Surveillance Station event history on your TV
Updated August 2026
Most of the time you want to know what happened while you were out, not what the driveway looks like right now. That answer sits in your Surveillance Station recordings, and NasCam is the only Apple TV app that can reach it.
Live streams and event history are not the same thing
Which apps can help you follows directly from this:
- A live stream comes straight from the camera, usually over RTSP. Any viewer app that can open an RTSP URL can show it.
- Event history is produced by Surveillance Station on the NAS: it records clips, marks motion and AI detections, and keeps thumbnails and timestamps. None of this is in the camera. It is in a database and a recording store on your Synology.
Generic Apple TV camera apps ask you to paste an RTSP URL for each camera. They never talk to Surveillance Station, so they have nothing to play back.
How NasCam reaches it
NasCam signs in to Surveillance Station with your DSM account, the same way DS cam does on a phone. From there it asks for the recording list, the event markers and the thumbnails, and streams a recording back on demand.
On screen that becomes:
- A list of recent events per camera, with thumbnails, so you can see what a clip contains before you open it.
- An annotated timeline, where motion and AI detections are marked, so you can skip the empty hours.
- Siri Remote scrubbing, so finding the moment is a thumb movement rather than a menu.
Playback permission
Your DSM account needs Playback permission in Surveillance Station on top of Live View. With Live View alone the live grid works and the event timeline stays empty. If your history looks blank, check this first, in Surveillance Station under Settings → Privilege Profile.
You only see what your NAS kept
NasCam shows recordings, it does not create them. If events are missing, the cause is on the NAS: the recording schedule, the motion-detection sensitivity, or a retention setting that has already rotated the clip away. Surveillance Station's own storage settings decide how far back your history goes.
Questions
Can a normal RTSP viewer app show my recordings?
No. An RTSP stream is the camera's live output. Recordings and event metadata live in Surveillance Station on the NAS, and only a client that signs in to Surveillance Station can read them.
Do I need Playback permission?
Yes. A DSM account with only Live View permission can watch live feeds, but the event timeline and recordings stay empty until Playback permission is granted.
Does NasCam store or upload my recordings?
No. Recordings stay on your NAS. NasCam streams them to the Apple TV over your own network and keeps no copy. There is no NasCam server.
Which events are shown?
Whatever Surveillance Station recorded: motion detection, plus AI detections such as people and vehicles if your camera and licence support them. NasCam displays them; it does not do its own detection.
NasCam puts your Synology cameras and their recorded event history on your Apple TV. $9.99 once, no subscription.
View on the App Store for Apple TV