Clarification question on Combine or Cut

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teredactle
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:13 pm

Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by teredactle »

Hi gang,

New user here, I am currently using the trial version to see if this will be a good option for me. I am using this for my baby monitor camera. I like to keep some days of his sleeping, tossing and turning. Even though the camera uses a SD card, that is manually too much work to sort through the 1 minute clips, combine them, etc, et to have a single video PER day.

So I am using BI to automate this for me. Camera is pointed on the crib, I have set up motion detection/triggers, etc, have tested using clips each time he moves in the crib. Working pretty well I'd say.

So my question on "Combine". I understand that if you select a number of hours that 24h is divisible by, those videos will be split accordingly. I.e. 8hours means 3 videos (theoretically).

>>I just want a single video per day. Assuming the total number of motion detected videos clips would add up to 3 hours, can I use 24hours in the setting, in which case it would create a single daily video? I don't believe the video length would even reach 500MB, so I'm not worried in this respect, although I have max set for 4GB.

This if for night time, but I may also leave it for his afternoon naps; video is B&W (via the IR lights on the camera) as the room is always made dark for his sleeps..

Thanks in advance.

If anyone else is using this for the same purpose, I would appreciate any tips on optimizing the motion detection and triggering; I believe it's ok, but hard to say w/o comparing the detected clips versus a full nighttime video to see if everything was detected.
teredactle
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:13 pm

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by teredactle »

It doesn't look like this is working as expected. I have set the hour setting to 24 hours (and size to 4GB), however I am seeing more than 1 file created. I am saving the files as MP4 format, not BVR. The help file mentions BVR format, however I don't think this is the issue as the MP4 files have more than 1 clip of motion combined.

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.

Does anyone know if a 24 hour period is supported here (or what I should have as the setting for hours, if 24 is not supported)?

Thanks
teredactle
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:13 pm

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by teredactle »

I posted a reply to this with more info, was never approved. Not sure what is the point of this forum then.

Basically I would like to know if what I am trying to do is supported, in that if I set the time as 24 hours on the Combine or Cut option, will it combine all the motion triggered events into 1 daily file.

I was ready to buy this software, but it seems that with the time set for 24 hours, I am getting several files (4) which I would expect to have if it was set for 6 hours.

Is this a bug?
MikeBwca
Posts: 1115
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:39 am

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by MikeBwca »

According to the BI help, the Combine or cut examples are: 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 12 hours.

I've tried 12 hours, but not 24. I use 6 hrs. I'll try one camera at 24 hrs.
teredactle
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:13 pm

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by teredactle »

Thanks, would appreciate it if you would post back with the result.

I'm using MP4, and this function doesn't work as expected, if I put in 12H it still splits videos in more than 2.
Tried BVR with 24H, and still got 2 videos.

Not sure if either option would be affected by let's say, video connection failing, then reconnecting, or other disruptions "network" related. From what I gather, the BVR mode can patch these sort of disruptions, but not the MP4 streams.

Having to convert/encode the BVR to MP4 is too much for my system (I have a Xeon 1255v3), so I will stick to MP4, combining the clips this way is super fast with ffmpeg and I have a script that I wrote to do it.

Another poster on reddit said he tried 24H for BVR and it created 1 file, but it didn't work for me.
teredactle
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:13 pm

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by teredactle »

Also, just some further things I've noticed here.

If saving to MP4, and selecting the time divisions 2/4/6/8/12, the file doesn't get cut properly. I.E.
I would like it to start a new file after midnight, that way I can just combine the clips for the full day, but I see that isn't working with MP4.

How would I go about getting some official confirmation as to the limitations of this feature, using direct to disk mp4 writes? I would like to get this information before I spend money on this software; the help file is just ok, but it lacks examples and better explanation, as well as a legit "this feature only works on BVR files, not MP4" messaging for features where it's necessary to understand this.
MikeBwca
Posts: 1115
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:39 am

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by MikeBwca »

After changing one camera to 'Combine or cut' 24 hrs, it does indeed cut at 24hrs. I'm also using Direct-To-Disk BI DVR.
teredactle
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:13 pm

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by teredactle »

MikeBwca wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 2:29 am After changing one camera to 'Combine or cut' 24 hrs, it does indeed cut at 24hrs. I'm also using Direct-To-Disk BI DVR.
Interesting, thanks for posting back!
I assume it cuts at midnight, so the 24h video is from 00:00:01 to 11:59:59?
MikeBwca
Posts: 1115
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:39 am

Re: Clarification question on Combine or Cut

Post by MikeBwca »

Yes, from 12:00:00AM to 23:59:59PM.
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