Could someone please summarize Clips, and alerts vs Triggers?

[Osity]

I’m used to the Avermedia NV5000 set up where it records everything linearly and I just scroll back to the date I want. It seems blueIris works differently and uses clips instead for some reason. I’m not really sure what the point of clips are if I don’t have motion recording activated. I
'm reading the manual, but but don't see an explanation of Clips. Also, alerts vs triggers, what's the distinction?
They’re both being mentioned a lot though.

If someone could give a short summary of the three it would be appreciated.
Thank you!

 

[wittaj]

Clips is the video being recorded.

Triggers are portions of the clip that is recorded when the camera is triggered. If you are recording on motion only, then the clips and trigger is essentially the same. if you are recording 24/7, then the clip is the full video and triggers are when it saw motion.

Alerts are pointers to the clips that indicate when the triggers happened on the timeline.

 

[Osity]

If “clips” are the video being recorded, why are they called “clips”?

“clips” sounds like small segments, or “clips”, of the full video.

I’ve got it on “continuous” recording, so without alerts or triggers, does that mean I only get one big clip?

 

[wittaj]

They are called clips because that is what they are - clips of video of a certain time or size. You don't want one long video that is weeks long - it will never open and the video will become unstable and your system would probably crash before too long.

Most will go to the Record and check the Combine and Cut box to a set time or GB size. Most here use 1 hour. But in my experience if you go much over 4GB the video gets difficult to open and playback becomes a chore.

 

[Osity]

So is that
8 hours OR 4 GB, whatever comes first?

so those “clips” would be of eight hours each approximately ?

 

[Mike A.]

Your Avermedia very likely does the same as far as breaking things into smaller files/"clips" it just presents it to you in a way that makes it appear linear. There's a timeline function in BI that will let you navigate things in a somewhat similar way.

 

[Osity]

Your Avermedia very likely does the same as far as breaking things into smaller files/"clips" it just presents it to you in a way that makes it appear linear. There's a timeline function in BI that will let you navigate things in a somewhat similar way.

Is the timeline function you’re talking about the up/down slider?

I see lots of current clips showing up on the BI software but when I login with the iOS app, I only see two clips, and they are 6 days old. Why is my iOS app not displaying all the clips?

 

[wittaj]

So is that
8 hours OR 4 GB, whatever comes first?

so those “clips” would be of eight hours each approximately ?

Yes in that example, it would be 8 hours or 4GB, whichever comes first.

 

[Mike A.]

Is the timeline function you’re talking about the up/down slider?

No, at the bottom of the main console screen. Double-click in the color-banded area at the bottom to pop up the timeline view. You then can scroll by time and see whatever cams/clips/events are applicable.

ETA: Click on the X at top right of that timeline view window to close and get out of it. That might not be obvious if you find yourself in timeline view and want to get back to normal.

 

[Osity]

No, at the bottom of the main console screen. Double-click in the color-banded area at the bottom to pop up the timeline view. You then can scroll by time and see whatever cams/clips/events are applicable.

I’m assuming this is only available on the desktop software. I don’t see it on the BI app.

 

[Mike A.]

I don't use the app much for that. I don't see a way to do it ooking quickly. Someone else here may know if so.

 

[CCTVCam]

So is that
8 hours OR 4 GB, whatever comes first?

so those “clips” would be of eight hours each approximately ?

You may have misread, he suggested 1 hour.

You might like to explore the concept of sub streams as well as this will enable you to record 24/7 at lower quality whilst any triggers will cause a higher qulaity clip to be recorded. The result here is the triggered events are very high quality but shouldsomething get missed by a trigger, you still have a recording, just at relatively low quality, so at least you haven't missed anything. Also note I said relative. Most find the substream (low quality) to be decent if the settings advice is followed.

 

[fenderman]

You may have misread, he suggested 1 hour.

You might like to explore the concept of sub streams as well as this will enable you to record 24/7 at lower quality whilst any triggers will cause a higher qulaity clip to be recorded. The result here is the triggered events are very high quality but shouldsomething get missed by a trigger, you still have a recording, just at relatively low quality, so at least you haven't missed anything. Also note I said relative. Most find the substream (low quality) to be decent if the settings advice is followed.

With many dahua cams you can get a 1080p substream. With Hik 720p third stream...

 

[Osity]

You may have misread, he suggested 1 hour.

You might like to explore the concept of sub streams as well as this will enable you to record 24/7 at lower quality whilst any triggers will cause a higher qulaity clip to be recorded. The result here is the triggered events are very high quality but shouldsomething get missed by a trigger, you still have a recording, just at relatively low quality, so at least you haven't missed anything. Also note I said relative. Most find the substream (low quality) to be decent if the settings advice is followed.

yes, I set my clips to one hour.

Substreams sound like a good idea. Is there a section in the manual dedicated to substreams explaining how to do this?

I found my “missing” recorded clips oniOS app after realizing you could toggle to display alerts/clips. My alerts were empty, but all the clips showed up after toggling there.

I’m a two man small retail shop using Amcrest cams and would want high quality during business hours and lower quality when closed. For higher quality during work hours would I set the trigger to last as long as my opening hours?

 

[CCTVCam]

try the wiki at the top of the page