Here you will find descriptions for settings that control what’s recorded from your cameras,
when it’s recorded, where it’s stored, how to access it, and how long it’s kept.
RECORDING OPTIONS
Recording is configured on the Record page in camera settings.
Settings on this page as well as on the Trigger and Alerts pages may change with the active
profile. They may also be synchronized with another camera—please see that topic at the
end of the Cameras chapter.
Video
When triggered. Video is only recorded when the camera is in a triggered state. This can
greatly save on storage space over continuous recording. The pre-trigger video buffer
applies only to this type of video recording. By default, multiple trigger events are stored
into one file—see Combine or cut below.
Continuous. Record video all of the time the camera is online and active.
Periodic. Record video in defined intervals in a discontinuous or time-lapse manner—
meaning that playback gaps are removed.
Triggered + periodic. Combines when triggered with periodic. All frames are recorded
when the camera is the triggered state.
Triggered + continuous. Records video in an interval manner where playback gaps are
retained—playback will appear to pause between recorded segments. All frames are
recorded when the camera is the triggered state, however.
By default new video goes to the New clips folder as defined on the Clips page in Settings.
It’s recommended that you retain the default filename format. It is possible to override this
however to add a subfolder for the camera and/or month and year for example:
&CAM\&CAM.%Y%m%d_%H%M%S
%Y%m\&CAM.%Y%m%d_%H%M%S
The actual filename portion of the path should always either begin or end with the camera
name, either &CAM.xxxx or xxxx.&CAM. This is the way in which many software features
are able to identify files as belonging to particular cameras.
Also, the filename should retain the time specification to avoid conflicting filenames
between successive recordings. A table of time formatting codes may be found at the end of
the Alerts and Actions chapter.
Video Options
The pre-trigger video buffer applies only to when triggered recording. This is a useful
feature for capturing the moments leading up to a trigger event. There are a couple of
considerations when using this however, depending on whether or not you are using “direct
to disc” recording (discussed in the format and compression topic below). Without direct to
disc, all pre-tigger frames will be encoded at once upon trigger. As this has the potential to
require time and CPU resources, you should keep the pre-trigger time to a minimum, ideally
just a few frames. If you are using direct to disc recording, this is not a concern, as the
frames are pre-encoded—however you must be mindful that recording can only begin on a
key frame and not an arbitrary time in the stream. Key frames are generally spaced at 1
second intervals, but you should take a look at Cameras in Status to see what your camera is
sending.
The Alt/time-lapse frame rate purposely “drops” frames as necessary to lower the fps that
is recorded. If you select a rate that’s less than 2fps, the time scale of the recording will be
adjusted to playback at 2fps regardless. This creates a “time-lapse” effect where motion and
activity will be played back at greater than realtime speeds.
The Combine or cut video option exists to combine events into fewer files when recording
when triggered, but it also cuts video into segments for the other recording modes. For when
triggered, un-check this option in order to have one file recorded for each event. For all other
modes, this option must remain checked, otherwise the continuous recording will never close
and create a new file.
If the cut time specified equally divides a day, such as 2,3,4,6,8, or 12 hours, recording will
be aligned to the realtime clock. That is, if you have a cut time of 12 hours, yet start
recording at 11am, a new file will be created at 12pm to cover 12pm-12am. The Blue Iris
BVR file format allows for appending and continuation across camera or software restarts,
however, so this effect will be mitigated when possible.
The Cut video when triggered with break time option can be used with continuous
recording such that each new file created always begins with a trigger event. The cut will
occur only if there’s been at least a specified amount of time where the camera remained in
a non-triggered state (a break time).
By default the software does not record video when there’s a “no signal” or “inactive”
condition displayed. Of course, there’s an option to override this.
Snapshots
Periodic JPEG images may be saved to a specific folder that’s been defined on the Clips page
in Settings—by default the New folder.
As with video files, it’s possible to override the file format for snapshots as well, but the
same naming restrictions apply here as well.
There’s an option to save an image only when triggered. Depending on your timing for
trigger break time and snapshot interval, one or more images may be saved.
You may select the quality in percentage to use for the JPEG compression.
By default, snapshots are included on the Clips list “all” view and in the timeline view. You
may wish to remove these with an option here. Snapshots will still always show in camera
specific lists and folder-specific lists (New, Stored, etc).
Alert images
An alert image is a special kind of clips database entry. It is taken at the leading edge of a
trigger and acts as “bookmark” into a video file to mark the position of an event. The clips
list has a filter to show just the alert images, and these are managed as dependents of the
actual video file to which they refer—that is when the video is deleted, so too are its alert
images. As there may be many more alert images than video files, they have their own
schedule for automatic deletion on the Clips page in Settings.
It’s possible to ask the software to create full-resolution JPEG files for alert images along
with the “postage stamp” size images in the database. When this option is used, the alerts
folder may be configured to actually move these to another folder instead of deleting them
after a period of time, and at that point they become regular JPEG snapshots in the database
rather than special “alert images.”
Video file format and compression
This page controls the video file-type that’s used, and whether it is modified prior to
storage.
It’s recommended that you retain the default, yet proprietary, BVR file format. There are a
great many software features which rely on this simple flat-file format. It’s the only one
offered that may be played at the same time that it’s also open for active writing for
example. It’s the only one that may be used for multiple-camera timeline playback. It also
offers the best overall experience with remote viewing. Select another format only if
absolutely required by a particular use-case. You can always use the Trim/Convert/Export tool from the clip viewer to save it into another “export format” later on if you need to share
the video.
Direct-to-disc
This option may be used to save considerable CPU time. Video taken from a network IP
camera stream is directly saved to disc without re-encoding it. There are some
disadvantages to this however:
•Recording may only begin on a key frame boundary. Check that your camera is sending
sufficient key frames on the Cameras page in Status.
•Video overlays are not saved. This includes the time/date stamp as well as others you may
have added.
•Cannot be used with time-lapse options. All video frames must be saved, as each frame
relies on the previous one in order to be decoder for display.
•You may want to alter the quality, size, or other video characteristics.
•May only be used by network IP cameras with H.264 or H.265 streams.
•May not be used by analog or USB cameras, unless it’s an uncommon source that supplies
H.264 or H.265 video.
Re-encoding
If this is your only option or you have CPU cycles to spare, you may choose to re-encode the
video prior to saving to the disc. Only H.264 is offered at this time, but a number of
encoding parameters are configurable. Recording parameters may be saved as “profiles” and
you may select which profile to use for each camera.
If your Nvidia hardware supports encoding (NVENC) you may choose to enable this here.
Many cards, if they support this at all, only support a maximum of 2 sessions. If an error
occurs using hardware encoding, this is always noted to the Messages page in Status, and
the software “falls back” to software-based encoding.
When recording, this is typically best done “quality based” or VBR (Variable Bit Rate). Only
consider use of the rate control feature when encoding for streaming, not recording. The
keyframe interval is also best in the 15-30 range for recording, but can be much higher (300
or so) for remote streaming applications.
In the advanced section, there’s an option to change the preset from the default of superfast
or to remove the zero frame rate latency option. Changing these has the possibility of
increasing overall image quality during re-encoding, but always at the expense of more CPU
resource.
The HLS (sec) setting is only relevant when hosting an HTTP Live Stream session via the
Blue Iris web server, and this is not commonly done.
More options
The Queue new clips for backup setting works in conjunction with the clip backup
function configured on the Clips page in Settings, described later in this chapter. A
clip (either a video or a snapshot) will show a cloud icon in the clips list when it’s queued.
You may choose to have new clips automatically marked as read-only (protected).
These clips will show a padlock icon in the clips list. Use caution with this setting, as
these clips will not be automatically moved or deleted by rules established on the Clips page
in Settings, possibly resulting in a disc full condition.
MANUAL RECORDING
Use the video camera icon at the top of the main window to manually start and stop
recording on the selected camera. By default, this provides only 30 seconds of
recording—this may be adjusted on the Cameras page in Settings.
CLIP FOLDERS
By default, there are four folders configured to store recordings—Database, New, Stored, and
Alerts. More precisely, only New and Stored are used to store video files; the Database folder
hosts a series of .dat files which are used by the software to keep track of the other folders ,and the Alerts folder will be empty unless you have asked for hi-res alert images on the
Record tab in camera settings.
There are several other folders which may be configured as well. By default, new recording
is made to the New folder, but you may select another folder on the camera’s Record page in
settings.
Click on a folder name in the folder list to edit its location and other parameters. You can
also rename a folder directly on the list by slowly double-clicking—sometimes called a “click
and a half.”
Each folder may be configured to reference a different volume or drive entirely—so
excluding the Alerts folder, that is a total of nine possible drives. Although New and Database
should remain on your fastest storage possible because of frequent access, the only other
requirement is that these folders not be “nested” in any way—db should not be inside of the
New folder, or vice-versa for example. If accidentally configured this way, it will not be
possible to leave the page or click Ok.
By default, even though configured on the same drive, the New and Stored folders are
configured to “cascade.” Recordings begin in the New folder, and then later moved to
Stored after a period of time, and then finally deleted after another period of time.
Camera—>New—>Stored—>Trash
0 days 7 days 14 days
Often the Stored folder is configured as a NAS (Network Attached Storage, usually Ethernet)
or other external storage (USB etc) and the concept of cascading is appropriate. It is common and reasonable to use a single storage folder scheme instead by configuring the
New folder to delete rather than move to Stored.
Each folder is given a size (in gigabytes) and an age (in days and hours). Once a folder
reaches either occupancy limit, always the oldest clips in that folder are moved or deleted in
sequence until order is restored.
It is important to set the size accurately and to insure it will actually “fit” onto the drive. If
you ask the software to use too much space, this is called an overallocation and the software
will complain about it in a number of ways, notably with a message at the bottom of the
main window that looks like !! C: -26.3GB meaning you asked for 26.3GB more on the C:
drive than you actually have. This does not mean the drive is currently out of space, but if not
addressed, the drive will run out of space, and that will lead to other complications and
instability.
It is important to know that the age is absolute, not relative or cumulative. This means if
New is set to move to Stored at 7 days, and then Stored is set to delete at 14 days, the file will
be deleted 14 days after it was captured, not 21.
Use the option to Recycle instead of Delete cautiously. This requires more system
resources, and can be user-specific. If you are running as a service, you should be running
with a named user account, not Local Service if you are considering use of the Recycle bin. The
option to Not monitor free space should also be used on rare occasion—if the software has
trouble reading free space from a drive, it may also indicate a problem with accessibility due
to running the service improperly.
The Clip storage page in Status offers a visual overview of your storage settings:
Here we see an overallocation as we’ve selected 15 GB for the New folder and 30 GB for
Stored. This will not fit on the drive by over 22GB. The first line shows the drive’s size,
used space (in blue) and free space (in black). The next line shows your Blue Iris folders
which are configured to use this drive—used space is blue, unused space is black, but the red
indicates requested space which will not fit onto the drive. This must be corrected to
prevent the drive from eventually running out of space as new clips are created.
By lowing the total requested space to 15GB, here is the new chart:
The green space on the C: drive now represents extra space or “headroom.” A drive should
always be configured with enough headroom for a complete clip from each camera that’s
recording to that drive, along with space for Windows temp files etc. Do NOT attempt to
allocate or use every last (giga) byte on the drive!
THE DATABASE AND CLIPS LIST
As discussed, because of constant access, the database folder should remain on your fastest
local storage. It is the database that determines how much of each folder is currently
occupied, as well as what is shown on the clips and alerts lists. There are a number of ways
to filter this, but if a discrepancy is found, you can Repair the database either with a button
on the Storage page in Status, or via a right-click menu in the Clips list, Database—>Repair/
Regenerate.
Database maintenance is ran each 5 minutes. This is the function that actually deletes and
moves files between folders according to the rules defined. You may start it manually at any
time with right-click menu option in Clips, Database—>Run maintenance.
Database compact/repair is normally performed each night at 2am. The primary purpose
of this function is to remove “holes” in the database produced by deleted records. It is
typically a short process, but recording is suspended during this time. If 2am is not a good
time to pause recording, you may wish to change this time, or disable it altogether and
perform it manually on occasion by using the right-click menu option in Clips, Database—Compact/Repair.
To better audit “what happened” to clips and why they were deleted, you may wish to enable
the option to Log clip move/delete details.
Each folder’s statistics appear in the format 240/336 hrs, 69.6M/30.0G, 20.4G free. This
indicates:
240 the oldest file in the folder (hours).
336 the maximum age set for the folder
69.6M the occupancy or what’s in the folder
30.0G the maximum size set for the folder
20.4G the actual free space o the drive
An error condition here indicates the C: drive will run out of space due to overallocation:
C: the drive
9 the number of clips
1.89G the storage space on the drive used by Blue Iris
45.0G the amount of space you configured to use on the drive
-22.6G the amount of the overallocation
Clips list filters
Fold/unfold the clips list. When unfolded, the live video is hidden and the clips list
occupies the entire main window UI above the timeline view.
Show triggered alert images. An alert image is captured by default when a camera is
triggered and lives only as a postage stamp in the database. It is a “bookmark” into
an actual clip video file. When you open an alert image, the corresponding video file
is opened at the appropriate time of the triggered alert. Alert images may have
corresponding JPEG files, but only when an option is set on the Record page in
camera settings.
Show clips, which are actual video files and JPEG snapshots. By default, All clips are
shown. You can select from a folder list to display only files in a particular folder
(that is, New, Stored, etc.). Also, if one of these folders has subfolders, you may
continue to “drill down” into the file structure.
Show flagged items. Flagged items may include a combination of clips (files) and
triggered alert images. Flagged items are marked with purple flags in both the clips
list and the timeline view.
Use the Calendar icon to filter the clips list to display only items from one particular
day. Click it again and use the Clear/Cancel button to return to the display of all
items.
A red dot on a day indicates clips or alert images on that day.
Use the Solo icon to filter the clips list to display only items from one particular
camera—the selected camera. If you are using the live view’s camera solo function,
the clips list will already be filtered, and it is unnecessary to use this option as well.
Toggle the sort order—either newest first, or oldest first.
Clips list context menu
Several options are repeated on this menu, however many are available here solely.
You may just double-click an item on the clips list, or click once and then use the Enter key
to Open it in the viewer window.
You may “hold down” an item on the clips list to toggle its Flagged status. With an option
on Clips in Settings, flagged items may be automatically marked as Protected as well. A
protected item (also called read-only) is not automatically moved or deleted by database
maintenance. Use this with caution, as this can lead to a disc full condition if too many
items are protected.
Items may be selected for FTP backup and/or batch Convert/Export. These topics are
discussed in sections below. The View menu may be used to select a managed folder or one
of the these queues.
You may Print a JPEG snapshot directly from this menu. It’s also possible to manually
Move or Delete a file.
The clip may be moved to a another managed folder, or you may create a sub-folder in the
clip’s current folder. You may also copy the file or export it. When you export here, the
clip is deleted from Blue Iris.
Note that an alert image cannot be moved, copied, or exported here unless it has an
associated JPEG file created using the hi-res option on the Record tab in camera settings.
Recall that an alert image is normally just a database entry referencing an actual clip.
Furthermore, deleting an alert image does not delete its associated video clip.
Normally, only clips from visible cameras are shown. If you’d prefer to see all clips
regardless, use the Include clips from excluded cameras option.
CLIP PLAYBACK AND THE VIEWER WINDOW
Double-click a clip or alert image on the clips list to open the video for playback. It’s also
possible to drag and drop a file from Windows into the main window UI to open it for
playback.
Note that only BVR clips may be opened for viewing while they are still open for recording.
Use the video position slider or the timeline view to “scrub” through the video. A video file
that was recorded using the When triggered setting on the Record page in camera settings will
only contain video at the times indicated by yellow in the timeline.
A full-screen option for the viewer is available as well as a mute and volume control
separate from the live clips window. Live camera audio will be automatically muted
while the viewer window is open.
Use of the Trim button is described in a section below.
Close the viewer by using the Esc key or the X button.
Digital zoom
Use the mouse wheel over a camera window to zoom in digitally (the camera lens does not
actually move). When zoomed in, the mouse cursor will become a “hand” icon and may be
used to scroll around.
Use the mouse wheel again to zoom out, or you will find a Zoom out command on the
right-click menu.
The sense of the mouse wheel may be reversed using a setting on the Other page in
Settings.
Viewer context menu
Several options are repeated on this menu, however many are available here solely.
At the End of the video you may select to Stop, Loop, or go to the Next video. When playing
back a video opened via an alert image, there may be several events played. Note that
moving to the Next video in this case would open the next alert image on the list, possibly re
playing some of the events already viewed.
For video recorded from a camera with a fish-eye lens, you may choose the way in which it is
displayed with the 360 degree de-warp menu.
Regional creates a panoramic scene where you may use the mouse to drag the image left and
right to view a section of the video at a time.
Panoramic creates a 2-row version of the panoramic scene, not requiring you to scroll
through the image.
Hemispheric may be used to correct the fish-eye effect for cameras mounted on a wall or
doorway.
Use the HQ scaling option for a higher-quality image (at the expense of more CPU of
course).
You may copy the current viewer image to the clipboard at the maximum resolution of the
source regardless of how it’s scaled for display.
The Test run video through motion detector feature can be used to fine-tune your
camera’s motion sensor settings found on the Motion sensor page from the Trigger page in
camera settings.
• This is available for BVR files only
• Works best with clips captured using “direct to disc” recording or ones without added
motion highlighting
• Position the video about 3 seconds before an event—this will give the motion sensor time
to “learn” the video before it can begin to actually discriminate motion
• Begin playback at 1x up to 8x normal speed.
• Masked areas (no zone coverage) will be drawn in black
• Motion will be highlighted and rectangles drawn around objects
• When there’s significant motion, a trigger state will cause object rectangles and the viewer
window border to be drawn in yellow.
• Don’t forget to turn off this mode when you are finished with it!
If you ask for assistance with fine-tuning your motion detection, you may be asked to supply
a BVR file to be used for this purpose. It should have several seconds of time before the
event of interest—either something that is triggering that should not, or something that
should not trigger, but does anyway. Supplying a clip which begins immediately at the time
of trigger is generally insufficient to adequately train the motion detector.
THE SPEED SLIDER
This single control, reminiscent of a “jog shuttle” control, allows control of both playback
speed and direction, and can be used in several ways.
You can click on the play and pause icons for basic playback control.
The dots immediately to the left and right of the pause icon are used for frame stepping and
slow motion.
Click anywhere on the control further to the left or right for high-speed playback in either
direction, up to 256x.
You can click and drag the blue ring for interactive speed control. Release the ring to return
to the previously selected speed position.
These icons are used to either jump forward or backward by 30 seconds, or to
move to the next or previous alert or file, depending on the mode and type of file
that is open for playback.
TIMELINE PLAYBACK
Double-click anywhere in the timeline view to enter timeline playback. Use the Esc key or the
X icon to close.
Timeline playback opens a display with a camera layout similar to the live camera display.
All clips which were open for recording at the time represented by the green position
indicator and timecode will be opened for playback. You can reposition by clicking
anywhere in the timeline view, or clicking and dragging to “scrub” the video.
It’s also possible to click and drag the date and time bar at the top of the timeline while
playback is paused.
Use the mouse wheel or the vertical layout sider to increase or decrease the zoom level.
When substantially zoomed-in, alert images will be displayed.
The speed slider may be used as it was for normal clip playback.
Use these icons to jump to the previous or next alert position respectively. If
there is no alert visible on the timeline view to which to jump, these buttons will
jump backward or forward by a time represented by 1/2 of the visible timeline.
Use the calendar icon to jump immediately to a date of interest.
If audio is enabled, audio is played from the selected camera’s video when the playback
speed is 1x forward. Click a camera’s video window to select that camera.
Double-click a camera’s video window while in timeline playback to directly open the
source clip for normal clip playback. You may use all clip viewer functionality available such
as Trim/Export. Return to timeline playback by using the Esc key, or completely close the
viewer window by using the X icon.
TRIM, CONVERT, EXPORT
With a BVR clip open in the viewer, you may optionally use the green and red
crop icons to set the beginning and ending position for trim or export. For a
more precise frame selection, you can instead right-click in the viewer
window and use the Set start frame and Set end frame options. Then use
the Export button found at the top-left of the viewer window:
The output format may be one of AVI, MP4, or WMV (Windows Media). Microsoft has
largely deprecated AVI and WMV. In order to share your video with others, you should
select MP4. Using the 2-pass for fast open option for MP4 files makes the MP4 easier to
use on a web server and may make it easier for an OS to generate a preview image.
It is necessary to re-encode the video:
• if the source file contains MJPEG instead of MPEG4, H.264 or H.265
• if you will be using the time-lapse feature
• if you wish to add the camera’s text and graphic overlays which were not recorded due to
use of direct-to-disc recording
• if you require a more precise start time and the trim position is not at the beginning of the
video, due to the fact that recording (and export) may only begin on a key-frame
• if you desire to change the frame size or the video quality
Re-encoding however will be much slower and CPU intensive than exporting otherwise.
A time-lapse video may be created if you select to re-encode but do not select to include
the audio track. You may directly choose the target relative playback speed as well as the
maximum frames/second to output.
Output file
You may select to either replace the current file or to create a new one. When you replace
the file, the original file in the clips list database will be replaced. It’s worth noting that any
alert images associated with the clip will likely lose their ability to accurately point to
positions of interest in the clip.
When you create a new file, this should generally be to a location outside of any folder that’s
managed by Blue Iris. If you do choose a Blue Iris folder, it will be added to the database as
a “new” item at the top of the list—it may be possible to resort the list to move it to the
correct position in the timeline by running the database repair (right-click in the clips list).
Batch export
To batch convert/export one or more BVR clips, first select them on the clips list, and then
right-click to select Convert/Export from the popup menu:
You can display a list of clips waiting for batch export by right-clicking in the clips window
and selecting View—>Convert/Export queue. It should be possible to remove items from this
queue if necessary by selecting and using the Del key.
It’s not possible to use the time-lapse option with the batch export queue.
Please note that the Convert/Export queue currently has a single export folder setting. If
you select additional clips for export and change this folder, you will be changing the folder
that’s used for the remainder of the clips in the queue. This folder must not be a folder
managed by the software.
Convert with folder move
With an option on the Clips page in Settings, you may select to automatically add clips to
the Convert/Export queue as they are moved between folders as part of clip folder and
database maintenance.
The same restrictions apply to this as with manual batch export. Note that if you are not
replacing the original files, there is a single export folder for the queue at any one time.
MP4 and AVI playability
Many Windows systems are not properly configured to playback MP4 files. Furthermore,
AVI files created here have H.264 video content, which may have the same issue. A popular
and recommend package to install that will allow a Windows systems to play these files is
available here:
https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
Only the basic install is required, without additional software it may attempt to install.
FTP CLIP BACKUP
The clips list maintains a queue of clips to be uploaded to an FTP server of your
choice. Clips in this queue are marked with a cloud icon which will turn green when
upload is complete. You may view and edit this queue by right-clicking in the clips window
and selecting View—>FTP backup queue.
Clips may be automatically added to this queue as soon as they are closed by the camera
using an option on the Record page in camera settings. You may also add them to the queue
manually using a right-click option in the clips list. Finally, clips may also be added to this
queue as they are moved between folders by the clips and database maintenance operation.
To edit the designation server and other parameters for this feature, use the Configure
button to the right of the Queue for backup checkbox on the Clips page in Settings.
This Configure button is used for all clips in the queue regardless of whether or not you are using
the Queue for backup function on the Clips page.
You may enable or temporarily disable the queue here. You may select a time range during
which the queue may operate.
By default the filename used will be the clip’s same filename from the clips folder. You may
instead specify another format. Time formatting codes may be used to prevent filename
conflicts—please see the complete list found at the end of the Alerts and Actions chapter.
GLOBAL VIEWER OPTIONS
These are found on the Other page in Settings.
Upon use of either the Snapshot or Video buttons, the viewer window may be
immediately opened.
You may select whether to begin playback automatically. You may select what occurs at
the end of the video as well, although this is also selectable via a right-click option in the
viewer window as described under the Viewer context menu topic.
For timeline playback, it’s possible to have the software recognize large portions of time
where “nothing is happening” and to automatically move forward to the next event by
enabling this Skip dead-air option.