Overlays conditional on time for an underwater IP cam?

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originalcom

n3wb
Sep 21, 2020
20
12
UK
In addition to cameras for security I use Blue Iris to provide a web cam feed for an underwater pond cam "www.pondwatch.uk" . At night when it is dark instead of disabling the camera which makes people think its down I would like to display an overlay that says the fish are sleeping please come back in daylight hours. For info IR illumination doesn't work very well underwater.

I though this would be easy using the condition "Required DIO Input bits" on the overlay page but I cant get this to work I've tried several different ways:

1. Using the "Set Output" on the events schedule of the cameras "Schedule" tab.
2. Under the main Schedule tab in system I've tried "On Schedule Change" setting the "Set DIO bits".
3. I've tried setting the DIO bits with an ?admin http command.

None of these work. I must be doing something wrong or cant the DIO bits be used for this? I think I've understood that bit 1 has a value of 2 although I've tried 0 1 2 etc.

If this isn't going to work can anyone think of another way of accomplishing this? I don't want to use Macros with external text files as I want the times of the overlay change to correspond with the timed profile changes which use Sunset/Sunrise.
 
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The DIO are Digital inputs and outputs for something like a sensor, so unless you have a light sensor feeding back info, it won't work.

Depending on the camera, what about setting up the overlay within the camera GUI and set up to schedule in the camera itself to display it?
 
wittaj said:
The DIO are Digital inputs and outputs for something like a sensor, so unless you have a light sensor feeding back info, it won't work.

Depending on the camera, what about setting up the overlay within the camera GUI and set up to schedule in the camera itself to display it?
Click to expand...
Thank you for confirming my suspicions that the DIO can't be used for this. Unfortunately the camera doesn't support overlays other than the non removable time display. I've managed to get so much working in Blue iris using all the functions buried deep in BI from Deepquest AI, HTTP calls, weather display and running external programs that I can't help thinking there must be a way to do this.
 
Yeah I don't do much with overlays, but I would think someone has figured out how to do it based on profiles maybe?
 
Try this... a fully self-contained Blue Iris solution.
(it's not really as complicated as it may first appear.)
1. Create a text file to hold your overlay message... e.g. "C:\Blue Iris\My Overlays\FishPondMsg.txt".
2. In the Settings>Macros tab, edit any macro (e.g., %9) and point it to the text file in step #1... e.g. "file:/C:\Blue Iris\My Overlays\FishPondMsg.txt".
3. In the cam's 'Video' tab, add an overlay pointing to the Blue Iris macro assigned in step #2 (e.g., %9).
4. In the cam's 'PTZ/Control' tab, click 'Edit presets' and create two presets that perform a 'Write to file--replace' action.
The 1st (e.g., #39) should write nothing (a blank 'Parameters' field) to the file in step #1 ... Note: for testing have it write "(Enjoy!)" so you can see that it is working.
The 2nd (e.g., #40) should write a 'Parameters' string like "(Daytime Only)" to the file in step #1.
5. In the cam's 'Schedule' tab, click 'Events schedule' and add two events:
The 1st should be a sunrise action, with a PTZ Preset function pointing to the 1st preset assigned in step #4 (e.g., #39).
The 2nd should be a sunset action, with a PTZ Preset function pointing to the 2nd preset assigned in step #4 (e.g., #40).

Once you get it working, adjust the suntime offsets to your liking.

If for some reason you ever want to turn off the overlay message, or display a permanent one (e.g., "Under Maintenance"), simply disable the Events schedule and manually edit the *.txt file appropriately.
 
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hey now! pretty cool!
1666889591303.png
 
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