Blue Iris

I can not normally set up motion detection in the room, the recording occurs but jerkily, when a person is already in the middle of the room, and sometimes does not work at all, I have another software for video surveillance it is more simple and there are no such problems I consistently see everything that happened, no one suddenly in the middle of the room does not appear, the settings I have such, advise what can be changed. And I don't understand what the fields in the Break time section mean.
The first field “End trigger unless re-triggered within” I do not understand what it means explain by example
“Maximum trigger/alert duration” I understand correctly that this limits the recording time after triggering by motion detection ? i.e. if you set it to say 10 seconds, then the recording after motion detection will go only 10 seconds, even if the motion continues ?

Also I don't understand why the timeline shows a solid line related to the camera, although the recording is only under the red lightning bolts, and sometimes there is a black gap, although neither on the black gap nor on the green line of the camera there is no recording, the recording is only under the red lightning bolts. And it is not clear why this green line is needed, when it is the same as the black gap when nothing happened.

If “End trigger unless re-triggered within” this is for end the trigger state after a specified number of seconds unless another trigger occurs,
And "Maximum trigger/alert duration" is the maximum duration of the trigger state.
So let's say I set “End trigger unless re-triggered within” equal to 10 seconds, “Maximum trigger/alert duration” equal to 60 seconds, then it turns out that if there is no new trigger, the trigger state in any case will end after 10 seconds, and the setting “Maximum trigger/alert duration” is absolutely meaningless, or I don't understand something.

From another forum, but saves me from typing it all again...

https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/where-are ... ost-853441

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

trom7 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2024 6:27 pm I can not normally set up motion detection in the room, the recording occurs but jerkily, when a person is already in the middle of the room, and sometimes does not work at all,

Motion detection will work fine if you use zones instead of object detection. Ditch the object detection and switch to Zones for basic interior motion triggers..., at least until getting a better handle on how object detection plays into everything else if and when it becomes a useful or necessary feature in your particular situation.

The jerkiness can be caused by several things including H.265 encoding in the the camera's own configuration. If enabled, change it to H.264 and see if that makes a difference. Don't use Smart Codec of any special '+' or 'Super" or anything else..., just H.264.

The other stuff is explained at some length in the link I provided, but is just a general explanation of how I set up a basic starting point for my clips oriented cameras. It covers the main questions about the trigger duration, etc.

Pogo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2024 1:02 am From another forum, but saves me from typing it all again...

https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/where-are ... ost-853441

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

1) I read your customization method and I don't really understand, why do I need to get a new alert when the motion that started is still going on?
For example I record my treadmill run which lasts for 30 minutes, I just want to get one alert at the beginning that the movement has started and have the whole process recorded in one clip or your example with the raccoon outside, if its movement exceeds 5 minutes why do you need another alert that the raccoon is still moving ?
2) pre-trigger video buffer uses hard disk and constantly writes something and erases it thus wearing it out or is it done somehow through RAM ?
3) in camera settings I use H.264H codec is it normal or is it better to put H.264 ?
4) why in Combine & Cut setting you use such small files maximum 500Mb than it is better than 4gb files ? if I understood correctly that when viewing the archive everything will be divided by alerts which will tell about the beginning of movement.

Good questions.

trom7 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2024 6:30 pm
1) I read your customization method and I don't really understand, why do I need to get a new alert when the motion that started is still going on?
For example I record my treadmill run which lasts for 30 minutes, I just want to get one alert at the beginning that the movement has started and have the whole process recorded in one clip or your example with the raccoon outside, if its movement exceeds 5 minutes why do you need another alert that the raccoon is still moving ?

First, you are confusing 'Alerts' with 'Triggers'. There are no alerts involved with the method I described, just triggers that are managed in a way which provides short clip segments of varying duration up to 5 minutes in length should enough triggers occur within their 10 second time limit to continue recording the segment until the 5 minute limit is reached. If there are no additional triggers after any 10 second interval within the 5 minute limit, the recording ends at whatever length that happens to be. The next trigger starts the process over again for up to another 5 minutes or for however many more 5 minute intervals continue to occur to be combined into the desired clip file when reaching either 15 minutes in length or 500MB in size -- essentially a pre-edited clip file comprised of all the triggered activity within the time period determined by the 'Combine or Cut' settings. The result when reviewing a camera's recorded activity over any given period of time in the Clip Viewer is essentially another 'pre-edited' and continuous representation of the compiled activity contained in the 15 minute segments -- basically one long video of all of them if the viewer is set to begin the next clip immediately following the previous one in 'Selected Camera Only' mode.

2) pre-trigger video buffer uses hard disk and constantly writes something and erases it thus wearing it out or is it done somehow through RAM ?

My understanding is RAM is used for the buffer. This feature is obviously useful for a clip based setup to provide possible useful context of what preceded a triggered event. It's obviously unnecessary for a continuous recording setup.

3) in camera settings I use H.264H codec is it normal or is it better to put H.264 ?

From all accounts, Blue Iris prefers the basic codecs and doesn't necessarily play well with proprietary variants offered by the different manufacturers.

4) why in Combine & Cut setting you use such small files maximum 500Mb than it is better than 4gb files ? if I understood correctly that when viewing the archive everything will be divided by alerts which will tell about the beginning of movement.

As I've tried to explain, it's an effective method for a Clips Based setup. I still record everything that would otherwise be tagged by Alerts in a Continuous setup, I just don't record all the dead space, nor do I use Alerts to any significant degree anyway. I also prefer Clip Viewer over the TimeLine for review and scrubbing which this method supports very efficiently.

Pogo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2024 8:00 pm Good questions.

It's very hard to understand, no matter how hard I try, I can't get it right.
Let's start from the beginning and go step by step.
Trigger is an event that occurs when motion is detected (probably there can be more variants not only on motion, but let's stop here) right ?
Alert is an event that occurs when a trigger occurs and unlike a trigger is recorded in the database right ?

1) And I do not really understand when I had a constant movement in the room, why I generate a bunch of alerts in the list on the left side(Clip Viewer ??) , and writes the duration of the alert 2 seconds or 1 second, although the movement is constant, I assume it has something to do with the settings in the break time section.
2) I don't understand why when I start playing an alert from the menu on the left side (maybe you call it Clip Viewer ??) when the time already on the screen shows events from the next alert the focus is still on the alert I clicked on, why is this so ?
3) I do not understand why on TimeLine which is at the bottom when I start playback of the archive, when NO video for a certain time is still playing and shows nothing. And I do not understand what depends on the appearance of the green line (this color I set for the camera), even when there is no video for a certain time this line is, and sometimes it still interrupts to a black gap, where is the logic if there is no video in both cases ?

trom7 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2024 11:46 pm Trigger is an event that occurs when motion is detected (probably there can be more variants not only on motion, but let's stop here) right ?

Basically, yes. More accurately, a trigger is the resulting action from an event or other pre-determined means to initiate it. In this case, motion detected by a camera.

Alert is an event that occurs when a trigger occurs and unlike a trigger is recorded in the database right ?

Yes. An alert is a tangible resulting event of a trigger that can take any number of forms and be used for any number of purposes including establishing reference/index points in the Timeline and initiating many other types of actions such as email or SMS notifications to your phone, opening or closing your garage door, etc., etc. A simple and very powerful feature, but not required unless specifically needed for a particular purpose or used for Timeline indexing.

1) And I do not really understand when I had a constant movement in the room, why I generate a bunch of alerts in the list on the left side(Clip Viewer ??) , and writes the duration of the alert 2 seconds or 1 second, although the movement is constant, I assume it has something to do with the settings in the break time section.

Yes. The defaults are 10 seconds for a re-trigger window with a maximum event duration of 60 seconds before repeating. This may or may not suit a given camera location and purpose, but will record accordingly as a starting point depending on the motion and recording settings. This determines the basic clip. Alerts are generally stored as static images and database entries for indexing/functional purposes, but that's another subject altogether.

2) I don't understand why when I start playing an alert from the menu on the left side (maybe you call it Clip Viewer ??) when the time already on the screen shows events from the next alert the focus is still on the alert I clicked on, why is this so ?

Unless you specifically had 'Alerts' selected at the top of the clips window column, you were likely viewing 'All Clips' by default. And they would have been all crazy due to the trigger settings. Any alerts would have been even crazier if you also had alerts set to be generated when the camera was triggered which is basically the default.

The "Clip Viewer' is activated by double clicking on a clip of interest in the Clips Window column. This will display it in the main viewing window and provide controls for viewing.

3) I do not understand why on TimeLine which is at the bottom when I start playback of the archive, when NO video for a certain time is still playing and shows nothing. And I do not understand what depends on the appearance of the green line (this color I set for the camera), even when there is no video for a certain time this line is, and sometimes it still interrupts to a black gap, where is the logic if there is no video in both cases ?

These conditions are all manageable from various points in the process. They would have been pretty crazy from the way things were configured. It will take time to learn the complexities and what works best for your particular use of Blue Iris.

This is the best collection of Blue Iris tutorials I've seen anywhere. It's an older series, but covers the basics very well and in fairly short segments. I highly recommend it.

Start at the beginning and continue in the order the videos are presented. You will learn a lot very quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... Ajp7ZH8CWB

The Help button in every Blue Iris settings window is page specific and is also a great resource. I encourage you to refer to it when needed as well.