BI Triggers (Motion) vs ONVIF triggers

[EricB]

I am getting ready to start tuning the Motion Detection in BlueIris and/or the cameras rather than just using the cameras default motion detection.
The cameras are an EmpireTech IPC-HDW5442-T-ZE and a EmpireTech DH-IPC-PDW5849-A180-E2-ASTE.

What I am looking to do right now, is set an alert (play a sound) if something drives down the road, and play a different sound if someone enters one of the driveway entrances or appears within the area inside of the yard before the road (right now I still have some blind spots).

I have included a pic that shows what I am trying.
The area beyond the red line would cause a trigger/alert to play a sound.
The area within the blue line would cause a different trigger/alert that would play a different sound.

From looking at the BlueIris logs and searching the BlueIris documentation, if I am correct, all ONVIF events triggered by the camera are "External" and there is not a way to have different conditions cause different alarms using ONVIF with the camera and BlueIris.
Is this a correct understanding of the processing of the camera ONVIF events and BlueIris?

If this is correct than I think that means that I will need to use the BlueIris Trigger-"Motion sensor" possibly along with "Object detection" and "Use zones and hot spots" to create the events that I want to trigger on.
Is this correct?

I think that in BI I can make the area outside of the red line a zone (call it A) and the area inside the blue line a different zone (call it B) and have the following:
1. A trigger that fires when there is motion in zone A
2. A trigger that fires when something crosses from A->B
3. A trigger that fires when there is motion in zone B

What I can't see is that there is a way in BI to trigger the camera on the 3 different options above using ONVIF events with BI.
Is this a correct understanding?

I am looking for a starting point (BI or camera) so that I avoid going down the wrong path and winding up spinning my wheels trying something in either the camera or BI only to find out later that I went the wrong way because the route I picked won't work and have to go back and start over.

Thanks,

Eric

 

[wittaj]

That is correct, BI simply takes the ONVIF trigger and fires in BI with no "intelligence" as to which IVS trigger it was.

That is about the only area that the NVR is better at LOL as you can set up different actions for each IVS rule.

I have requested BI to break those out, so if you and others send in a request it may happen.

So you would have to do it as you called out.

But you could use the IVS for one of the rules.

 

[EricB]

Thanks, that will save me a bunch of time I am sure.

That was what I was getting from my searching of the BI logs and docs and somewhat from the camera docs.

Is there a tool that you can use to monitor the camera for ONVIF events and see what they are sending as far as events?

Thanks again,

Eric

 

[wittaj]

You can put an SD card in the camera and then playback the events with IVS rules on to see what is triggering what.

But I think you mean a program that you could use and scrape the data to then trigger different events instead of using BI motion?

 

[EricB]

What I was looking for was a program that I could run that would monitor the camera and display the events that it was sending. I wasn't intending to use it with BlueIris (at least for now) but just wanted to see what events were sent.

Eric

 

[wittaj]

So wouldn't leaving the live camera GUI up with the IVS rules turned on and watching them or playing them back accomplish that?

Or do you want to see something that is simply text like:

02/05/2023 16:34 IVS-1

 

[Mike A.]

There's the official ONVIF Device Test Tool that will show you more but distribution is to ONVIF members only and it runs on Linux. You can find it to download but it will be on third-party sites so the usual warnings apply.

There's a less full featured program called ONVIF Device Manager which will show you some things and runs on Windows. Below is a capture from one of my cams running with IVS rules just now. It does seem to show which IVS triggers have activated (e.g., Rule: IVS-1, etc.) and the condition (inside an intrusion box=true/false, etc.). Not sure about what's showing as Rule: 00000. My setup for that cam is kind of complicated. May be from an external command that I'm sending from a motion detector to trigger the cam. Haven't really played with the tool for that purpose much.

 

[EricB]

@wittaj that would probably work, where is that from?

@Mike A. the ONVIF Device Manager looks good, I'll find that and see what that will do.

I am just curious what ONVIF rules are being triggered other than the "EXTERNAL" that is shown in the BI logs. I have figured out that making changes to a camera via the web ui will cause BI to fire the Alert that plays my sound.

Thanks,

Eric

 

[wittaj]

None - the only rules BI is pulling is for motion whether it is MD, SMD, or IVS and audio triggers if you have it. It is just called external.

From the help file:

Motion/Alarm trigger signals received from ONVIF GetEvents PullPointSubscription will be
classified as either having an ONVIF source or an EXTERNAL source depending on whether
these events are unary or binary and you select the Trigger until reset option. Events with
“begin” and “end” (binary) components will be classified as ONVIF triggers. Single events
(unary) will be classified as EXTERNAL triggers.

What I seemed to notice, and was probably just coincidental was sometime around the time that ONVIF "suspended" Dahua and Hikvision, the ONVIF triggers changed to External Triggers in BI.

 

[EricB]

I meant what ONVIF message was being sent by the camera, not what BI was doing. I figured they had to be sending something that was more descriptive than "Begin Event", "End Event", but I could be wrong about that.