ONVIF Profile G is the recording-and-storage profile. Where Profile S standardises live streaming, Profile G standardises the management of recorded video: a conformant client can configure recording, search the stored timeline for recordings and events, and replay footage from a conformant recorder or edge-recording camera — across vendors. It is what lets a VMS control on-camera (edge) recording, or a third-party recorder, through the open standard instead of a proprietary protocol.
In practice Profile G matters most for two patterns. First, edge recording: a camera with an SD card records locally and the VMS uses Profile G to find and pull those clips, which is how systems survive a network or server outage without losing footage. Second, interoperable storage: a recorder from one vendor can be searched and replayed by a VMS from another. Profile G exposes capabilities such as recording configuration, search, and replay, and works alongside the retention controls a system needs.
The pitfall is assuming any ONVIF camera supports it — Profile G is far less universal than Profile S, and many cheaper cameras implement streaming but not standardised recording. If your design depends on edge recording or cross-vendor replay, verify Profile G conformance explicitly; do not infer it from an ONVIF badge that may only cover Profile S.
The handbook · 7 volumes
Fora Soft Video Engineering Handbook
ONVIF Profile G lets a VMS search and pull footage recorded on the camera, which is how gaps get filled after an outage. We wrote seven volumes covering the full video stack, and for ONVIF Profile G start with Volume 1: codecs, bitrate and encoder settings for on-device recording. Volume 2 covers transport and ingest of retrieved video. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
Using ONVIF Profile G to backfill footage after network outages?
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