Verify CCTV recordings before you need them.
The worst time to discover a recording failure is during an investigation. Recording verification asks the only question that matters - does usable footage actually exist for this camera, right now - and answers it with evidence from the recorder itself.
Online, recording, and actually recorded are three different things
There is a chain of assumptions between a green status light and usable evidence. A camera being online means it answers on the network. A recorder being online means the box is up. The device reporting recording means its software believes a recording job is active. None of those guarantee that a playable video segment for the right camera, at the right time, exists on disk.
Every link in that chain fails in practice: streams that reach the recorder but are not written, recording schedules that quietly exclude hours or days, storage that fills and overwrites faster than the promised retention, corrupted archives that will not play back, and clocks so far adrift that the footage that does exist cannot be trusted as evidence.
IOSentra closes the chain by going to the source. On a schedule you control, it queries each recording system for actual recording segments per camera and confirms that fresh, recent footage exists. No new segments for a camera means an incident - opened before anyone needed the missing clip.
The failures recording verification catches
Camera streams, recorder writes nothing
The camera is reachable and streaming, but its channel is not being written to disk - misconfiguration, licensing or channel mapping faults.
Recording schedule mistakes
Motion-only recording where continuous was intended, wrong calendars, disabled channels after maintenance - all invisible on a status screen.
Recording gaps
Segments stop appearing for minutes, hours or days, then resume - the classic silent failure that only surfaces when footage is requested.
Retention shorter than required
Storage pressure quietly shrinks your retention window below the days your policy or contract requires.
Unplayable or corrupted archives
Segments that exist in the index but cannot be retrieved - found by verifying against the recorder, not assuming.
Clock drift
A recorder minutes away from real time produces footage whose timestamps will not stand up when it matters.
How IOSentra verifies recordings
Query the recorder
The vendor driver searches the recording system's own archive for recent segments per camera, using the device's native protocol.
Confirm freshness
Each camera must show recording segments newer than your threshold. A camera with no fresh segments fails the check even if every status light is green.
Open the incident
A verified recording failure opens a deduplicated incident naming the exact camera, with root-cause insight and automatic ticket routing to the right technician under your SLA.
Proof without holding your footage
Verification does not require copying video out of your environment. IOSentra confirms segments exist on your recorder and analyzes frames in memory for image checks - footage is never persisted by the platform. You get proof your video exists, without your video ever leaving your control.
Recording verification FAQ
How is recording verification different from camera monitoring?
Camera monitoring tells you a device is reachable. Recording verification confirms the output exists: real, recent recording segments on the recorder for every camera. A system can pass the first and fail the second.
How often are recordings verified?
On the schedule you set per site or system - from continuous frequent checks on critical channels to daily sweeps on low-priority ones.
Does verification move or copy my footage?
No. IOSentra queries your recorder for segment existence and analyzes sample frames in memory. Video is never stored by the platform.
What happens when a camera has no fresh recordings?
An incident opens for that exact camera, deduplicated against related faults, with AI root-cause insight. If configured, a service ticket is created and routed automatically by site, system type and SLA.
Which recorders and VMS platforms are supported?
Recording verification runs through IOSentra's vendor drivers, including ONVIF-conformant recorders, Hikvision, Dahua, Hanwha Vision, Uniview, Milestone XProtect, Bosch BVMS, Avigilon Unity, Nx Witness, ExacqVision, Wavestore, Digifort and Axxon One.
Ready to take control?
Every camera records. Every device communicates. Every issue is tracked. Every ticket is resolved.
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