When using a Soracom Cloud Camera Services (SoraCam) compatible device to save video recordings to the cloud, each video is saved to the cloud with both a "Camera Time" (the time that the camera captured the video) and a "Server Time" (the time the recording is saved to the cloud). Once saved, video recordings can be downloaded afterwards by specifying the time of the video to download.

Although SoraCam-compatible cameras use Network Time Protocol (NTP) to synchronize time, there may be discrepencies between the "Camera Time" and the "Server Time". Since the download function refers to the "Server Time" of a video, the downloaded video might not correspond exactly to the video that was recorded at the specified time, making it a challenge to obtain video from a specific time.

With this update, the download function will be modified such that the video download will be based on the "Camera Time" instead. This update will also apply to still image downloads.

Before this change

The video recording returned by the download function is based on the time that the recording is saved to the cloud ("Server Time"). For example, if there is a 2-second delay between the time the camera captured the video and the time the recording is saved to the cloud, specifying 13:00:02 could result in downloading video that was actually captured at 13:00:00:

After this change

The video recording returned by the download function will be based on the time that the camera captured the video ("Camera Time"). Now, even if there is a 2-second delay between the time the camera captured the video and the time the recording is saved to the cloud, specifying 13:00:00 will correctly download the video that was captured at 13:00:00:

This change will also apply when downloading images, and will also apply to the SoraCam video and image export functions in the Soracom CLI and Soracom API.

Effective Date

This change will take effect on October 24, 2024 at 0:00 AM (UTC).

Please note that the effective date may be subject to change without prior notice.

For more information about SoraCam, please refer to the Soracom Cloud Camera Services documentation (Japanese).

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Soracom Support.