Dedicated folders. I want to be able to select and offline archive specific camera(s). the camera selection may vary from month to month.
That is sensible.
Blue Iris offers only a limited number of root level folders, so you would want to add each folder to the beginning of the file name in BI camera properties > Record tab, as described in the help file.
Blue Iris Help File said:
It’s recommended that you retain the default filename format. It is possible to override this
however to add a subfolder for the camera and/or month and year for example:
&CAM\&CAM.%Y%m%d_%H%M%S
%Y%m\&CAM.%Y%m%d_%H%M%S
The actual filename portion of the path should always either begin or end with the camera
name, either &CAM.xxxx or xxxx.&CAM. This is the way in which many software features
are able to identify files as belonging to particular cameras—the short name must not begin
with a number, while the segment at the opposite end of the filename must begin with a
number (typically part of the date or time).
Also, the filename should retain the time specification to avoid conflicting filenames
between successive recordings. A table of time formatting codes may be found at the end of
the Alerts and Actions chapter.
Is it possible to capture about 5 seconds of video prior to the trigger as well as the 3 minutes subsequent?
Yes.
Blue Iris allows the camera to remain triggered (so it will keep recording after motion ends) for up to 9999.9 seconds which is nearly 3 hours. This is the "Break time" setting in BI Camera Properties > Trigger tab.
You can capture up to 30 seconds prior to the trigger. This is the "Pre-trigger video buffer" setting on the Record tab.
Although you enter a specific amount of time here, Blue Iris can only begin recording on an i-frame, so some of your buffered video might not make it into the recording. Cameras typically send an i-frame every 1 to 3 seconds depending on their i-frame interval configuration. So if your camera had a frame rate of 30 FPS and i-frame interval of 90, that means one i-frame every 3 seconds, which means you could be missing up to 3 seconds of your pre-trigger video buffer.
I think what I am also after are camera groups with regards to the user login.
Yes.
My configuration is a bit weird in that the main system monitor is a large (38") screen in portrait 16X9 orientation while the web users are typically 16X9 aspect monitors. I was bale to get a used touch screen for the system monitor which makes it hand for the family to use.
That isn't usually a problem. The local console automatically adjusts camera layout to fit the screen.
For remote users, you can configure group frame sizes manually as shown in earlier posts in this thread.
Another question...I'm happy with Ver 4 of Blue Iris but am willling to consider migrating to V5
A: How difficult is the migration (do the settings remain ?)
All settings are lost when you uninstall V4 (but you can restore them from a registry backup).
Several other settings are lost and must be reconfigured manually, particularly if you use more than the first Profile in Blue Iris.
B: what (if any) compelling features are in V5 vs V4?
Sub stream support is the biggest thing. It is a huge reduction in CPU load.
H.265 hardware acceleration also works with Intel CPUs (6th gen or newer) in BI 5. In BI 4 it was only for H.264.
There have been a lot of UI3 updates too.
