Cutsio Blog

Best Way to Search Months of CCTV Footage

The best way to search months of CCTV footage is to export the relevant time windows to Cutsio and use visual intelligence to search for incidents, people, vehicles, and objects across the entire archive by describing what you are looking for.

What is the best way to search months of CCTV footage?

The best way to search months of CCTV footage is to export the relevant time windows to Cutsio and use visual intelligence to search for incidents, people, vehicles, and objects across the entire archive by describing what you are looking for. Instead of knowing the exact date and time of an event, security operators can search their full archive for "white truck" or "person in red jacket" and find every matching moment across weeks or months of recordings.

Security footage archives grow continuously. A facility with 20 cameras recording 24 hours per day generates 600 hours of footage per day, 4,200 hours per week, and 18,000 hours per month. Most organizations retain footage for 30 to 90 days. Searching this archive manually is impossible. When an incident is discovered weeks after it happened, the operator must know the approximate date and time to narrow the search window. Cutsio eliminates the need to know when something happened — describe what you are looking for and the archive returns every matching moment.

Why is searching long-term CCTV archives so difficult?

Long-term CCTV archives are organized by date and time, not by content. An operator searching for a specific vehicle that was on the property at some point in the last 30 days has no way to narrow the search without knowing approximately when the vehicle was present.

The retention period compounds the problem. Organizations keep footage for 30, 60, or 90 days based on their retention policy. Within that window, there are thousands of hours of footage per camera. An operator searching for a specific incident from 45 days ago must first determine whether the footage is still available, then estimate the time window, then scrub through the footage manually.

The multi-camera problem multiplies the difficulty. A search across 20 cameras for an event that occurred sometime in the last 30 days involves reviewing 600 hours of footage per day. Even with motion detection narrowing the search to events, the volume is overwhelming. Cutsio eliminates the time-based search entirely by making the archive searchable through content description.

How does Cutsio search months of CCTV footage?

Export the relevant time windows and cameras to Cutsio. Multimodal visual intelligence analyzes every frame of every exported file. The entire archive becomes searchable by describing what you are looking for.

| Search Scenario | What to Search | Archive Value |

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

| Vehicle search | "white pickup truck parking lot" | Every appearance across weeks |

| Person search | "person in blue uniform" | Every appearance across weeks |

| Object search | "package left near entrance" | Every package delivery or theft |

| Activity search | "person running" | Every running event across archive |

| Pattern search | "person near electronics repeated" | Repeat visitor identification |

Searching for "white pickup truck" across a Collection containing 30 days of parking lot footage returns every moment a white pickup truck appears. The results are organized by date and time, showing the pattern of when the vehicle was present. An investigator looking for a suspicious vehicle that appeared multiple times before a theft can see the full pattern in seconds rather than scrubbing through each day's footage individually.

For person searches, the visual intelligence recognizes clothing colors, approximate height, and movement patterns. Searching for "person in blue uniform near storage room" across a month of footage reveals every visit to that area by someone matching that description. Read our guide to searching security camera footage by description for more on the search mechanics.

How do Collections organize long-term archives by location and camera?

Collections in Cutsio allow security teams to organize archives by location, camera group, or investigation. A multi-location security director creates a Collection for each location containing exported footage from that site. Within each location Collection, footage can be organized by camera group or department.

| Collection Level | Example | Archive Scope |

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

| Location | "Downtown Store — Q1 2026" | All cameras at that location |

| Investigation | "ORC Case #445 — Cross-Store" | Multiple locations |

| Time period | "December 2025 — All Cameras" | Full monthly archive |

| Camera group | "Parking Lot Cameras — Nov 2025" | Specific area archive |

| Event type | "After-Hours Incidents" | Triggered event exports |

For organized retail crime investigations, a director can search across every store's archive simultaneously. Searching for "person in black hoodie large backpack" across all location Collections returns every match from every store across the entire archive period. If the same person appears in multiple stores over weeks or months, the pattern becomes visible. Read our guide to finding an incident in CCTV footage without scrubbing for more on cross-camera investigation.

How does per-minute pricing make long-term archive search practical?

The biggest barrier to searching long-term archives has historically been cost. AI video analysis platforms charge by the hour of footage processed, and processing months of footage from multiple cameras is expensive. Cutsio's per-minute pricing with no per-camera fees makes archive search accessible.

Organizations do not need to upload their entire archive. They export and upload only the footage that is relevant to their search — typically the date ranges and cameras most likely to contain the incident. For an investigation spanning 30 days across 5 cameras, that is 3,600 hours of potential footage. Under per-minute pricing, an organization exports the relevant time windows and searches only what is needed rather than processing the entire archive continuously.

The Pro plan at $59 per month provides 30 hours of storage for incident-specific exports. The Studio plan at $249 per month provides 150 hours. For multi-location organizations with regular archive search needs, the Enterprise plan provides unlimited storage. All plans include full visual intelligence indexing.

FAQ

How far back can Cutsio search in my archive?

Cutsio can search any footage you upload, regardless of when it was recorded. Upload archives from any retention period — 30 days, 90 days, or longer.

Do I need to upload my entire archive to search it?

No. Export and upload only the date ranges and cameras relevant to your search. Cutsio indexes whatever you upload.

How long does it take to process a month of footage from one camera?

A month of footage from one camera at 24/7 recording is 720 hours. Processing time is approximately 2 to 3 minutes per hour, so a full month takes roughly 24 to 36 hours. For faster results, export only the relevant time windows.

Can I search for a person who visited my property multiple times over several months?

Yes. Upload the relevant time windows from each month. Search for the person's description and Cutsio returns every match across all uploaded periods.

Does Cutsio support scheduled uploads for continuous archive indexing?

Currently, uploads are initiated manually. For long-term archive search, export the relevant time windows when an investigation opens.