Dont completely understand what timeline is indicating on BI

Stev Wolf

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I have never really understood the time line in the bottom of the main screen of BI.

This is the part that is below the Main picture, below the line that has the Date and hour. eg
Ok what don't I understand?

I get the aspect that the little walking man indicates that there was motion at this point in time.
But do the coloured bars mean that it has recorded for all that time, when there has been no action. Some bars go for an hour but there is no little man icon indicating there was any action. Is it recording even without being triggered. Despite having Motion/Triggering options Enabled, and there being no motion.
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Thanks
 

IAmATeaf

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Ow that’s something I never really thought about, I have mine set to combine 1GB which means that if I need to save a clip I then have to mess around backing up this large file.
 

Stev Wolf

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Thank you for your response and answer.

I wonder why this is done like this however? Is it done to save CPU resource? Maybe the BI opens a file for recording and keeps it open, waiting for data. (Big catchers Mit). Then at the configured time closes the file. This saves the process of opening and closing files constantly, honestly I don't know. But it may be that it could use more CPU.

Also Re-reading the helps, with my new knowledge you have provided it mentions that if you save your video as AVI or WMV then you cant look at the video until the file is closed. So if you have it set for say 4 hours, you cant look at the file until its finished with the file. Unless you press the stoplight. Although if you save your videos as .BVR then you can look at the video anytime. Of course I believe the .bvr is the best way to save files, as I believe that it is the most conservative in processing and size of Security Video.

Finally using bigger fewer files, E.G. the combine option ON , probably uses less space. You might say why? Well I think because when you save a file it saves a larger part of the disk space than is needed. This is normal. Some of the space is left for housekeeping duties of the file, and also because I think if you have a file that is size 7.5 something but the OS is configured to store things in chunks of data, it uses more space, it other words if you have a pie that is cut in 8 parts, you cannot cut it in 7 1/2 It must, take the full 8 chunks. I THINK THIS IS TRUE. I'm not expert, sorry for the poor illustration.
The only reason I put this info here is so that (IF IM RIGHT??) so that people understand the reproductions of the options and their changes.

So if you have lots of storage space, store your files as .bvr and have lots of CPU then stopping combining may have little effect on you. ( Really who has tons of CPU and space haha)

I have set my camera to, not combine to see what my timeline looks like. It will be interesting to see.
Again thanks for the helpful info.
Great!!
 

Stev Wolf

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Right. And for me personally, the new timeline look makes more sense to me.
But of course you can save the video out of the 4 Gig file into something much smaller. And you pretty much have to if you save it as a .bvr. You would want to save it as a more friendly format. eg AVI, mpg what ever.
Im sure you know this. :)
Regards
 

sebastiantombs

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I use combine and cut set to one hour intervals with a max of 4GB. Reviewing clips is much lest wieldy that way, at least to me.

As an example, a neighbor came to me and asked if our cameras had seen his log splitter stolen sometime during the night. The closest he could come with a date was when there was snow on the ground since he didn't notice it was missing until after the snow melted. It took me about five minutes to find the thief who "dropped by" at about 05:30 one morning just after it snowed. I narrowed it down very quickly by looking for alerts, then checking the alerts to see the cause and movement of the vehicle involved. That kind of technique will work with longer clips, but it still seems a heck of a lot eaier and faster with one hour clips.

Bringing up an eight hour clip, then scrolling along, too many things are easily missed by the "compression of time" that happens that way. That's even true of a one hour clip, but the compression effect is far less.

As with everything, personal preferences and YMMV.
 

sebastiantombs

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I don't even display the timeline. I review clips much more quickly and with detail using UI3 every morning while I relax with my first cup if coffee.
 

sebastiantombs

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Yes, the animated gifs for the alerts in UI3 make it a no brainer to me. If I find something that way I'll go to the console to export the clip or check further but I review clips in UI3 almost exclusively. That log splitter incident was an exception. I had done a drive upgrade and whacked the original files but the alert clips for the cameras involved are on a different drive so I had to review them in bvr format. In that case is was faster and easier on the BI machine, itself, rather than on a slower laptop using WiFi. I use both the console and UI3 on the BI machine depending on what I am there to do.
 
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