24/7 Recording: Why Every Broadcaster Needs It

Published: September 28, 2026 | Author: Dualz Solutions Team | Reading Time: 10 minutes

The Scenario That Keeps Broadcasters Up at Night

It's 2:34 PM. You're in a production meeting when your phone rings. It's the control room — a viewer has reported that the stream froze during a critical live event. The issue lasted for about 30 seconds before resolving itself.

By the time you get to the control room and check the monitoring systems, everything looks normal. All streams are healthy. All metrics are green. There's no sign of any problem.

But the viewer insists it happened. And you have no way to verify.

This scenario plays out in broadcast operations around the world, every single day. Without 24/7 recording, troubleshooting becomes a game of "he said, she said" — and the broadcaster always loses.

The Problem: No Evidence, No Answers

Without continuous recording, you're flying blind when issues occur:

1. No Verification

- Did the issue actually happen?

- When did it occur?

- How long did it last?

- Which streams were affected?

2. No Context

- What was happening in the stream at that moment?

- Was it a freeze, a blackout, or corrupted video?

- Did audio drop while video continued?

- Were there any artifacts or glitches?

3. No Root Cause Analysis

- Was it a source issue (encoder, contribution link)?

- Was it a network issue (packet loss, jitter)?

- Was it a processing issue (transcoder, origin)?

- Was it a delivery issue (CDN, player)?

4. No SLA Protection

- Can't prove to contributors that their stream had problems

- Can't prove to CDNs that they missed content

- Can't prove to advertisers that their spots aired correctly

- Can't prove compliance with regulatory requirements

The Solution: Continuous 24/7 Recording

The Dualz Stream Gateway's 24/7 recording feature solves all of these problems by capturing every frame of every stream, all the time.

How It Works

Stream Input → [Stream Gateway] → Recording Storage
↓
Continuous Capture
↓
Indexed by Time
↓
Searchable Archive

When an issue is reported:

1. Search by time, stream name, or event

2. Find the exact moment in question

3. Play back the recording frame-by-frame

4. Verify what was received and when

5. Analyze the content and metadata

6. Resolve the issue with confidence

Real-World Use Cases

Use Case 1: Troubleshooting Viewer Reports

Situation: Viewer reports a freeze at 2:34:15 PM

Action:

1. Search recordings for stream X at 2:34:15 PM

2. Find the exact freeze point

3. Play back 30 seconds before and after

4. Observe the freeze duration and recovery

5. Check surrounding streams for correlation

Outcome:

- Verify the freeze happened

- Determine exact duration (was it 5s or 50s?)

- Identify the recovery pattern

- Provide viewer with definitive answer

Use Case 2: SLA Verification

Situation: Contributor claims their stream was error-free during your broadcast window

Action:

1. Pull up all recordings from the contributor's stream during the window

2. Review for any outages, freezes, or quality issues

3. Generate a report with timestamps of any issues

4. Provide to contributor as evidence

Outcome:

- Prove SLA compliance (or violation)

- Resolve billing disputes

- Maintain professional relationships

Use Case 3: Quality Assurance

Situation: Need to verify that a specific ad aired correctly

Action:

1. Search for the ad's scheduled time

2. Play back the recording from 10 seconds before

3. Verify the ad started on time

4. Check that it played completely

5. Confirm audio was present

6. Export clip for documentation

Outcome:

- Verify ad compliance

- Provide proof to advertisers

- Document for regulatory requirements

Use Case 4: Encoder Configuration

Situation: New encoder is being configured for a live event

Action:

1. Set up test stream from encoder to Gateway

2. Enable recording

3. Make configuration changes

4. Review recordings to verify each change

5. Compare before/after to see improvements

Outcome:

- Fine-tune encoder settings

- Verify configuration changes

- Optimize for quality and reliability

Use Case 5: Incident Response

Situation: Major outage affecting multiple streams

Action:

1. Identify the outage timeframe

2. Pull recordings from all affected streams

3. Correlate with monitoring data

4. Determine common factors

5. Identify root cause

6. Create incident report with evidence

Outcome:

- Faster root cause identification

- Better incident documentation

- Improved post-mortem analysis

- Prevention of future incidents

Technical Implementation

Storage Architecture

The Stream Gateway's recording system is designed for reliability and scalability:

Input Streams → Recording Engine → Storage Backend
↓
Segment Management
↓
Index Database
↓
Metadata Cache

Storage Options:

- Local Disk: Simple, fast, for small deployments

- Network Attached Storage (NAS): Scalable, shared access

- Cloud Storage: S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage

- Hybrid: Mix of local and cloud for redundancy

Retention Management

Configure retention periods to balance storage costs with business needs:

| Retention | Use Case | Storage Requirement (10 streams @ 5 Mbps) |

|-----------|----------|---------------------------------------------|

| 7 days | Basic troubleshooting | ~3.5 TB |

| 30 days | Standard operations | ~15 TB |

| 90 days | Compliance, deep analysis | ~45 TB |

| 1 year | Regulatory requirements | ~180 TB |

Automatic Cleanup: Old recordings are automatically deleted based on retention policies, with optional grace periods and legal hold capabilities.

Search and Retrieval

Search Capabilities:

- By timestamp (exact or range)

- By stream name or ID

- By metadata tags

- By quality metrics (find all streams with packet loss > 1%)

- By alarms (find all streams that triggered alarms)

Retrieval Options:

- Playback in web interface

- Download as TS, MP4, or MOV

- Export segments or full recordings

- Generate clips for sharing

Performance Considerations

Recording Performance:

- CPU: Minimal overhead (typically <5% per stream)

- RAM: ~100MB per concurrent stream

- Disk I/O: Sustained write speeds based on bitrate

Scalability:

- Single server: Up to ~50 streams (depending on bitrate and hardware)

- Multiple servers: Horizontal scaling with shared storage

- Distributed: Geo-redundant recording for critical streams

Integration with Workflows

1. Manual Review

The most common use case — operators manually search and review recordings through the web interface.

Interface Features:

- Timeline-based navigation

- Multi-stream synchronized playback

- Frame-accurate scrubbing

- Quality metric overlays

- Alarm markers on timeline

- Export and sharing options

2. Automated Analysis

For advanced use cases, automate analysis of recorded content:

Use Cases:

- Ad verification: Automatically detect and verify ad inserts

- Content compliance: Check for loudness, captions, content boundaries

- Quality monitoring: Retroactive analysis of stream quality

- AI-based analysis: Pattern recognition, anomaly detection

Integration Methods:

- REST API for programmatic access

- Webhooks for event-driven workflows

- SDKs for common programming languages

- Custom script support

3. External System Integration

Monitoring Systems:

- Correlate recording timestamps with monitoring data

- Automatically pull recordings when alarms trigger

- Generate reports with visual evidence

Ticketing Systems:

- Attach recording clips to support tickets

- Automatically link viewer reports to recordings

- Create workflows based on recording analysis

Billing Systems:

- Verify SLA compliance with recording evidence

- Generate usage reports from recording metadata

- Support chargeback and dispute resolution

Best Practices

1. Storage Planning

Calculate Requirements:

Storage (GB) = Number of Streams × Bitrate (Mbps) × Hours × 0.45
Example: 20 streams × 5 Mbps × 24 hours × 0.45 = 1080 GB/day = 1.08 TB/day

Recommendations:

- Start with 30 days retention for most operations

- Increase to 90 days for compliance-critical workflows

- Use tiered storage (hot/warm/cold) for cost optimization

- Implement redundant storage for critical streams

2. Organization

Naming Conventions:

- Use consistent stream naming (e.g., channel1-hd, channel2-uhd)

- Include metadata in stream configuration (channel, program, source)

- Tag streams for easy filtering and search

Folder Structure:

Recordings/
├── 2026-09-28/
│   ├── channel1-hd/
│   │   ├── 00-00-00.ts
│   │   ├── 01-00-00.ts
│   │   └── ...
│   ├── channel2-hd/
│   └── ...
└── 2026-09-29/
└── ...

3. Access Control

Permissions:

- View-only: Operators can search and play back recordings

- Download: Select users can export recordings

- Delete: Administrators can manage retention and cleanup

- Admin: Full control over recording configuration

Audit Logging:

- Track who accessed which recordings

- Log exports and downloads

- Monitor deletion activities

Real-World Success Stories

Case Study 1: Sports Broadcaster

Challenge: Viewer reports of intermittent freezes during live games, but no evidence to verify.

Solution: Implemented 24/7 recording with 30-day retention.

Result:

- Reduced viewer complaint resolution time from 24 hours to 15 minutes

- Identified encoder configuration issue causing periodic freezes

- Fixed issue before next live event

- Improved viewer satisfaction scores by 40%

Case Study 2: CDN Operator

Challenge: Contributors disputed SLA compliance, with no way to verify what was received.

Solution: Continuous recording of all contributor streams with 90-day retention.

Result:

- Reduced SLA disputes by 95%

- Improved contributor satisfaction

- Enabled proactive quality monitoring

- Generated new revenue stream from SLA verification services

Case Study 3: News Organization

Challenge: Need to verify ad airings for compliance and billing.

Solution: 24/7 recording with frame-accurate search and export.

Result:

- Eliminated ad verification disputes

- Automated compliance reporting

- Reduced manual verification time by 80%

- Enabled new advertising packages with guaranteed verification

Conclusion

24/7 recording isn't a luxury — it's a necessity for modern broadcasting operations. The ability to go back in time and see exactly what was received transforms troubleshooting from guesswork to definitive analysis.

With the Dualz Stream Gateway's continuous recording feature, you gain:

✅ Peace of mind — Always have the evidence you need

✅ Faster resolution — No more "we can't reproduce it" scenarios

✅ Improved relationships — Prove compliance to partners and contributors

✅ Operational efficiency — Reduce troubleshooting time dramatically

✅ Business protection — Defend against disputes and compliance issues

In today's complex broadcasting landscape, 24/7 recording is your safety net — and the Stream Gateway makes it effortless.

Related reading: [SRT vs RIST vs Zixi: Choosing the Right Protocol for Your Needs](/blog/srt-vs-rist-vs-zixi-choosing-the-right-protocol)

Ready to add 24/7 recording to your workflow? [Contact us for a demo](/contact)