Blue Iris UI3

Mike A.

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I don't. Only cams. The URL that loads is myip+port/ui3.htm?group=Index

This is on a machine where I've not used UI3 before. The others work fine.
 

bp2008

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put &maximize=0 in the address bar then. Or show a screenshot of the browser window. I might not understand what is going on.
 

Mike A.

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That's it. Only the cam frames, no controls, menu, clips panel. Seems like I had this happen at one point and figured it out but don't recall how now.

Got it. Made a single cam full screen, Then it gave me the arrows.
 
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freman

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Hi, sorry if this isn't the right spot, I figured a big sticky thread talking exactly about the UI I was enquiring about would be the place to go.

Is there any way that anyone knows of to set UI3 up to default to a different group of cameras? I don't want all cameras, I rarely if ever want to see the internal cameras, I'd love it to default to the "Outside" group.

Edit: I just thought I'd mention I found the option to pass it in the url but I'd really like it to be the default if I can
 

TonyR

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Is there any way that anyone knows of to set UI3 up to default to a different group of cameras? I don't want all cameras, I rarely if ever want to see the internal cameras, I'd love it to default to the "Outside" group.
Yes, and this can be found in the "Help" section of UI3; Look for the 3 dots in upper right corner then "Help" => "More Topics" => "URL Parameters".
Just open up UI3 with:

Code:
http://BI-Server-IP:BI-Server-Port/ui3.htm?group=groupname&maximize=1
Delete the "&maximize=1" if you also want clip previews, PTZ controls, etc.

If you want to include the login credentials, go with this URL with that login info added on the end:

Code:
http://BI-Server-IP:BI-Server-Port/ui3.htm?group=groupname&maximize=1&user=username&pw=password
In either of the above, sub "groupname" with "Outside". These can be turned into desktop shortcuts or bookmarked as favorites in your browser.
Easy Peasy! :cool:
 
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TonyR

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Edit: I just thought I'd mention I found the option to pass it in the url but I'd really like it to be the default if I can
Sorry, must have missed this first go-around (too early for me, I guess).

Perhaps under "users" the "Home Page" box in the upper right would let you put in the URL (HTML) you wanted launched, but you'd have to log in with that specific user, so that's of no use.

it would be simpler to use the shortcut / bookmark method I mentioned above.
 
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bp2008

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Is there any way that anyone knows of to set UI3 up to default to a different group of cameras? I don't want all cameras, I rarely if ever want to see the internal cameras, I'd love it to default to the "Outside" group.
Yes. If you are logged in as a Blue Iris administrator, then UI3 will have an option at the bottom of its settings panel for you to download a ui3-local-overrides.js script containing all of your current settings (including the camera group you loaded last). If you place that file in the C:\Program Files\Blue Iris 5\www\ui3 directory, then everything in that file will become the new default settings for everyone that connects to your UI3. This Help page talks about it in a bit more depth.
 

TonyR

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Yes. If you are logged in as a Blue Iris administrator, then UI3 will have an option at the bottom of its settings panel for you to download a ui3-local-overrides.js script containing all of your current settings (including the camera group you loaded last). If you place that file in the C:\Program Files\Blue Iris 5\www\ui3 directory, then everything in that file will become the new default settings for everyone that connects to your UI3. This Help page talks about it in a bit more depth.
I'm bookmarking this!! ^^^^^ :cool:
 

Corvus85

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Hey all,

So now that I've managed to achieve ~4% CPU usage for BI when the console is minimized, running 7x 4MP cams, I'm trying to see what I can do to optimize UI3.

At the moment, it turns out that UI3 easily adds ~15% to the server's CPU usage. Since I have a dedicated wall-mounted tablet that is showing the index view of all cams 24/7, I want to reduce the CPU load from the average of ~25% that it's sitting at currently.

Here's what I've done so far:

  • Adjusted the FPS for 'All cameras' under 'Webcasting' settings found in the BI console to 15 FPS, and checked 'Fast scaling to save CPU'.
  • Unticked 'Require/decode all video frames (streaming or timeline)
  • Enabled Intel QSV acceleration in the Encoder Options under general Web Server encoder configuration.
  • Enabled 'Direct to wire where possible', even though this only really helps when viewing a single camera (if I understand correctly).

Is there anything else I should be looking at? Maybe some settings within the UI3 interface itself?
 

bp2008

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Hi @Corvus85.

You could lower the resolution of the stream going to UI3. There are a lot of ways to do that:

1) In BI's group layout editor
2) In UI3's Group Settings panel (right click the group video to get this option)
3) Or just choose a lower-resolution streaming profile in UI3.

You could reduce the frame rate sent to UI3 even further.

And you could choose a faster H.264 encoder profile. Ultrafast is the fastest but lowest quality. Superfast is a good middleground. Veryfast is highest quality but the slowest, and can add some delay.

Unticked 'Require/decode all video frames (streaming or timeline)
This only has an effect if you use "limit decoding" on the server, but then it is quite a good effect for CPU savings.

Enabled Intel QSV acceleration in the Encoder Options under general Web Server encoder configuration.
I have never seen any evidence this actually does anything. Nvidia acceleration supposedly works, though I've never had the opportunity to try it on a card that supports hardware video encoding.

Enabled 'Direct to wire where possible', even though this only really helps when viewing a single camera (if I understand correctly).
Correct, this can only affect single camera LIVE streams where the camera is encoding H.264 (not jpeg or anything else).
 

Corvus85

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You could lower the resolution of the stream going to UI3. There are a lot of ways to do that:
So I'm confused. Isn't the point of 'direct to wire' that the original resolution of the camera stream is sent to UI3, unchanged?
How can it still be direct to wire if for example I can choose 480p when viewing a solo 4K camera? Doesn't that imply that some re-encoding is happening?
 

bp2008

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So I'm confused. Isn't the point of 'direct to wire' that the original resolution of the camera stream is sent to UI3, unchanged?
How can it still be direct to wire if for example I can choose 480p when viewing a solo 4K camera? Doesn't that imply that some re-encoding is happening?
Yes, that is the point. Each video stream will either be direct to wire, or it will be a re-encoded stream. It can't be both at the same time.

If you choose 480p but you have Direct-to-wire enabled, then you'll get a direct-to-wire stream when that is available (single camera live view encoded with H.264), otherwise you will get a 480p stream.
 

Corvus85

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If you choose 480p but you have Direct-to-wire enabled, then you'll get a direct-to-wire stream when that is available (single camera live view encoded with H.264), otherwise you will get a 480p stream.
But that still doesn't make any sense. I've got direct to wire enabled, but when I select a 480p stream in UI3 while looking at the group view, it remains in 480p even when I select a single camera live view. I can tell because the quality is substantially reduced.

How can this be direct to wire? And if it isn't, how can I ensure that it is direct to wire?
 

bp2008

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If you enabled that for the "Streaming 0" profile then it should work. Do note that if your cameras are sending H.265 then it won't work for them.
 

Corvus85

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If you enabled that for the "Streaming 0" profile then it should work. Do note that if your cameras are sending H.265 then it won't work for them.
Ok so that brings me back to my question - how can it be 'direct to wire', if I can change the quality when viewing a solo camera?
Isn't the whole point of direct to wire to send the camera stream unaltered to UI3?
Obviously if the quality is able to be changed, the stream is being altered, and is therefore, not 'direct to wire'.
How is this then 'direct to wire'?
 

bp2008

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Ok so that brings me back to my question - how can it be 'direct to wire', if I can change the quality when viewing a solo camera?
If you can change the quality, then it isn't direct-to-wire. You're clearly missing one of the requirements. I didn't mention before, the camera needs to have "direct-to-disc" recording enabled too.

Isn't the whole point of direct to wire to send the camera stream unaltered to UI3?
Yes.

Obviously if the quality is able to be changed, the stream is being altered, and is therefore, not 'direct to wire'.
How is this then 'direct to wire'?
If you can change the quality, then it isn't direct-to-wire.
 

Corvus85

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If you can change the quality, then it isn't direct-to-wire. You're clearly missing one of the requirements. I didn't mention before, the camera needs to have "direct-to-disc" recording enabled too.
I've satisfied all requirements, and yet changing the quality still affects the quality of the single cam. Is it possible maybe that we're both not understanding fully how 'direct to wire' works? Does it behave differently on your system? Does changing the stream quality not change the quality of the single cam view for you?
 
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