The Timeline Panel displays cameras you select( with their corresponding timelines), with blue bars indicating detected motion and recorded video. You can drag the timeline to review stored assets (images and/or video) for your cameras. The Timeline Panel allows you to quickly move through time to locate images and events. It can display up to 16 cameras at a time.
Playhead
The Playhead is a vertical line drawn through the center of the timeline, indicating the time of the video you are currently viewing. The time is displayed in large digits above the Playhead.
Each camera viewer in the upper portion of the screen displays the recorded image closest to the current Playhead position in the lower portion of the screen. The actual image time is indicated by the solid blue triangle on the respective camera timeline. Each image viewer displays a timestamp indicating the exact image time.
Selecting Images to Display
Use the Image Type Selector 
to control the types of thumbnail images displayed:
- all – Camera viewers show both motion images and preview images, possibly taken when no motion was detected.
- motion – Camera viewers show the motion image captured closest to the Playhead position. Note that when the camera viewer displays a preview image captured between motion events, you cannot click the camera viewer to play the event; there is no event to play.
Using this feature, you can set motion detection on a specific camera to trigger only on large objects, for example, a car pulling into your parking lot. With this setting, something small, like a cat walking across the parking lot, does not record full motion video and does not create a timeline event. If you select to view all images, including preview images, then you can drag the timeline to view all preview images and find the exact time a cat crossed the parking lot. This can help you tune your camera capture settings to record only events that matter; the previews let you see what the camera didn't record.
Timeline Navigation
There are several different ways to move the Playhead, which are useful for different reasons. The complete list is:
- Using the Playhead Navigator
- Using the Arrow Keys on the Keyboard
- Dragging the Timeline
- Clicking the Calendar
- Using Play Mode
- Next/Previous Block in Images Panel
Using the Playhead Navigator
The Playhead Navigator is a panel of buttons at the top of the Playhead. In addition to zoom buttons, the Playhead Navigator has four buttons for navigating images, a button to reset the Playhead position to the current time, and a button for creating spans.
A description of the Playhead Navigator controls functions follows:
Using the Arrow Keys on the Keyboard
Use the arrow keys on your keyboard instead of the arrow buttons in the Playhead Navigator, described above.
- press left or right arrow key – Move to the previous or next image.
- hold SHIFT key, and press left or right arrow key – Move to the previous or next motion thumbnail image.
These keys, like the Playhead Navigator buttons, move through all images. By contrast, some images may be skipped if you drag the timeline when it is zoomed out.
Dragging the Timeline
Use your mouse to click and drag the timeline under the Playhead. Each camera viewer continuously updates the displayed image to the one closest to the Playhead position. The performance of this feature depends on the speed of your internet connection and your computer, and on your Image Type Selector setting, but it looks and feels like a draggable time-lapse movie. If the image updates are slow, drag more slowly, release the mouse button, and stop dragging for a moment, or zoom in a bit. When you drag back over a time period again, the browser cache provides improved performance.
Clicking the Calendar
The Calendar displays directly below the timeline, with an orange highlight showing the date currently displayed. The size of the orange highlight changes, depending on the scale of the time blocks. For larger time blocks, more time shows in the timeline, with a larger orange highlight.
Click on the calendar to quickly navigate to any date. Click and drag the calendar forward or backward in time. How far back you can go depends on the retention time included in your service plan.
To reposition the calendar to today, click the Now button in the Playhead Navigator.
Using Play Mode
To activate Play Mode, press the spacebar on your keyboard. To exit Play Mode, press any key or click the mouse anywhere on the screen.
Play Mode is the same as clicking the Next Image button repeatedly – it moves the Playhead position to the next image, updates any camera viewers that change as a result of the move, then as soon as all camera viewers display the new images, moves the Playhead position again.
The following factors require such large amounts of data that they affect the speed of Play Mode:
- Showing all images, including previews
- Having short intervals between preview images
- Selecting several cameras to watch at once
- Having a slow network connection speed
As with dragging the timeline, Play Mode improves due to your browser cache and plays faster on a second pass.
Images Panel Navigation
The Timeline Panel and the Images Panel share the Playhead position. When you switch from Timeline Panel to Images Panel, the center image on the Images Panel is the image closest to the current Playhead position. If you use the Next and Previous buttons in the Images Panel to move through time, the Playhead position in the Timeline Panel moves to match the center image on the Images Panel. When you return to the Timeline Panel, the Playhead position has changed to match the last block of images that you viewed in the Images Panel.
Playing Clips from the Timeline Panel
There are two ways to play a clip from the Timeline Panel.
- Click the Camera Viewer – When the Playhead is over a motion event, click the camera viewer to play that event. If a video does not play, and a play icon does not appear when you hover over the camera viewer, the Playhead is not over a motion event for that camera. Use the Next or Previous Thumbnail buttons to move to a motion event, then try again.
- Click the Blue Event Bar in the Timeline – Click directly on a blue event bar in the timeline. The more a Timeline is zoomed in, the easier it is to click an event.
Once a clip is playing, use the arrow buttons within the Player to navigate to next and previous events. This navigation does not move the Playhead position; the timeline has not moved when you close the Player.
Creating a Time Span
You can create a span, comprising several different events, which you can then view as a single video segment. Within this video segment, time between motion events is removed, so you only spend time watching the action.
To create a Time Span:
- On the Playhead of the Timeline view, click the Time Span button
. - The black Time Span appears on the timeline as a vertical line with a black marker in the center, as shown here.
- Click and drag on either or both sides of the black marker to create a Time Span. The Time Span appears dark gray, bounded by the two black rectangles, as shown below.
Within the Time Span is a play button for each of the cameras within the timeline. Click the appropriate play button to view the video Time Span for the desired camera.
For the lower camera in this example, the Time Span video will show all of the short events strung together in one video segment, with the white spaces between events eliminated.
You can drag the Time Span to a new location or click the Time Span button again to remove the Time Span from the timeline.
Timeline Filmstrip
The Filmstrip displays a series of images from a camera. Display or hide the Filmstrip by clicking the small triangle next to the camera name on the timeline.
Displaying the filmstrip gives a quick overview of activity for the camera (the block under the Playhead displays the image closest to the Playhead), either a thumbnail or preview, depending on the setting of the Image Type Selector. The blocks to the left and right display the last or first image for that block – whichever is closer to the Playhead.
If you display multiple filmstrips, the timeline may be taller than the space available. Just as when you display many cameras at once, you can scroll the timeline up and down, either by dragging it vertically, or by using the scroll wheel on your mouse.
You can create a Time Span within the Filmstrip. Refer to the Time Span section above for details.
Orange Bars in Timeline
An orange bar on the Timeline Panel indicates that a camera cannot communicate with the servers and is essentially offline.
When this happens, the camera continues to function normally, as long as it has power. If a camera is offline, its status in the NOW Panel displays in orange. CudaCam sends an offline alert to let the administrator know.
Cameras might go offline if your local network or Internet connection go down, or if you make changes to your network.
Standard Features
Standard Features on the Timeline Panel include:
Tool Name Description 
Image Size Tool Use the slider to make each camera image larger or smaller. The smaller the image, the more images you can fit on a single screen. 
Show/Hide Side Panel Click this icon to show or hide the side panel. If you do not need the navigation functionality, hiding the side panel provides more room to display camera images.