Not to get OT, but along the same lines, I've been reading about 'region of interest' in another NVR suite. It lets users define a 'hotspot' (or multiples) on specific regions of a recorded clip, and then the NVR filters all other recordings out so that only those triggers that occurred within the hotspot shows.
For example, if a spider is dangling all night 2" from the left edge of the screen, and you want to review the night's activity, you're forced to watch that spider do his thing for every frame of the night. But with the region of interest, you highlight everything EXCEPT the spider's location, and your list of clips is trimmed down to movement of everything else. Seems like a no brainer. This tweaking with recordings looks to be a step in the right direction, but man would I love that feature.
Here's a write-up of how it works on a competing NVR suite (no worries, I would never leave BI!):
http://jimcosoftware.com/index.php/reviews/surveillance-software/luxriot-vms
Search for "Region of Motion Interest"
Remember earlier when I said that you may often find motion of branches blowing in the wind or other unwanted events will trigger recording? There's another amazing feature in Luxriot VMS called Region of Motion Interest that can help you take care of that problem. You can isolate a portion of a camera's recorded feed and Luxriot will only pay attention to motion within that area. (I emphasize "recorded" here so that you will realize that you actually define the region of motion interest in the recorded video, not in live view.) The area that you highlight doesn't have to be contiguous either. In the screenshot below, I have shaded an area at the bottom of the screen and then I have cleared a small area where there's a bush that was triggering motion. After I define the area that I'm interested in, I can use my Ctrl+M and Ctrl+P keyboard commands and Luxriot VMS will ignore motion everywhere except the area of interest that I've defined.
Region of Motion Interest
You can also see the Region of Motion Interest toolbar in the screenshot above. Using this toolbar, I can easily add to the region, remove areas from the region, clear the region or turn off Region of Motion Interest mode. If I turn off Region of Interest mode, Luxriot will trigger on motion in any non-excluded area. (Non-excluded areas are areas that weren't originally excluded when I set up my camera.) However, I can easily switch right back into Region of Motion Interest mode by re-enabling it on the toolbar, and when I do, my previously defined region is still there. The Region of Motion Interest mode is one of the key features for me that sets Luxriot VMS apart from the competition.
