Blue Iris 4 "IR Light" button control issues and undocumented features

Kawboy12R

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I posted this elsewhere but thought I'd post it here too to help anybody having trouble with the IR Light button on the PTZ menu on the main BI screen.
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Hopefully this will help those having trouble with the "IR Light" button in the lower PTZ control panel on the main screen. Its function isn't really described accurately and there's an undocumented "Auto" function to turn your cameras back to AutoSwitching for day/night mode. It is currently broken for those that use scheduled day/night shifts like I do, or at least it doesn't control scheduling and can only return a scheduled camera back to day, night or auto mode. If you were in a scheduled mode, you have to go back to the web controls for you camera to fix it.

To put your camera back in Autoswitch mode if you've accidentally played with the "IR Light" button and found that it permanently holds the camera in either day or night, click and hold on the button and you'll see an "A" appear in the lightbulb. Your camera is now in Auto mode.

Also, the IR light on function of that button doesn't actually turn you IR lights on, it just puts the camera in night mode which, for simple cameras, is the only way to toggle the lights on. If you've got a camera with night mode and the ability to turn the lights off, you're currently out of luck if you want separate control of night mode and the lights, particularly if you usually run with the lights off because they'll stay off even though the button tells you that they're on. You're just in B&W mode with no lights like you were originally.

If you're using a Hikvision camera in scheduled switch mode and you click that Blue Iris button you must currently go into your web browser under Configuration/Basic Configuration/Image/"Day/Night Switch" and reselect "Scheduled" from either day/night/auto that Blue Iris left it in. Also note that Blue Iris only controls the "Day/Night Switch" setting located under the "Focus Settings" section, not the part at the top of the screen. That stays in "Scheduled- Switch" mode, so if you've defined, say, faster and/or different day and night exposure times, they'll still switch at the right time but you may and up running in colour/day mode at night if you tried to turn your IR lights off using the BI button (hey, they're actually off in either day OR night mode if you turned them off in your web browser settings!) but using your night-time exposure speeds.

I've emailed the programmer about these behaviours but I don't know when/if he plans on changing them. I mentioned that adding a third click option to that button to cycle through day/night/auto would save a lot of people (like me) who would never really think of a click-and-hold behaviour. It's also not mentioned in the documentation.

See the attached pics in case my explanation is a bit muddy.

The Hikvision snapshot filename should probably say that BI doesn't change this back rather than it doesn't modify it. It'll modify it all right, just not back to the way it was originally. :)

BlueIrisDoesntModifyThisInHikvisions.jpg


BlueIrisIRLightAutoButton.jpg
 

bp2008

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I expect the button's behavior depends on the camera. I steer clear of it myself. LOL
 
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