I get poor quality exports when exporting via the timeline

[WelshPaul]

Correct. If I move the mouse up and place the cursor anywhere within the live video feed and double click, then I can right click and set the Start and End times. So, for me, I have four cams live streaming within Blue Iris and to export in full resolution using the timeline, I double click on one of the four cameras to select and enlarge the camera's live view feed and then double click again anywhere on the enlarged live view feed and only then I can set the Start and End times and export in full resolution.

What I was doing was double click the camera to select it and enlarge the camera's live view feed and then use the time line below the video to set both the Start and End times because I couldn't do it any other way (at least that is what I thought at the time). By doing it this way, I was getting an exported video with reduced quality and resolution even when setting the quality to 100% within the export settings option displayed on screen after clicking on the export option in the drop down menu. Also, originally, I had Blue Iris hide both the camera names and borders within the group menu, so I had no idea that doing it this way, that Blue Iris was encoding a video of the timeline's video player playing through the requested time range and exporting it because there was no way of knowing, as the video with the reduced quality and incorrect resolution one ended up with looked the same as the high quality export (no Blue Iris camera title bar along the top).

 

[CaptainCrunch]

I understand what you were doing. I saved a few clips that way before I realized some of them were not full resolution. What frustrated me for a bit was I thought I had a consistent workflow. When one view was the only one visible and you were right clicking on the timeline, I was right clicking on the video. I was setting the start and end frame options there as well. When I did that, I got the grey box in the timeline like you got when clicking on the timeline. So I was accomplishing the same thing, marking the start and end frames on the timeline. It wasn't until I slowed down and paid attention that I noticed the presence or absence of the time scrubber and the frame markers at the bottom of the window with the video. The same results occur when taking a snapshot. The most frustrating part was the menus were basically the same. In the first picture, you can see the start and end frame markers directly under the window. In the second picture, the selected start and end frames are shown in the timeline.

 

[WelshPaul]

The developers of Blue Iris should add some sort of notice to the title bar displayed along the top of the low res exported timeline video informing the user/viewer that it is a low res export of the timeline's video and thus prevent others from making the same mistake I did.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

The developers of Blue Iris should add some sort of notice to the title bar displayed along the top of the low res exported timeline video informing the user/viewer that it is a low res export of the timeline's video and thus prevent others from making the same mistake I did.

Or, for those people who read the manual, Add a 3rd paragraph to the Timeline export section indicating that method will record in the resolution of the display. I did save the manual. It may come in handy to me at some point.

 

[WelshPaul]

I received the following support response from Ken:

The timeline exports the sub stream in a group view, not the mainstream. Unless ... an individual camera window is larger than the sub stream, then the main stream is used. Usually this means when a single camera is exported from the timeline, that will be main stream.

Also, the timeline export is made at the resolution of the viewer window, not the video's resolution. You can make the video export larger by first expanding the viewer window to the desired size.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

I received the following support response from Ken:

The timeline exports the sub stream in a group view, not the mainstream. Unless ... an individual camera window is larger than the sub stream, then the main stream is used. Usually this means when a single camera is exported from the timeline, that will be main stream.

Also, the timeline export is made at the resolution of the viewer window, not the video's resolution. You can make the video export larger by first expanding the viewer window to the desired size.

What it seems like is the timeline export takes the substream and scales it down to whatever resolution the window is actually using and exports at the window's resolution, much like just recording the screen. If the size of the window is larger than the substream, it takes the main stream and scales it down to the window's resolution. In either case, it uses the window's resolution. The only difference is which stream is scaled down.

When I exported via the timeline and I had all my cameras showing, it exported a single video with a resolution of 1128 x 576. The video showed all of my cameras and should have been scaled down versions of the substream.