I made a better remote-live-view page [OLD]

chaycock

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In order to use UI3, what is the minimum version of BI that I have to be using?
I am currently using BI 4.1.9.2 and it is working very well.
 

fenderman

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In order to use UI3, what is the minimum version of BI that I have to be using?
I am currently using BI 4.1.9.2 and it is working very well.
you are using a 3 year old version...update to the latest.
 

yeahman

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Is there a way to have BI timestamp on the video playback? (same question for the blue iris software... i am using direct to disc recording and playing a video footage.. I don't have the timestamp on the video)
 

jaydeel

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This is something recently added to the camera properties > Webcast tab.

In my screenshot the box is unchecked:

Something to keep in mind... if you are also adding other dynamic text overlays to the video (e.g., weather info via Blue Iris Tools BIT), unlike the time stamp they are not encoded back into the playback stream when you apply this setting. You WILL see text overlays, but they will be the currently displayed overlays, NOT the actual overlays from the time of the clip. In other words, the overlay information you see in the playback will not be time-relevant to the clip
 

bp2008

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Yup, it is best to have the camera embed its own timestamp overlay so that it exists in the source recordings and you don't need BI to re-embed the overlay later.
 

hmjgriffon

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UI3 makes no guarantee of backwards-compatibility with older BI versions. Many aspects of UI3 rely on relatively recent Blue Iris changes. UI3 comes with Blue Iris now, so the recommended way to install/update UI3 is to simply update Blue Iris.
Been running BI for years and never tried this interface until I saw it was included, lol running it to watch my cams at work now, liking it so far.
 

yeahman

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Yup, it is best to have the camera embed its own timestamp overlay so that it exists in the source recordings and you don't need BI to re-embed the overlay later.
yup but my cameras clock always drifts .... I need to set up a proper NTP server for them
 

BeeryGaz

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Is there a way to push commands to UI3 so that it can bring one group, camera to focus? My clients run external applications for motion sensing and other events and would love to be able to bring a specific camera to focus in the UI. I'm already integrating into BI via JSON, but there's no way to go one step further and manipulate the GUI/WebUI right now.
 

bp2008

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Is there a way to push commands to UI3 so that it can bring one group, camera to focus? My clients run external applications for motion sensing and other events and would love to be able to bring a specific camera to focus in the UI. I'm already integrating into BI via JSON, but there's no way to go one step further and manipulate the GUI/WebUI right now.
No. There are only the URL parameters described in UI3's help file, but using those would require relaunching the whole UI in order to change streams.
 

actran

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No. There are only the URL parameters described in UI3's help file, but using those would require relaunching the whole UI in order to change streams.
@bp2008 Related to BeeryGaz's question. If I have a camera group, is there a way to add/remove cameras from that group via API call?

I am able to add/remove cameras from a group manually via BI console, and can see that these changes reflected immediately if I have the group on UI3.
 

polldav

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I upgraded BI recently (from a late 2017 version probably) to use the built-in UI3 and I notice that my 9 camera group image looks a lot worse than it used to. The individual camera images look the same, but the smaller thumbnails in the group seem to be overcompressed and much worse looking than they used to.

I'm not 100% sure but I am guessing this is actually a BI setting and not a UI3 setting but I thought someone here might have noticed the same thing and know how to fix it - I can't figure out any way to improve the quality of the group cameras. Changing the streaming quality on UI3 doesn't have any effect, 720p looks as good as 2160p.

Edit: fixed it by (i think) unchecking the "resize output frame" in all three streaming profiles of the web server and then switching the UI view to Jpeg HD instead of 2160p.
 
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bp2008

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@polldav

First, make sure your group frame size is decent here. By default it only comes out at around 720p resolution which sucks on a large display.



For a long time, Blue Iris always streamed H.264 camera groups at their native frame size (as set in the location above). That changed a few months ago so that resolution limits in streaming profiles can cause camera groups to be streamed at a lower resolution.

Jpeg HD is a much simpler but less efficient streaming method. UI3's 2160p profile should be the same in terms of image quality and deliver a better frame rate with less bandwidth usage.
 

polldav

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@polldav

First, make sure your group frame size is decent here. By default it only comes out at around 720p resolution which sucks on a large display.

For a long time, Blue Iris always streamed H.264 camera groups at their native frame size (as set in the location above). That changed a few months ago so that resolution limits in streaming profiles can cause camera groups to be streamed at a lower resolution.

Jpeg HD is a much simpler but less efficient streaming method. UI3's 2160p profile should be the same in terms of image quality and deliver a better frame rate with less bandwidth usage.
Thanks for the reply, the two modes do look much closer in the group view once I changed all the settings and limited group FPS to 5 instead of 10. And in the single camera mode, the 2160p is definitely much nicer looking. I had hidden the PTZ controls on the app a long time ago so I had actually never seen those group options until today!

I think essentially the 2160 must prioritize FPS and the Jpeg views prioritizes the full image size (now that I unchecked the frame size limit). For my group stream that was comparing a 1.5fps Jpeg to a 10fps video feed. Now that I limited the group to 5fps the 2160p setting looks a lot nicer.

Edit: this is all over a LAN
 

bp2008

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Yeah, it is something like that. I'm surprised you notice a quality difference in the group stream at 5 FPS vs 10 FPS though. The 2160p streaming profile sets a bit rate limit of 8 Mbps which is plenty high enough for 4K @ 10 FPS.
 

polldav

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Yeah, it is something like that. I'm surprised you notice a quality difference in the group stream at 5 FPS vs 10 FPS though. The 2160p streaming profile sets a bit rate limit of 8 Mbps which is plenty high enough for 4K @ 10 FPS.
I noticed in a few specific places only - I made a Jpg/2160 comparison if you're curious. It's nothing huge, just a few spots get that video compression look. I've had BI for a few years now and it has always looked like the top half of this image so it stood out when I upgraded. I didn't put all the settings back to what they were originally so this image is much closer than it started out.

Dropbox - CamDiff.jpg
 
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