Is there a way to match the camera layout here ?

Johnman

Young grasshopper
Joined
Mar 18, 2020
Messages
84
Reaction score
12
Location
Australia
Hey guys I am trying to use UI3 to have it display 24/7 on a monitor

This is probably or should be a simple thing but I cannot work out why the layout wont match the console's UI

I have made a group and arranged the console UI like this and want it to look like this in full screen mode and more importantly it actually fills the whole screen:
Untitled.png



But this is what I get in UI3 and its way out of order and also doesnt fill the whole screen. Theres plenty of realestate on the sides of the screen that are just empty black bars!:
it wont let me upload so I have put it here;


Can someone please give me a hand to fix this? Its pretty frustrating but I am sure its a simple thing for you guys! I have been trying to work out it for like a day now...

on the BI console the layout is set to;
1:2
2 up
 
Last edited:

bradner

Getting comfortable
Joined
Aug 15, 2019
Messages
426
Reaction score
757
Location
PNW
My UI3 displays act the same way and after many forum searches I've just learned to accept it. You can drag the cams around on the main BI console to get them in the order you want (sometimes mine seem to just rearrange themselves in UI3) but I've never managed to fill my UI3 screen space as fully as it is in my main BI console screen. I have a beautiful 7 cam group with four cams big and three smaller down the side in my BI console but end up with wide empty black bars on my UI3 screens (40"-47" Fire TV's). At least my FireTV screens are big enough so that the cam views are still decently sized running the UI3 on them. :idk:

edit: I added images of what I mean. I'm fine with how it displays since I have large TV's to view the UI3. Also, the layout in the UI3 seems random to me, one time it put the three smaller windows down the right side but then they appeared in the middle as in the shot below. As I mentioned up top, to get the cams that I want larger in the UI3, I'll just drag cams around in my main console layout and check what the UI3 display is showing because you can even see below that the 4 larger displayed cams in the BI console aren't the same large ones on the UI3 interface.

Below, my BI console is displayed on a 39" Panasonic TV and the UI3 is on a 47" FireTV.

IMG_1255.jpgIMG_1257.jpg
 
Last edited:

Old Timer

Known around here
Joined
Jul 20, 2018
Messages
1,352
Reaction score
2,945
Location
I'm ok
It would be nice to be able to resize the images on UI3 like you can on the BI console. 1:3 1:4 etc.

I guess we are spoiled.
 

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,674
Reaction score
14,020
Location
USA
Hi. This subject is also covered in UI3's help file. But I should be able to shed some light on how it works and what the available options are.

First of all, UI3 doesn't have any control over the camera layout for webcasted group streams like this. That is all handled by Blue Iris using a simplified version of the algorithm that does the local console's camera layout. The main difference is that these layout scaling options are only supported in the local console.

1587064976035.png

For a webcasted group stream, cameras are inserted into the frame in rows from left to right, top to bottom, in the same order as they are arranged in the local console, and the scaling is always 1:1. This can be confusing if you are not using 1:1 scaling in the local console because it is not always obvious what the order is.

Some rows can end up with significantly different heights depending on the number and shape of cameras that were chosen for each row. This can be seen clearly in the screenshot from @Johnman where the bottom row is nearly twice the height of the other two rows because it only has two cameras and one of them is in portrait orientation.

You can adjust the layout only indirectly by reordering cameras in the local console and by changing the frame size of the group. You can change the frame size (and frame rate) of each group here:



Some notes about that:
  • High resolutions and/or frame rates can make remote viewing extremely CPU intensive for Blue Iris.
  • You can type in the frame size box to enter any size you want. There will be some thresholds of width and height where some cameras get shifted from row to another, or a new row gets added or removed. Play around with it to get a better feel for how it works and to help you decide which layout you prefer.
  • You can also affect the webcasted camera layout by reordering your cameras in the local console. Sometimes moving cameras with odd aspect ratios can really help improve the layout.
 

bradner

Getting comfortable
Joined
Aug 15, 2019
Messages
426
Reaction score
757
Location
PNW
Thanks again @bp2008 . I messed with many settings and I did get rid of the black bars only by adding 2 more cams to have a 3x3 setup in my one UI3 group. I entered in a frame size of 2560 x 1440 to get the screen filled with 9 cams. I couldn't get any combo to work (ie fill the whole screen) with 7 cams.
 

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,674
Reaction score
14,020
Location
USA
Yep, the best you can do with imperfect camera arrangements is to minimize the amount of wasted black space in the video stream so you aren't wasting bits and cpu cycles on black space. The so-called perfect arrangements are when you have a perfect square number of cams (4, 9, 16, 25, 36, etc) all with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Then you can use a 16:9 group frame and they will fit perfectly with no wasted space.
 

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,674
Reaction score
14,020
Location
USA
Anyone interested should absolutely email BI support about getting to use 1-up, 2-up, 4-up and ratio settings for webcast group streams. I don't see any reason he can't support these things and it probably wouldn't even be hard. He just needs to know that people want it.
 

Johnman

Young grasshopper
Joined
Mar 18, 2020
Messages
84
Reaction score
12
Location
Australia
Anyone interested should absolutely email BI support about getting to use 1-up, 2-up, 4-up and ratio settings for webcast group streams. I don't see any reason he can't support these things and it probably wouldn't even be hard. He just needs to know that people want it.
Ill e-mail this thread to them as a feature request
 
Top