Missed the Moment? AirData Adds 10-Minute Rewind to Live Drone Video

New capabilities let remote teams recover missed moments, preserve mission video in the cloud and maintain a separate record from onboard storage.

AirData has added recording and rewind capabilities to its Live Streaming platform. The update addresses a growing challenge as drone operations become more remote: the person who needs to see the video may not be watching when an important event occurs.

The new Stream Recording and Rewind feature lets authorized viewers move back through the previous 10 minutes of an active stream. Teams can also save streams for later review. If recording starts after an event occurs, the saved recording can include up to the previous 10 minutes.

The capability could have particular value for Drone as First Responder (DFR), remote inspection and beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) programs. In these operations, the pilot, aircraft and decision-maker may all be in different locations.

“In a live operation, the most important moment does not wait for the right person to start recording,” said Eran Steiner, founder and CEO of AirData. “Especially on longer ops, the operator is not recording the whole time, so a key moment can go uncaptured. That’s the problem we built this to solve. Teams can look back while the mission is still unfolding, preserve a second copy off the aircraft, and do it across any drone brand, dock, or flight app they already use.”

Giving Remote Teams More Context

The rewind function could change how teams use live drone video during an active mission. A commander who joins a DFR feed late, for example, can review what the drone saw before returning to the live view. That reduces the need for another team member to verbally recap the earlier footage.

Huntsville Police Department is already using the new capabilities.

“We have been using AirData Live Streaming for years, and Record and Rewind has given us a tremendous new tool to capture events as they unfold. Our analysts are now not only able to watch the live feeds, but can pause, rewind, zoom and capture critical details that may have been missed as events unfold. This gives the analyst more control over the data as it comes in,” said Chad Tillman, UAS Coordinator for the Huntsville Police Department in Huntsville, Alabama.

The same concept applies to commercial inspection. An engineer joining a stream after the drone has passed an area of interest can rewind immediately. That may avoid repositioning the aircraft or waiting for onboard footage after the mission.

Teams can also configure streams to record automatically. Pilots can start and stop recordings through the AirData mobile app. AirData’s Multiview capability supports monitoring of up to seven live streams at the same time.

A Separate Copy of Mission Video

The cloud-based approach also provides another layer of data protection. AirData writes the video to the platform as it streams rather than relying only on storage aboard the aircraft.

If a drone is damaged or lost, the streamed copy remains in the AirData account. The same applies if an onboard SD card fails or becomes unavailable.

Administrators can set retention periods based on their organization’s policies. AirData also supports controlled sharing through PINs, expiration dates and QR codes. Recordings stay in the account’s configured AirData region, including regional infrastructure outside the United States.

Importantly for organizations operating mixed fleets, the feature does not require one aircraft ecosystem. AirData can record incoming RTMP, RTSP and SRT streams. Those feeds can come from dock-based systems and third-party encoders as well as the AirData mobile app.

That vendor-neutral approach builds on AirData’s broader role as a data layer across different aircraft and flight applications.

Building the Record Around Remote Operations

The launch also comes as the drone industry prepares for broader routine BVLOS operations in the United States.

The FAA’s proposed Part 108 rule would establish a framework for BVLOS operations without requiring operators to obtain individual waivers for each type of operation. The proposal includes requirements covering operational responsibility, security, reporting and recordkeeping.

As operations move farther from the traditional model of a pilot standing near an aircraft, managing the operational record becomes more important. AirData already brings together flight, aircraft, personnel, maintenance and training information. The company says recorded streams can now sit alongside that operational data for post-incident review, training, internal investigations and stakeholder briefings.

AirData recently passed 65 million logged drone flights and reports 470,000 pilots on its platform. The scale illustrates a larger shift taking place across the industry: as drone programs grow, organizations increasingly need to manage not just the aircraft and flight, but the information generated around each mission.

Record and Rewind extends that concept to live video. For DFR, inspection and remote operations, the value of a live feed is no longer limited to what someone happens to see in the moment. Teams can now move backward during an active mission, preserve what matters and connect that video with the rest of the operational record.

Stream Recording and Rewind is available to AirData Live Streaming customers. Existing customers can request a trial through the AirData web application.