exported.
    • Devices — select a camera and maximize the video thumbnail to display the Share and save button Share or save button.
    • Alarms — maximize the video thumbnail to display the Share and save button Share or save button.
    These actions enable the Share or save button.
  3. Click the Export clip button Share or save button.
  4. Select the Export button Export button.
  5. If multiple cameras are shown, hover over the thumbnails, and click Close button to deselect any camera views that are not of interest.
  6. To export video from additional cameras, add them by clicking Add devices button Add devices.
  7. Select the required timeframe by entering the Start and End times. Alternatively, hover and drag the Clip start time handle and Clip end time handle handles to adjust the clip to include the portion of video you want.
    1. Aware shows a warning for cameras with no footage for the selected timeframe. For example, the footage has been deleted due to the camera recording retention policy.
    2. You cannot export video if all of the selected cameras have no recorded footage for the selected timeframe.
  8. Click the Play button play button to preview the clip.
    1. Adjust the clip boundaries as needed.
    2. If you are exporting video from multiple cameras, select Sync export timeframe to use the same Start and End times.
    3. The minimum clip length that can be exported is 10 seconds.
  9. If required, type a File name for the exported file.
  10. By default, video is exported in .mp4 format.
    If requested by Support, select the ava video format for the exported file.

    Video exported in the ava format is a special format to allow Avigilon Alta to diagnose issues with analytics or other problems. You cannot view video exported in the ava format using normal video-viewing software.

  11. Optionally, to enable the recipient of the clip to listen to any recorded audio, select Include audio. For more information about recording audio, see About: Audio options in Aware.
  12. If needed, enable and configure the password that must be entered to view the video clip.

    When you select Password enabled, the exported video is encrypted using AES-256.

    Ensure that the recipient of the exported files has access to suitable tools, such as 7-zip or WinZip, that can open files with AES-256 encryption. The tools provided by Windows Explorer, Mac OS, and the Linux unzip command only support weaker encryption models.

  13. Click Export.

Exported video clips are packaged as a .zip file that includes the signed hash information for each clip, enabling you to confirm that the video clips, or the metadata relating to each video, has not been tampered with.