Pelco Spectra Enhanced Autotrack w/ BI?

[will40]

I just replaced an old IP PTZ camera with a Pelco D7230L PTZ to cover my yards. First time user of Blue Iris but I have it setup and its running ok with some tweaking of motion triggers.

What I would really like to do is include my camera's Autotrack feature to follow intruders around my property outside my current view. I enable the Autotrack and it can work ok under certain conditions for short periods of time but eventually the camera moves like it is following pixels and triggering my BI motion settings with an abundance of nuisance clips. I have adjusted the autotrack behavior to the less sensitive setting but it continues to move and triggers BI motion.

I have been playing with settings for a few days and just about ready to give up with the autotrack feature. Have any of you been successful enabling autotrack and found a way to make it play nice with BI?

I tried disabling BI's Motion Sensor and checked off "GET ONVIF trigger events" and checked off "Camera's DI or Motion" for a source and use the camera to detect motion but I must be missing something and haven't been very successful receiving any ONVIF events by the log.

If there is anything I missed or I can try any help would be much appreciated thanks!

 

[wittaj]

Any function of the camera's autotracking has to do with the camera itself. BI has nothing to do with autotracking or move the PTZ (unless you have set up spotter cams that when trigger will then trigger the PTZ, but I do not think you are there yet being new).

Did you redo the find/inspect button after selecting the check box for get ONVIF triggers and if so, does the wall of text that comes up in a separate text box show that it is pulling the ONVIF triggers?

 

[will40]

Thanks for quick reply. Yes, correct with BI having nothing to do with the autotrack function. I am enabling the camera webserver's feature for autotracking and Blue Iris is simply watching it. I also enabled the camera's 'park function' to return the camera to Home preset after 60 secs of in activity.

What I notice (while I monitor the BI admin screen) is that the camera's autotrack will frequently quickly move in short bursts as if it is autotracking an object (which I assume are just pixel changes) but that BI is sensing these nuisance camera's movements as motion and triggering accordingly.

It acts the same as if it successfully tracked motion around my house and then returned to Home preset after 60 seconds. Again BI sees the swift motion of the camera as it moves to the Home park preset as motion and again triggers as motion.

I have done the find/inspect a few times after checking boxes and saving settings. I attached the result of the text box below. Please let me know if I am reading this correctly and if my camera does support the ONVIF?

Thanks for your help.

 

[wittaj]

I do not have that brand autotracking PTZ, but mine works as I believe you want yours to operate.

If the camera itself is starting autotracking that means it ONVIF triggered, so then BI will start recording since you are pulling those in. Or the camera also has a Motion Detection option that is sending ONVIF triggers to BI if it is pixels that are triggering it.

Clips starting and stopping while the PTZ is in autotrack is a function of the track and record time in the camera.

I have two autotrack PTZs and I set them up a little different based on what I am accomplishing.

One pulls ONVIF triggers and I have the record/track time set and that is the length of the BI clip. When the camera is done tracking, it stops recording and spins back to the preset.

My other one I let it record based on BI motion, so the camera is acting as a fixed camera as well in this situation until autotracking begins. I simply set up motion in BI for that camera and a 1 second make time and it will then trigger like a fixed cam in that field of view without tracking, but if the camera starts tracking based on my tracking conditions, then it creates that as one clip.

TLR - you have to find the combination of make/track/record time in the PTZ to match what you want it to record in BI.

 

[will40]

Took a couple of weeks but I think I got it...On the camera's webserver I previously enabled the camera's time/date stamp as an on screen display in the bottom right hand corner. It took me a while to figure out that this time/date seconds counter was interpreted as motion and was the reason the auto tracker was jerking the camera around and triggering BI constantly.

Simple fix and I hope this is it. I disabled camera's time/date stamp and enabled BI's TD stamp overlay when recording and all seems to be ok for the time being.

Fingers crossed!