Taking a screenshot every day at same time

[TWallace]

I'm curious if it's possible in Blue Iris to have each camera take a photo at a specified time each day. I'm interested in creating timelapses from images captured in this manner. I haven't seen anything in the software that allows this. I did find a way to make cameras take a photo every mm:ss, but that's not exactly what I need. Using that route, I'd have to wait for the correct time of day that I'd want to take a photo, and set it to 1440:00. Then do the same on each camera in the system. Then I'm not sure what would happen to that schedule in the event of a power outage. Seems like it would be off schedule from then on until I manually fixed it.

I'd like to, for example, have all cameras take a picture at 1pm every day.

 

[LittleBrother]

Not sure about blue iris as I don't use it, but I have been taking a pic every 6 hours on one of my hikvision cams for over a year. The cameras expose a URL which can be visited for an image, so I wrote an app that pulls from these at certain times. It can be done even easier, though. I don't have the script on me but a powershell script (if you have a windows machine you can run these natively) can be set to run at certain periods of time and pull back images from the camera.

If BI supports it, that's likely the easier way to go. I wrote the above just to throw out some ideas

 

[whoslooking]

The camera can take a snap shot on its on and save to SD or ftp, but limited on seconds between shots.

 

[fenderman]

I'm curious if it's possible in Blue Iris to have each camera take a photo at a specified time each day. I'm interested in creating timelapses from images captured in this manner. I haven't seen anything in the software that allows this. I did find a way to make cameras take a photo every mm:ss, but that's not exactly what I need. Using that route, I'd have to wait for the correct time of day that I'd want to take a photo, and set it to 1440:00. Then do the same on each camera in the system. Then I'm not sure what would happen to that schedule in the event of a power outage. Seems like it would be off schedule from then on until I manually fixed it.

I'd like to, for example, have all cameras take a picture at 1pm every day.

Sure, camera properties > schedule >event>function>snapshot

 

[TWallace]

Sure, camera properties > schedule >event>function>snapshot

Perfect! Thanks for this tip, exactly what I was looking for.

 

[TWallace]

I'm having some issues with the schedule. I didn't check the saved images for several days. Today I went looking for them. I found some in the JPEG folder, but only from one camera. They are indeed being taken at the specified time (1:00pm). But I'm curious why only this camera is doing it. I went through all 8 camera property pages and ensured all settings are identical. Maybe the issue is that they're all set for 1:00pm? I was remoted into my BI PC at 1:00pm today and watched what happened. I was on the view which shows all 8 camera views at once. At 1:00pm it quickly cycled through each camera going fullscreen, stopping on the last camera (the one that actually saves snapshots). But when I look in the JPEG folder, only one image was saved, the same camera as previous days.

I'll try specifying a different time for each camera and see if that fixes the issue.

 

[TWallace]

Update: No dice. Snapshots are only saved from a single camera. At the scheduled times, the app switches to the correct camera as if it was taking a snapshot, but nothing is saved. I don't see any errors in the logs. Curious why only one camera will take snapshots despite all of them having it setup the same.

 

[fenderman]

Update: No dice. Snapshots are only saved from a single camera. At the scheduled times, the app switches to the correct camera as if it was taking a snapshot, but nothing is saved. I don't see any errors in the logs. Curious why only one camera will take snapshots despite all of them having it setup the same.

Did you set the event for EACH camera in the cameras own schedule?

 

[TWallace]

Did you set the event for EACH camera in the cameras own schedule?

Yes, I think that's the only way you can do it, unless I'm misunderstanding. Here's how I did it:

• Select camera
• Click camera properties
• Click Schedule tab
• Click "Event Schedule..." button
• Select Enable checkbox
• Click Add
• Specify time and select Snapshot function
• Hit Ok on all dialog windows

Repeat for each camera.

 

[fenderman]

Yes, I think that's the only way you can do it, unless I'm misunderstanding. Here's how I did it:

• Select camera
• Click camera properties
• Click Schedule tab
• Click "Event Schedule..." button
• Select Enable checkbox
• Click Add
• Specify time and select Snapshot function
• Hit Ok on all dialog windows

Email support, there might be a bug if more than one cam is set to snap shot at the same time. In the interim try setting each camera 2 seconds apart.

 

[LittleBrother]

I assume you don't have each camera trying to save at the same time with the same file name, thus each one is overwriting the former...

 

[TWallace]

No, I don't think it's that. I've altered the schedule today as a test. The one that works is still set for 1:00pm, but I set the others to take photos incrementally, each 1 minute apart. It still only saved from one camera.

- - - Updated - - -

Email support, there might be a bug if more than one cam is set to snap shot at the same time. In the interim try setting each camera 2 seconds apart.

I've already set them to do it 1 minute apart, but that test failed. I'll email support, thanks.

 

[bp2008]

I assume you don't have each camera trying to save at the same time with the same file name, thus each one is overwriting the former...

That is my thought. The file name should definitely have the camera name in it.

 

[TWallace]

That is my thought. The file name should definitely have the camera name in it.

Yes, the filenames do have the camera name in them. Also, they no longer take photos during the same minute. I've emailed BI Support on this.

 

[bp2008]

Here is one of mine:

 

[bp2008]

1 snapshot a day is probably enough for a tree.

 

[TonyR]

Thats what I figured.. ok it's working. Thanks for the help!

(none of my videos on youtube ever get views, but Im sure a slowly growing tree will change that! lol

It's been 7 months...how's the tree? Where's 'OUR' video?

 

[TonyR]

I wish I could have done a time lapse of workers putting up Dollar General store in a rural area about 20 miles from me. I was through there, I swear, about a month ago and there was nothing there....this past week I came by and SHAZAM!...there's a store. I'm sure my recall is off (hey, when you're 69 you can fart a lose a week, I know I do) but I'd really like to know how fast it went up. You'd think they were prefab or something.

They kinda pop up like the weeds in my yard.

 

[looney2ns]

I wish I could have done a time lapse of workers putting up Dollar General store in a rural area about 20 miles from me. I was through there, I swear, about a month ago and there was nothing there....this past week I came by and SHAZAM!...there's a store. I'm sure my recall is off (hey, when you're 69 you can fart a lose a week, I know I do) but I'd really like to know how fast it went up. You'd think they were prefab or something.

They kinda pop up like the weeds in my yard.

They do put them up darn fast.