Blue Iris 5, constructive criticism

[1.21 jiggawatts!]

-would be nice if i could resize the clips window.

- would be nice if i can resize the timeline.

- when viewing all the cameras, having the PTZ controls visible seems useless and not necessary because they can't be used to control anything. would be nice if the PTZ controls popped up only when viewing a single camera. also, would be nice if you can choose to put the controls on the side of the image instead of the bottom.

the above 3 are important to me because i view on a 13" laptop screen from about 8 feet away. the size of the images wasn't a problem in BI4.

-would be nice to also be able to export footage based on inputting a start and end time and date for a particular camera.

 

[bradner]

- when viewing all the cameras, having the PTZ controls visible seems useless and not necessary because they can't be used to control anything. would be nice if the PTZ controls popped up only when viewing a single camera. also, would be nice if you can choose to put the controls on the side of the image instead of the bottom.

The PTZ controls being visible allow me to single click on a camera and control it's PTZ functions when I have a bunch of cam preview windows up, I find that control useful. You can hide the PTZ controls by clicking on the arrows icon at the upper left if you find them not useful.

 

[1.21 jiggawatts!]

but what i am saying is why not have the ptz controls show after you single click the camera?

when viewing 4 cameras live, the ptz controls don't do anything. they are greyed out. it just takes up space. i can hide it but then i have to click the ptz button to bring it up again after i click on the camera.

 

[bradner]

but what i am saying is why not have the ptz controls show after you single click the camera?

when viewing 4 cameras live, the ptz controls don't do anything. they are greyed out. it just takes up space. i can hide it but then i have to click the ptz button to bring it up again after i click on the camera.

I gotcha, like having BI remember which cams are PTZ's and the controls pop up only when you single click one of those cameras - interesting idea! That would clean up the screen faster for sure doing it that way.

 

[bp2008]

The developer of Blue Iris does not read these forums.

In case you were not aware, you can click the upper-right button in the clips panel to make it fill the Blue Iris window. That is the only way you get to resize it. Note that while the clip list is expanded in this way, there's a bug if you click the timeline -- the clip list will try to scroll to the selected time, but it calculates the scroll offset based on there only being one column, so it scrolls you way too far down. (if this bug bothers anyone, be sure to report it to BI support -- I've been too lazy)

Having PTZ controls disappear to save space instead of graying out would mean a very jarring change to the UI layout whenever they toggled on or off. But I don't see any downsides otherwise.

There are ways to control PTZ without the buttons showing by the way. See the help file:

Select PTZ w/mouse cursor to allow the user to adjust camera position by clicking directly
on the camera window. This applies only when the camera is solo or in a full-screen mode.

You can also go to Blue Iris Settings > Joystick to set up a joystick for PTZ control, or Blue Iris Settings > Keyboard shortcuts to set up keyboard shortcuts for PTZ.

 

[djernie]

A 13" screen, sorry but that's just too small for me. And from 8 ft away. I know every ones situation is different. I found a 32" monitor on sale for 80 bucks and i am currently viewing 8 cameras on that and will be adding more cameras. I have blu iris cycling every 4 seconds to full screen and going directly to the camera that has motion when it its detected. I have the timeline and ptz controls hidden until i use them.

 

[1.21 jiggawatts!]

You can also go to Blue Iris Settings > Joystick to set up a joystick for PTZ control, or Blue Iris Settings > Keyboard shortcuts to set up keyboard shortcuts for PTZ.

using the keyboard shortcuts to control PTZ, i find it is very laggy. i changed the key repeat rate and repeat delay but it doesn't help. any advice?


also, i hooked up a USB nintendo controller and it works for controlling the up, down, left, right PTZ. the A B, A&B turbo buttons control PTZ preset numbers. is there any way to map the A & B buttons to the Zoom function? if not, can you recommend a joystick?