Blue Iris video feed "proprietary formatting" (for Apple TV)

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senojsitruc
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Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:35 pm

Blue Iris video feed "proprietary formatting" (for Apple TV)

Post by senojsitruc »

I'm trying to find some documentation. I'd like to add some basic Blue Iris integration to my Apple TV app (discover and stream cameras, to start). Starting on page 151 of the user manual is the JSON API for getting camera info, which is the first thing I need. Just above that (in the same document) are some examples on how to get a video feed. In particular, two stand out as viable options:

1. /h264/{cam-short-name}/temp.h264. Pull a raw H.264 stream (MIME type video/H264). This stream will play in a tool like VLC, and may be used in future versions of the ActiveX control.
2. /video/{cam-short-name}. Used by client apps to pull an H.264-encoded video stream with proprietary formatting.

This raises a few questions though.

1. What if a camera feed is h265?
2. Or does BI transcode everything to h264?
3. What are the details on this proprietary formatting?
4. How does a client app synchronize the audio stream to the video stream?
5. Is there timing information in the "proprietary formatting"?

I'd really appreciate any assistance understanding BI integration, so that I don't go down the wrong path with this.

Thanks!
systemr
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:54 am

Re: Blue Iris video feed "proprietary formatting" (for Apple TV)

Post by systemr »

Late reply, but I got this working using some open source Homekit software. I can view all of my BI cams on the Apple Home app and on the Apple TV.

The software is https://homebridge.io/ and the instructions for adding cameras from BI are at https://sunoo.github.io/homebridge-came ... -Iris.html

Hope that helps. It's been very reliable for me, running for at least a year now.
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terk
Posts: 175
Joined: Tue Jun 18, 2019 2:36 pm

Re: Blue Iris video feed "proprietary formatting" (for Apple TV)

Post by terk »

systemr wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:59 am Late reply, but I got this working using some open source Homekit software. I can view all of my BI cams on the Apple Home app and on the Apple TV.

The software is https://homebridge.io/ and the instructions for adding cameras from BI are at https://sunoo.github.io/homebridge-came ... -Iris.html

Hope that helps. It's been very reliable for me, running for at least a year now.
Where do you go on your Apple TV to see your HomeBridge cameras? Thanks.
systemr
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:54 am

Re: Blue Iris video feed "proprietary formatting" (for Apple TV)

Post by systemr »

Press and hold the TV button on the remote and it appears on screen as shown here.

https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/use- ... 49664/tvos
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terk
Posts: 175
Joined: Tue Jun 18, 2019 2:36 pm

Re: Blue Iris video feed "proprietary formatting" (for Apple TV)

Post by terk »

systemr wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 5:33 am Press and hold the TV button on the remote and it appears on screen as shown here.

https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/use- ... 49664/tvos
Thanks, I always thought there should be a way to interact with the HomeKit objects from the Apple TV (although unless I'm missing something it seems limited to cameras). I had to track down the Apple TV remote and charge it to try it, I usually use a Harmony remote which doesn't seem to do that command.
systemr
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Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:54 am

Re: Blue Iris video feed "proprietary formatting" (for Apple TV)

Post by systemr »

terk wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 4:44 am
systemr wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 5:33 am Press and hold the TV button on the remote and it appears on screen as shown here.

https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/use- ... 49664/tvos
Thanks, I always thought there should be a way to interact with the HomeKit objects from the Apple TV (although unless I'm missing something it seems limited to cameras). I had to track down the Apple TV remote and charge it to try it, I usually use a Harmony remote which doesn't seem to do that command.
The remote is definitely the worst part of Apple TV. If you have an iOS device, you can use the remote on the iPhone, although confusingly the separate Remote app no longer works with TVOS 15, but the built-in option from the Control Center does.

TVOS 15 adds the ability to view all the cameras in a grid. It actually works pretty well.
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