Blue Iris UI3

[erkme73]

I'm finding an inconsistency in the 'real time stamp' being displayed on the scrub bar when I move the scrubber on one clip vs another. Same camera, just different clips on the same day:



Sometimes it'll show the actual timestamp for the interval, other times it just shows the clip elapsed time.

Whether the clip is actually playing or paused when scrubbing makes no difference. Is this something that I've misconfigured?

ETA:

Actually, I just found a common denominator. It the timestamp appears to be missing only on the very first clip of each day (clip that starts at midnight). All the rest of the clips (I have it set to 8 hours, so 4 clips per day) have the timestamp.

ETA2:

Well, the missing timestamp on that camera is specific to the first 8 hour clip of the day, but on some cameras it's completely missing, while others it disappears on random clips...

 

[bp2008]

@erkme73

UI3 only shows the real world timestamp if the length of the video file matches the duration that Blue Iris reported for the clip. This condition exists because a common configuration of BI (the default configuration, actually) is to combine multiple motion-triggered recordings into one clip, causing the real world timestamps to be absolutely unpredictable for any given location on the seek bar. The intent is to only show these timestamps when they are guaranteed to be accurate within a few seconds.

Assuming you are recording continuously, this should not have been a problem, so lets see if we can figure out what happened.

I see both your clips you screenshotted are less than 8 hours in length. This suggests those clips were still open for recording. I could see UI3 getting out of sync in this case and thinking it needs to suppress the real world timestamp when it really doesn't need to. Does the timestamp appear reliably for older clips?

It would be helpful if you went through several clips and noted 3 things:
1. Duration shown in the clip list.
2. Duration shown in the seek bar after opening the clip.
3. Whether or not the real-world timestamp is appearing.

If the #1 and #2 values are very far apart, then the real-world timestamp is supposed to disappear.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Normally, I just watch the time stamp of the camera. That's the critical time to know since it's consistent to every camera assuming you're using some form of NTP service.

 

[erkme73]

@erkme73

UI3 only shows the real world timestamp if the length of the video file matches the duration that Blue Iris reported for the clip. This condition exists because a common configuration of BI (the default configuration, actually) is to combine multiple motion-triggered recordings into one clip, causing the real world timestamps to be absolutely unpredictable for any given location on the seek bar. The intent is to only show these timestamps when they are guaranteed to be accurate within a few seconds.

Assuming you are recording continuously, this should not have been a problem, so lets see if we can figure out what happened.

I see both your clips you screenshotted are less than 8 hours in length. This suggests those clips were still open for recording. I could see UI3 getting out of sync in this case and thinking it needs to suppress the real world timestamp when it really doesn't need to. Does the timestamp appear reliably for older clips?

It would be helpful if you went through several clips and noted 3 things:
1. Duration shown in the clip list.
2. Duration shown in the seek bar after opening the clip.
3. Whether or not the real-world timestamp is appearing.

If the #1 and #2 values are very far apart, then the real-world timestamp is supposed to disappear.

I will verify and let you know shortly. Thanks for quick reply.

Normally, I just watch the time stamp of the camera. That's the critical time to know since it's consistent to every camera assuming you're using some form of NTP service.

I don't use the cameras' internal timestamp. I prefer the more uniform overlay from bi, but with 60 cameras leaving the overlay on playback tends to result in choppy playback. I leave them off unless I'm exporting. That's why having the scrubber show time is so nice when it works.

 

[sebastiantombs]

The BI overlay is an inserted video artifact that makes the video potentially useless as evidence in court. I'd rather have it in the base video coming from the camera. Setting up a local NTP server isn't hard at all, heck even I managed to get it working.

 

[erkme73]

The BI overlay is an inserted video artifact that makes the video potentially useless as evidence in court. I'd rather have it in the base video coming from the camera. Setting up a local NTP server isn't hard at all, heck even I managed to get it working.

I hate to come across as lazy (because I am), but do you have a good source for setting up a local NTP server? That honestly was one of the concerns. My cameras are all on a non-WAN subnet.

 

[hikky_b]

I hate to come across as lazy (because I am), but do you have a good source for setting up a local NTP server? That honestly was one of the concerns. My cameras are all on a non-WAN subnet.

Setting up NetTime Time Sync Tool on Windows 10

This is a great way to sync all your cameras. If cameras are not synced correctly they could be thrown out as evidence. This will not adjust for Daylight Savings - you must enter DST Start and End time in your Camera. I want to thank @mikeynags for all the information to get this up and running...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[erkme73]

Setting up NetTime Time Sync Tool on Windows 10

This is a great way to sync all your cameras. If cameras are not synced correctly they could be thrown out as evidence. This will not adjust for Daylight Savings - you must enter DST Start and End time in your Camera. I want to thank @mikeynags for all the information to get this up and running...

ipcamtalk.com

Thanks - that got me pointed in the right direction. My router is running Merlin, so it has a built in local NTP server that I just never enabled. Works great. Now the task of logging into each of the cameras to enable the timestamp... arg...

 

[erkme73]

@erkme73

UI3 only shows the real world timestamp if the length of the video file matches the duration that Blue Iris reported for the clip. This condition exists because a common configuration of BI (the default configuration, actually) is to combine multiple motion-triggered recordings into one clip, causing the real world timestamps to be absolutely unpredictable for any given location on the seek bar. The intent is to only show these timestamps when they are guaranteed to be accurate within a few seconds.

Assuming you are recording continuously, this should not have been a problem, so lets see if we can figure out what happened.

I see both your clips you screenshotted are less than 8 hours in length. This suggests those clips were still open for recording. I could see UI3 getting out of sync in this case and thinking it needs to suppress the real world timestamp when it really doesn't need to. Does the timestamp appear reliably for older clips?

It would be helpful if you went through several clips and noted 3 things:
1. Duration shown in the clip list.
2. Duration shown in the seek bar after opening the clip.
3. Whether or not the real-world timestamp is appearing.

If the #1 and #2 values are very far apart, then the real-world timestamp is supposed to disappear.

Ok, sorry it took me so long to get back to this. You were absolutely correct that those clips with accurate durations did show the timestamp during scrubbing.


On one clip, the duration in the thumbnail shows 1:06:20, and when I scrub to the end of that clip, it's 1:05:10. For that clip, I do see the timestamp during scrubbing. However, the timestamp shown during scrubbing is off just a bit (<30 sec) when compared to the overlay timestamp on the image.

A second clip thumbnail duration shows 43:31, and the end of the clip shows a duration of 42:18. That clip does NOT show a real world timestamp during scrubbing.

Both of these clips were from yesterday.

I suppose the question is, what causes them to become out of sync, and is there a way for the scrubber to continue to show its "best guess" even though it may be off by more than a few minutes?

 

[bp2008]

I'm not sure what makes them sync poorly when you are recording continuously. Over a minute of difference can't be explained by i-frame interval or pre-trigger recording buffer...

UI3 doesn't have a setting to always show the scrubber regardless of inaccuracies. I'm not convinced it would be a good thing to add.

 

[ronaldjeremy]

For a PTZ camera, Is there a way in UI3 to have the video full screen and have the cursor arrows so you can just click the video to pan/tilt/zoom? This is the behavior in Blue Iris itself. Otherwise in UI3 you have to exit full screen and use the dial on the left, which isn't as intuitive as just clicking the video itself.

 

[bp2008]

No, UI3 doesn't have that.

If you have a keyboard, you can use the arrow keys and the - and + keys to the right of the number bar. (or you can re-bind each of these in UI3 settings to different keys)

If no keyboard, the only way you can get PTZ controls in full screen mode is to click this button that appears next to the full screen button:



Some settings related to the above are in UI Settings > Extra section.

 

[ronaldjeremy]

No, UI3 doesn't have that.

If you have a keyboard, you can use the arrow keys and the - and + keys to the right of the number bar. (or you can re-bind each of these in UI3 settings to different keys)

If no keyboard, the only way you can get PTZ controls in full screen mode is to click this button that appears next to the full screen button:

View attachment 111885

Some settings related to the above are in UI Settings > Extra section.

Ok thank you for the reply! Maybe someday in the future this might appear Its so much more intuitive to hover/click on the video itself in the direction you want to pan. If you try it in BI fullscreen you'll see what I mean.

 

[bp2008]

Ok thank you for the reply! Maybe someday in the future this might appear Its so much more intuitive to hover/click on the video itself in the direction you want to pan. If you try it in BI fullscreen you'll see what I mean.

Actually I turn that feature off on every camera because I find it infuriating not being able to double click to return to the group view. That is the main reason I never added anything like it to UI3.

 

[Thepretender]

Hi,

I have been having a number of issues of late; UI3 is close to being Unuseable after BI version 5.4.9.18.

The main issue I have is that video playback, when viewing the 'live view gallery' is very poor and choppy. cameras are displayed frame by frame until you click on a specific camera, it then plays at the correct frame rate.

another side issue is that I personally don't like how the camera colours / banners are now displayed in UI3.

I haven't been able to find any settings to change these behavious?

Rolling back to BI verison 5.4.9.18 restores correct functionalty and everything works just perfectly. Personally I love UI3 just as it is in this version.

Please could someone advise if the playback issue I have is expected behaviour when viewing all cameras in the gallery, or is there an issue?

If so, please can this be changed back to how it used to be!

Thanks

 

[bp2008]

Hi @Thepretender.

BI 5.5.x changed how group video streams are created, to enable the mobile apps and UI3 to be more like the local console, with control over labels, borders, disabled cameras, higher resolutions, etc.

In particular the old default resolution limits are gone, so your group streams could easily be taking 3 to 6 times as much CPU to encode compared to before. To work around this you need to use Blue Iris's edit layout button which is this pencil in a box here:



Then the background around your cameras will turn green and you can right-click any camera to get a list of options. The one you want is Frame > Height. Try 720p to start with.




As for hiding the labels and stuff, you can do that with other menu items in this menu, and it will affect the local console and all remote apps.



If you just want to hide labels in UI3, then right click the video in UI3 and choose Group Settings.

 

[samplenhold]

Note that 5.5.3.7 is the latest stable version.

 

[xGROMx]

I'm sure this may not be a new problem, just one that is now affecting me. I have an apache web server also running, port 80, BI is on 81. I can go to the root page, but any directories I try to go to sends me to the UI3 login page.

** (should give you the time)

*** (should show a file directory, no index file)

Whats going on here?

 

[bp2008]

Something weird in your apache configuration.

 

[xGROMx]

Ment to put this in the original post, when you go to *** it redirects me to this: **

Does the same problem when my apache server is off.....going to dig into the BI server.....

It works fine when BI webserver is turned off.