Blue Iris

Onboarding • Profiles and Schedules

2021-10-25T19:27:57+00:00

Introduction

Profiles and Schedules allow users to change BI functionality depending on time. For example, maybe alerts to guards are turned on during off hours for cameras facing the front door and off during business hours.

The Profiles and Schedules 101 webinar walks through many of the common use cases to provide a holistic view on how to use these features.

Similar to the other 101 series onboarding webinars, this webinar complements the corresponding section in the Help file, Shields, Profiles and Schedules.

Geofencing

Geofencing allows users to use their phone to switch profiles based on location. For example, many users want to turn their indoor cameras off when entering the house and on when leaving the house. If you prefer to watch instead of read, the Profiles and Schedules webinar walks through setting up Geofencing. Geofencing is discussed at 1:00 hr into the webinar.

Below is a simple implementation of geofencing.

Scenario
Turn the shield to red (disarm BI) when user enters the house. Turn shield to green (arm BI) when user leaves the house. The webinar discusses switching profiles, a similar but more more challenging setup with profiles.

Setup

BI Server

Enter / Exit Actions
Global settings -> Mobile devices tab. Select a device.
When the mobile app enters or leaves the geofence, the app notifies the server. It does so by calling the functions set by the Enter / Exit geofence features. Setup the mobile device to turn the Shield to red when exiting the geofence and green when entering the geofence.

Location settings
For best results, use google maps or some other internet service to get the GPS coordinates for your home / office and manually set GPS coordinates. Global settings->Schedule tab. Latitude/Longitude values. Help button has more details. Not setting the server location correctly leads to inaccuracy and missed geo-fence updates.

Mobile phone settings

For geofence to work correctly, Always needs to be selected for Location services. The screenshot also shows good phone settings for the app to work in general.

Mobile app settings

Select the geofence radius. 50m generally provides good results for homes/offices. When asked, select Server location, NOT Your current location. If you followed steps above, the server location should be set correctly.

I also enable the geofence notifications. I like knowing when the phone updates the geofence status. Particularly good to enable when troubleshooting.

Example of geofence update notification on the phone. If you do NOT receive these notifications when entering / leaving the home / office, then your phone is not providing location services to the BI app.

Debug logs

The logs tell you what is happening behind the scenes. After you leave/enter the home/office, visit the debug logs if your server is not updating.

In the mobile app go to the debug logs (? -> debug log).
Hit the forward button (top right) and send an email to yourself with the logs.
Go to the email and scroll to the bottom. Sometimes the logs are long and gmail will provide a link to go to the entire message. Unfortunately the logs are chronological so the latest commands will exist at the bottom of the logs.

Not sure what other mail servers/app do. Regardless make sure you are at the bottom of the logs. The timestamps will let you know. For example the last event in the logs for me currently is:

Code:

2021-20-12 7:36:13: http://10.0.0.5:7000/json <-- {"result":"success","session":"120a393377c7609350e071d84b1d5b95"}

7:36:13 corresponds close to the time of writing this article.

At 6:14 pm I left the house. Mobile app identified so.

Code:

2021-19-12 18:14:31: didExitRegion: Mabury Square

Turn the shield to green using the LAN address.

Code:

2021-19-12 18:14:31: http://10.0.0.5:7000/json --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 0;session = 8837a256b21b0ea5510e1266e3e304e3;uuid = "35B6C6BB-5CAE-4FEC-92C8-6F60BA874CC2";}

Turn the Shield to green using the WAN address

Code:

2021-19-12 18:14:31: https://a444-99-57-143-35.ngrok.io/json --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 0;session = 8837a256b21b0ea5510e1266e3e304e3;uuid = "35B6C6BB-5CAE-4FEC-92C8-6F60BA874CC2";}

App confirms Shield was turned to green.

Code:

2021-19-12 18:14:31: didDetermineState: 22021-19-12 18:14:31: https://a444-99-57-143-35.ngrok.io/json <-- {"result":"success","session":"8837a256b21b0ea5510e1266e3e304e3"}2021-19-12 18:14:31: Geofence status updated successfully: Mabury Square2021-19-12 18:14:31: UNMutableNotificationContent

Returned home at 8:34 pm.

Code:

2021-19-12 20:34:25: didEnterRegion: Mabury Square

Turn the Shield to red using the LAN address.

Code:

2021-19-12 20:34:25: http://10.0.0.5:7000/json --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 1;session = 72f5bf0d98256d676780c99020b467cd;uuid = "35B6C6BB-5CAE-4FEC-92C8-6F60BA874CC2";}

Turn the Shield to red using the WAN address.

Code:

2021-19-12 20:34:25: https://a444-99-57-143-35.ngrok.io/json --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 1;session = 72f5bf0d98256d676780c99020b467cd;uuid = "35B6C6BB-5CAE-4FEC-92C8-6F60BA874CC2";}

App confirms success in turning Shield to red.

Code:

2021-19-12 20:34:25: didDetermineState: 12021-19-12 20:34:26: https://a444-99-57-143-35.ngrok.io/json <-- {"result":"success","session":"72f5bf0d98256d676780c99020b467cd"}2021-19-12 20:34:26: Geofence status updated successfully: Mabury Square

Turn the Shield to red using the WAN address (app always tries both addresses in case of failure).

Code:

2021-19-12 20:34:26: UNMutableNotificationContent2021-19-12 20:34:53: didDetermineState: 12021-19-12 20:34:53: https://a444-99-57-143-35.ngrok.io --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 1;session = 34e417dd1ca061fd06c843953cb0189e;}2021-19-12 20:34:53: https://a444-99-57-143-35.ngrok.io/json <-- {"result":"success","session":"34e417dd1ca061fd06c843953cb0189e"}2021-19-12 21:18:45: didDetermineState: 12021-19-12 21:18:45: http://10.0.0.5:7000 --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 1;session = 08fb4ab6675179c1299245835db04647;}

Below are routine calls from the app to confirm state has not changed on the phone, i.e. app is still inside.
One check at 21:18:45. Another at 21:31:23.

Code:

2021-19-12 21:18:45: http://10.0.0.5:7000/json <-- {"result":"success","session":"08fb4ab6675179c1299245835db04647"}2021-19-12 21:31:23: didDetermineState: 12021-19-12 21:31:23: http://10.0.0.5:7000 --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 1;session = 37c64a3c0f882a0a5dad681e19b40b05;}2021-19-12 21:31:23: http://10.0.0.5:7000/json <-- {"result":"success","session":"37c64a3c0f882a0a5dad681e19b40b05"}2021-20-12 7:36:13: didDetermineState: 12021-20-12 7:36:13: http://10.0.0.5:7000 --> {cmd = geofence;inside = 1;session = 120a393377c7609350e071d84b1d5b95;}

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Mon Oct 25, 2021 7:27 pm

Onboarding • Performance: Blue Iris Tuning

2021-07-19T19:33:33+00:00

Introduction

This article helps explain the levers that are available to setup your BI server to run optimally. If your CPU usage is high, >80%, this article can help identify optimizations. Ideally, BI should be running less than 50%.

BI Optimizations

First, walk through the Windows Tuning article just to make sure Windows is not in conflict with BI.

Below are the general steps to tune your system if you want to confirm everything is setup optimally.

For all the cameras you need to have healthy video streams and setup dual streams for the high res cameras(2MP+).
Follow the Connect cameras correctly section of the Checklist.
Record direct to disk not re-encode. Camera settings -> Record tab -> Video file format and compression.

Confirm all video paths still work. See Blue Iris Streaming Overview for all video paths. For example, Live view to console, Playback to console, Live view to remote endpoint (UI3, Mobile app), etc.
Hardware Video Acceleration: Turn on hwva for various parts of the video path for your cameras.
As stated above, confirm all video paths still work.

Enabling Hardware Acceleration is very dependent on how well the hardware performs with YOUR cameras. Only way to know for sure is to test.

Legacy settings

With dual streams and D2D recordings, the need for "Limit decoding unless required" is largely no longer needed since you get such HUGE CPU savings with these two new features. They remain in the software for backwards compatibility for those users that have not upgraded their hardware or updated their software.

Limit decoding gotcha: Limit decoding to save CPU usage tells BI to only decode key frames and ignore the rest.
Keep in mind if you have a key frame ratio less than one, you will notice artifacts with the Limit decoding setting. In particular, a common key frame ratio of 0.5 means a key frame is sent to BI every 2s. By doing so, the camera stream will only update every 2s in the live view. You many not notice this, unless you have the clock overlay. You will suddenly notice the clock increments every other second instead of every second!

Also BVR gotcha: Hardware acceleration is great when you are encoding / decoding steady streams. It is often turned off in playback mode (Also BVR setting) because in playback, users are frequently stopping, rewinding, skipping forward in order to find the point of interest. This use case is not conducive for hardware acceleration.

Final thoughts

This article progressively moves you through the steps needed to optimize camera connections.

Camera settings -> D2D Recordings -> Hardware acceleration.

When troubleshooting, work backwards, simplify the problem and see if the streams improve. By working backwards, you can identify the issue.

Turn off hardware acceleration -> Switch recording back to re-encode -> Adjust camera settings
- Turn off hardware acceleration. Camera settings -> Video tab -> Hardware decode. Set to No. Does the live video / streams improve?
- Switch back to Re-encode in recording settings. Does playback improve?
Hardware Acceleration Gotchas

Example 1: GPU improves quality.

You never know if your hardware acceleration will work in your environment until you test with your cameras. For example, observe the image from this high resolution camera from the camera's app. The colors and contrast are very vibrant.

Below is a side by side comparison of BI software decode vs Nvidia decode.

The color and contrast looks equivalent to the camera app from the Nvidia decoder! Because the Nvidia card provided a better stream, the customer also turned on Video settings -> Also BVR. This was a case where the Also BVR setting was enabled because the quality and thus user experience was improved, not because the customer was hoping for CPU savings.

Example 2: GPU leads to artifacts.

Sometimes, the GPU decoding can lead to artifacts.

Because the hardware acceleration was decreasing the quality and user experience, this customer chose to turn off hardware acceleration for this camera. The server could handle the additional CPU load and the customer was more concerned about the quality of the user experience.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:33 pm

Onboarding • Trigger Tab

2021-07-01T04:02:30+00:00

Introduction

This article goes under the covers of the Trigger tab. This article is part of the Triggers / Recordings / Alerts series where we go deep into one of the most popular features of Blue Iris (BI), the ability to define motion triggers -> instruct BI to record when cameras trigger -> send corresponding alerts.

If you prefer to listen instead of read, watch the webinar associated with this article, The Trigger Tab webinar.

We also have an overview Triggers and Alerts 101 webinar for those who are new to BI.

Blue Iris Model

[webinar discussion at 5:11]

One way to think about Blue Iris is a software engine (server) that processes inputs/sensors from the outside world (Triggers) and makes sense of them by sending the appropriate Alerts.

It is important to map the model into the BI dialogs and features. The triggers in the mental image come straight from the Trigger sources and zones controls in the Alerts tab.

Furthermore, the Alerts list comes straight from the Action Set seen frequently throughout the application.

The other large component of BI functionality is connecting / managing cameras and recording moments of interest.

This article is focused on the most common scenario, i.e. setting your motion sensors to trigger motion triggers, recording those moments in time and sending alerts to yourself, i.e. Push notifications to the mobile app, SMS messages and/or Email alerts.

Triggers / Recordings / Alerts Model

[webinar discussion at 10:17]

The model below is very important to understand in terms of what is really going on behind the scenes with the BI software / logic. The image also maps the model to the BI user interface. Once the model (how BI thinks) is understood, it becomes very easy to understand what BI is doing based on the visual affects in the user interface. This is one of the most powerful features of BI. The visual affects in the UI reflects on your settings and provides feedback so you can see for yourself if your settings work. It makes tuning your system so much easier.

Trigger Tab Uncovered

[webinar discussion at 18:30]

Trigger dialog
Like most BI dialogs, the top half consists of settings pertinent to the topic being addressed by the dialog. In this case the Trigger settings are at the top of the dialog.
The bottom half of the dialog pertains to actions you can take based on the trigger settings.

Trigger actions

[webinar discussion at 20:25]

Let's start with the bottom half of the dialog, the trigger actions. The Add to alerts list action is the most important setting.

No: This option is rarely used. If for some reason you do not want a record in the database associated with a trigger, you would choose No.
Database only: Default setting. Write the trigger details in the database. By doing so the Alerts in the clips list and the timeline gets populated.

FYI, the settings are additive as you move down the list box. For example if you choose Hi-res JPEG, the Database Only option is still fulfilled, i.e. the Hi-res JPEG option is fulfilled in addition to writing/storing information into the database.

Hi-res JPEG files: First option in list box to start creating hard copies of trigger events. This selection will save the Trigger leading edge image to the Alerts folder.
Export to MP4 files: Option to save the motion trigger into MP4 format in the Alerts folder.
Small businesses such as 7-Eleven owners use this option frequently. MP4 files are created immediately and saved to the Alerts folder. The Alerts folder is often synced to a cloud storage service like Google drive. This way the MP4 files are saved to the cloud immediately. The 7-Eleven owner is assured if he gets robbed and the robber smashes the BI server, the evidence is still available in the cloud for retrieval.

Motion sensor dialog

[webinar discussion at 25:27]

With the Motion sensors, the most important concept is to understand Sense -> Motion -> Trigger.

In terms of settings, Contrast corresponds to Sense, i.e. the camera sensitivity associated with determining motion on a camera.
The Min. object size corresponds to the Motion, i.e. BI will pay attention to an object as soon as it has met the minimum object threshold.
The MAKE time is how long the minimum object needs to be in motion before BI decides to trigger, i.e. create a motion trigger.

[webinar discussion at 26:52]

Advanced trigger options

There are additional settings in the Advanced section.

Object travels
Object size exceeds
Zones

Refer to the "Triggers and Alerts 101 webinar" for details. See our onboarding playlist in the YouTube channel.

Optimal Motion sensor settings with AI

[webinar discussion at 35:32]

With AI, some of the motion sensor settings can now be loosened or skipped because AI can often do a better job of filtering the event accurately. I have come to not rely on Object travels and Zone crossing as much any more. I still define a Zone A often as the area of interest for the camera. There is no reason to waste resources processing activities occurring across the street from your house.

Case Study: Creating Triggers -> Alerts

I walk through a use case that is appearing more and more based on tickets. Users want to track two events from the same camera.

Details:

Users want a record in their database when a person walks on the sidewalk or a car drives on the street.
However, the user ONLY wants to be alerted when a car drives into the driveway OR a person enters their property.

Takeaways:

This use case will introduce users to the Wait action command and its usage.
A deeper understanding of how the motion sensors logic works.

[webinar discussion at 42:13]

Gotchas

The gotchas section documents learnings from past tickets.

Gotcha 1: Motion triggers stopped

See Recording troubleshooting guide.
Motion triggers stopped are often in the context of no recordings. The above takes Trigger and Record settings into account.

Gotcha 2: Anamorphic

Issue: User has a 2MP+ camera. The camera would not trigger. However, the motion sensor seemed to be sensing fine in the playback window.

Fix: User had anamorphic selected.
Camera settings -> Video tab.
This is a Trigger gotcha because the camera would never trigger. The reason it would not trigger is because the video was scaled down considerably before going to the motion sensor and causing the motion sensor to never trigger (e.g. min object size would never be met).

The user basically reduced his camera to a low-end USB camera with the image drastically scaled down.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Thu Jul 01, 2021 4:02 am

Onboarding • Alerts tab

2021-06-29T21:54:24+00:00

Introduction

This article goes under the covers of the Alerts tab. This article / webinar is part of the Triggers / Recordings / Alerts series where we go deep into one of the most popular features of Blue Iris (BI), the ability to define motion triggers -> instruct BI to record when cameras trigger -> send corresponding alerts.

If you prefer to listen instead of read, watch the webinar associated with this article, The Alerts Tab webinar.

We also have an overview "Triggers and Alerts webinar" for those who are new to BI. See our onboarding playlist in the YouTube channel.

Blue Iris Mental Model

[webinar discussion at 3:18]

One way to think about Blue Iris is a software engine (server) that processes inputs/sensors from the outside world (Triggers) and makes sense of them by sending the appropriate Alerts.

It's important to map the mental model into the BI dialogs and features. The triggers in the mental image come straight from the Trigger sources and zones controls in the Alerts tab.

Furthermore, the Alerts list comes straight from the Action Set seen frequently throughout the application.

The other large component of BI functionality is connecting / managing cameras and recording moments of interest.

This article is focused on the most common scenario, i.e. creating motion triggers and sending alerts to yourself, i.e. Push notifications to the mobile app, SMS messages and/or Email alerts.

Alerts Tab - Controls

[webinar discussion at 8:11]

As stated earlier, the Trigger sources and zones section of the Alerts tab is what controls the wiring (activation) of triggers. This is how the software determines which triggers can generate alerts.

Triggers / Recordings / Alerts Model

[webinar discussion at 10:23]

The model below is very important to understand in terms of what is really going on behind the scenes with the BI software / logic. The image also maps the model to the BI user interface. Once this mapping is understood, it becomes very easy to understand what BI is doing based on the visual affects in the user interface.

Triggers vs Alerts

[webinar discussion at 18:35]

Because the word trigger and alert have similar meanings in the English language, sometimes it is confusing to know the difference between a motion trigger vs an alert.
A motion trigger is a moment in time that BI considers important based on your motion settings.
However, every motion trigger may not lead to an alert. The most obvious example is when you turn on AI. AI is another layering of filtering that determines whether the moment in time that BI considered important due to motion settings is still important based on AI analysis. If the AI returns "nothing found" for the motion trigger, an alert will not be sent (usually, based on default settings). However, the motion trigger is still recorded in the database as a motion trigger event.

Alerts Tab Uncovered

[webinar discussion at 21:29]

Re-triggers
Most users have re-triggers off. Usually, once you have been alerted, you do not care to get re-triggered in close proximity to the original trigger because you have already been notified and if the alert were of importance you are probably already paying attention to the camera.

If somebody approaches your front door, you want the camera to trigger and send an alert.
However, if the person stands still for 2s and then raises his hand to scratch his head while waiting at the door, do you really want to be re-triggered? Or are you already paying attention to the camera based off of the first alert? Most users are already paying attention and do not want to be continuously alerted on the same "event".
But there may be cases where re-triggers are of value so the option is there.

Timers

Allow disarm time by delaying alerts

[webinar discussion at 24:11]

Wait until triggered at least

[webinar discussion at 26:21]

Minimum time between alerts

[webinar discussion at 29:55]

Minimum/max time since trigger

[webinar discussion at 31:38]

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:54 pm

Onboarding • Record Tab

2021-05-28T02:51:31+00:00

Introduction

This article goes under the covers of the Recording tab. We share how BI records which should hopefully provide a better understanding of the settings. With this understanding, you should have a better appreciation of the software as well as how to leverage the software to meet your requirements.

If you prefer to listen instead of read, watch the Recording Tab webinar.

We also have an overview "Recordings and Storage webinar" for those who are new to BI. See our onboarding playlist in the YouTube channel.

Finally, the Gotchas section below has learnings from past tickets.

User Interface

The triggers on the clip list and the timeline are the key interfaces used to access recordings.

And keep in mind the connection between the triggers in the clip list and the triggers in the timeline.

Now I'm going to make the connection between the BI settings/dialogs and the user interface.

Video Settings

When+ vs Continuous+

Periodic

File Storage Options

Combine or cut video each:

Cut video when triggered with break time

Recording Decision Tree

Recording File Options Scenarios/Use cases

Periodic Use Cases

The Periodic recording is largely used by environmental groups. One use case is a Wildlife organization that counts the salmon population with underwater cameras.

The Triggered + Periodic: Some users did not have enough storage and therefore use this instead of the continuous options.
Kind of provides a summary/timelapse review of the day.

Record format

The Record format dialog determines how recordings are saved to the disk.
Camera settings -> Record tab-> Video file format and compression.

Record File Format
Camera settings -> Record tab -> Video file format and compression...

D2D: Saves video stream directly from the camera to the file.
Re-encode: BI processes the camera stream and re-encodes in H.264 format before saving to file.

Most users start with Re-encode (default setting) in order to get the camera up and running.
After doing so, they often switch to D2D because of the CPU savings.
When doing so, be sure to playback some Clips and Alerts just to make sure BI can read and playback recordings correctly.

Pre-trigger buffer

Camera settings -> Record tab.
Largely set based on user preference (5s is recommended). However, this setting is extremely crucial when implementing dual streams with D2D recordings.

The issue here is video comes to BI compressed. In order to uncompress the video, BI first needs a key frame. A key frame is the entire camera frame compressed. Once a key frame is available, then all the subsequent frames can be re-created. With the complex compression algorithms used today, the in between frames represent incremental changes from the previous frame. Unless a key frame is first available, there is no way to reconstruct frames (video) from the interim frames.

Thus, the importance of setting the encoding on the camera, ideally to 1 key frame per second.

Rule of thumb:
Pre-trigger buffer >= 1/kfps
For example, if the camera stats state 0.5 for the kfps, 1/0.5 = 2s. The pre-trigger buffer for the camera should be >= 2s.

If you have dual streams, the pre-trigger buffer has to be large enough to contain a key frame for each stream.
For example if the kfps = 0.5 for the main stream, the pre-trigger buffer has to be >1/0.5, i.e. > 2s.
However, if the kfps = 0.25 for the sub stream, the pre-trigger buffer has to be > 1/0.25, i.e. > 4s.
Thus the pre-trigger buffer needs to be at least 5s.

Gotchas

The gotchas section is really about sharing information that came from tickets or questions from past customers. Sharing the knowledge makes everyone better!

Gotcha 3: Time lapse video

Record setting: Set to Continuous
Camera settings -> Record tab

Recording file format: Has to be Re-encode not D2D.
Camera settings -> Record tab -> Video file format and compression button

Gotcha 2: Clips / Recorded files

Issue: The length of the recorded files are very short.

Fix:

The number one cause of "0 bytes" would be you are recording direct to disc, yet there was no key frame to start the recording. See Key frame ratio section for details.

Alternatively, the issue could be the result of disk full issues on the drive where you are saving recordings. You would have DISK FULL errors in the log or see RED on the Status button -> Storage tab. See the Storage troubleshooting guide for details.

A final possibility could be you have hardware encoding turned on. If so, test with feature turned off.
Global settings -> Web server tab -> Advanced -> Streaming 0.
Confirm Hardware acceleration = No.

Gotcha 1: Continuous + Alerts

Issue: User chooses Continuous + Alert as the record setting. Playback never switches to the mainstream (high resolution) during alerts.

Issue 1: Camera encoding
First check if there is a yellow triangle warning symbol in the Camera window. If so, the fps of the video stream is too low or the key frame ratio is too low. Check the key frame ratio.

Issue 2: Playback window
Make sure Use sub stream if available is unselected.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Fri May 28, 2021 2:51 am