Continuous Recording but only move Alerts to Stored?

[EpicLPer]

Heya,

is there any way to have the following setup:
I want to Continuously record everything, however only want to keep those files for ~5 days. After those 5 days I only want to store the Alerts to save space that way.

If that's possible, how would I do that? Afaik setting cameras to "Continuous + Alerts" only generates database entries for those alerts linking to the Continuous recording, but doesn't separately save any Alert files.

[YrbkMgr]

The alerts folder houses Hi-Res JPEG snapshots and DeepStack dat files. That's it. Video lives in New. Retention settings in Clips & Archiving determines what happens when the New folder meets the retention criteria - delete, backup, convert, move, etc. Using the C&A feature makes storage limitless and automatic. Set it and forget it. That way you don't have to manually do anything - and shouldn't because Blue Iris is a Video Management System (VMS), and the database keeps track of where everything is and where it was moved.

The calendar in the Clips list will show a red dot where there is video based on the Clips list filter, making it a breeze to find anything anywhere that the database knows about.

BI Clips Calendar 2.JPG (53.56 KiB) Viewed 5706 times

[EpicLPer]

So there is no way to only keep Triggered video after a specific amount of time and I have to keep continuous footage for whatever days I set in the "Stored" tab?

[YrbkMgr]

No, you misunderstand me - first, know this, it's confusing as all get out until you dig in. It's like Photoshop that way. Maybe you already know this but this might help.

All video goes to the New folder - no video is stored in the Alerts folder by default. C&A allows you to set when and what to do with files when a folder reaches your parameters. If you only want video for 5 days, you configure the New folder in C&A for that. You can then move to stored, or delete, or whatever. But that's where you tell it how many days to keep video.

The alerts folder has nothing to do with video.

[MikeBwca]

So there is no way to only keep Triggered video after a specific amount of time and I have to keep continuous footage for whatever days I set in the "Stored" tab?

For Continuous Recordings, Alerts are 'pointers' to the alerts in the continuous bvr files, and not separate video files.
Yes, this would save a lot of space, but is not possible. As Russians would say... 'Is potato'.

This may be a good feature update request... Export all alerts from continuous bvr's before deleting/moving.

Other than individually Exporting each clip in the 'Clips list/Alerts' tab one-by-one!, there are a few options...

Change the Cameras Recording to 'When Triggered'.
I don't like this option either. I want Continuous recording on all main cameras.

If you want Continuous & Separate Files for each alert managed by BI...
- Clone the camera, and set it's recording to 'When Triggered'. You can then set retention greater than that of the Master camera's continuous 5 days. Another benefit is you can set different Zone(s) & triggering to narrow the Alert recordings. There's a bit of overhead using this method, but you'll get to keep the alerts for as long as you want.


I've run into this same issue in the past, and have experimented with ''FTP Backup' unsuccessfully. I couldn't figure out how to setup a ftp server jsut for me with no outside access. My plan was to setup a ftp server, and manually select the clips in 'Clips List/Alerts' and queue them. This would simplify exporting several clips (for continuous recording). I ended up Cloning the camera and setting it as 'When Triggered'. Hummmm, I may try again.

[EpicLPer]

So there is no way to only keep Triggered video after a specific amount of time and I have to keep continuous footage for whatever days I set in the "Stored" tab?

For Continuous Recordings, Alerts are 'pointers' to the alerts in the continuous bvr files, and not separate video files.
Yes, this would save a lot of space, but is not possible. As Russians would say... 'Is potato'.

This may be a good feature update request... Export all alerts from continuous bvr's before deleting/moving.

Other than individually Exporting each clip in the 'Clips list/Alerts' tab one-by-one!, there are a few options...

Change the Cameras Recording to 'When Triggered'.
I don't like this option either. I want Continuous recording on all main cameras.

If you want Continuous & Separate Files for each alert managed by BI...
- Clone the camera, and set it's recording to 'When Triggered'. You can then set retention greater than that of the Master camera's continuous 5 days. Another benefit is you can set different Zone(s) & triggering to narrow the Alert recordings. There's a bit of overhead using this method, but you'll get to keep the alerts for as long as you want.


I've run into this same issue in the past, and have experimented with ''FTP Backup' unsuccessfully. I couldn't figure out how to setup a ftp server jsut for me with no outside access. My plan was to setup a ftp server, and manually select the clips in 'Clips List/Alerts' and queue them. This would simplify exporting several clips (for continuous recording). I ended up Cloning the camera and setting it as 'When Triggered'. Hummmm, I may try again.

That sounds like a good (and so far only) approach but at the cost of double the CPU usage, or at least huge spikes when cameras get triggered.
I may actually do a request for that to be implemented, cause keeping days/weeks/months of continuous recordings just sounds wasteful to me. I only want to spend 600GB max on Continuous and 1TB max for saved footage on my NAS for a year or so.

[GavinCampbell]

So there is no way to only keep Triggered video after a specific amount of time and I have to keep continuous footage for whatever days I set in the "Stored" tab?

If you want Continuous & Separate Files for each alert managed by BI...
- Clone the camera, and set it's recording to 'When Triggered'. You can then set retention greater than that of the Master camera's continuous 5 days. Another benefit is you can set different Zone(s) & triggering to narrow the Alert recordings. There's a bit of overhead using this method, but you'll get to keep the alerts for as long as you want.


I've run into this same issue in the past, and have experimented with ''FTP Backup' unsuccessfully. I couldn't figure out how to setup a ftp server jsut for me with no outside access. My plan was to setup a ftp server, and manually select the clips in 'Clips List/Alerts' and queue them. This would simplify exporting several clips (for continuous recording). I ended up Cloning the camera and setting it as 'When Triggered'. Hummmm, I may try again.

That sounds like a good (and so far only) approach but at the cost of double the CPU usage, or at least huge spikes when cameras get triggered.
I may actually do a request for that to be implemented, cause keeping days/weeks/months of continuous recordings just sounds wasteful to me. I only want to spend 600GB max on Continuous and 1TB max for saved footage on my NAS for a year or so.

Actually the cloning is probably what you want.

Add all your camera's and mark them as the clone master in the camera settings. Then configure them for continunous recording and only. You can then configure your recordings to keep them for however long or whatever amount of space you want to use.

Now the good part. Clone them. The clone won't add any CPU and will just utilize the same stream as the original. You can see this in the BI status page. The masters will be the only ones with the bitrate. Clones will not. Now configure your clones with all the notifications, alerts, recordings etc that you want and work with them.

When done, take a look at your CPU. As long as you have everything tweaked (such as using sub streams) the hit on your cpu will be low. I have 10 cameras + 10 clones running on my system using less than 20% cpu. Slight spikes yes, but nothing major.

This is how I have mine setup. All of my cameras record 24/7 but I have them added to a dashboard that I hide. I then utilize all of the clones for alerts etc. If I miss something or need some more footage I can then refer to the full recordings to get what I want. Its more of a "just in case" scenario.