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Blue Iris only showing static images on C4 devices


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My C4 integrator connected my Blue Iris to my C4 system.  I'm running Unifi Protect cameras via Blue Iris.  I have all the latest and greatest C4 hardware running on OS3.  Blue Iris camera live feeds work just find in my mobile device but I only get static images on my T3 touchscreens and EA5 on my living room TV.  Yes, I'm clicking into the thumbnails to view the live feed but at that point, I'm not getting live video - just a static image.  Anyone have any ideas?  My C4 integrator and I played around with various settings in Blue Iris and Composer Pro without any success.  Is this a OS3 bug?

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Hi - thanks for your reply.  

  • Yes, the "Publicly Accessible" option is not checked
  • Under the "Camera Test' tab, all 3 tests work and pass
  • The current frame rate is set to 30 and we've even tried lowering it various rates without success

 

It's really bizarre.  Works great in my C4 mobile app but just won't show live video feeds on my EA5 TV and T3 touchscreens.

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I just saw under the Unifi Protect admin console that I have lower quality RTSP streams I can enable - Medium (1024x576) and Low (640x360) - It's currently set to High (1920x1080).  I'm thinking the High is too much bandwidth for C4 devices.  I'll report back once my C4 integrator makes the changes.  

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If it's any consolation I'm even struggling to get low res streams and low frame rates to work properly with blue iris 5.0x and c4 os3.  Blue iris version 4 worked fine with c4 os 2.10.6.  Not sure which os update caused the issue.   Maybe I'm missing something in the blue iris settings.

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If it's any consolation I'm even struggling to get low res streams and low frame rates to work properly with blue iris 5.0x and c4 os3.  Blue iris version 4 worked fine with c4 os 2.10.6.  Not sure which os update caused the issue.   Maybe I'm missing something in the blue iris settings.


I use BI a lot found five to be a lot better with resources etc. what issues you experiencing?


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Update - I've tried everything and still no live video in C4 devices, only static images.  Here's what I tried:

  • Tried using lower quality RTSP streams without success
  • Tried making my Unifi camera a standalone camera, connected to the camera directly and tried all the different RTSP streams without success
  • Pretty much fiddled with every single setting one by one in the NVR, the standalone camera, and Blue Iris without success

So odd how everything works in Blue Iris and in the C4 mobile app but it just doesn't work on C4 devices.  Crazy!  I have no other options at this point. 

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Appreciate the help!  But, I'd rather stay away from any Remote Desktop sessions.  Just too close to home.  With that said, here's what I've found out.  I was reading the Help docs for the C4 Blue Iris driver and under "RTSP (H.264) Port" it says the following in RED font: "Important: H.264 is currently available for viewing only on mobile devices and within Composer."  Well, I guess that sums it all up.  Is that really possible?  That C4 devices can't display live video feeds via RTSP using H.264?  I can't imagine Unifi G3 cameras are the only cameras that leverage RTSP and H.264.  Is there a different Blue Iris driver out that that resolves this?

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I can't seem to find anywhere on the Blue Iris web interface the H264 URL stream details.  It's not showing up at the bottom of the video feed as an overlay.  It's nowhere in any of the menus - I've checked every one multiple times.  Where can I find this?  Here's what I do know:

  • The Blue Iris web interface is defaulting to the 720p profile
  • It's using the H264 codec
  • Stream resolution is 1280x760
  • Frame rate is 30fpm

I'm using the official drivers from C4.  I have one camera using the "Blue Iris PTZ IP Camera" and another using the "Blue iris Static IP Camera DAD" as a test to see if it's driver issue.  Neither is letting me see live video on C4 navigators.  

 

Here are some screenshots of what might be useful.

 

Screen Shot 2019-09-01 at 9.04.07 PM.png

Screen Shot 2019-09-01 at 9.10.31 PM.png

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Just for clarification you have 0 feed in the navigators or you h e when you open the thumbnail? It is just the Thumbnails that don’t update?

 

Oh and I thought the blueiris ptz and “DAD” driver were the custom ones someone built and bot control4 official?

 

 

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Ok not sure what stream you need but these are all the streams :

For single image(s) try these below. Of course, preface each of these URL's with "BI_server_IP:BI_Port" and delete the "{ }" curly brackets.

/image/{cam-short-name}?q=50&s=80
A single JPEG image from a specific camera or group, with optional quality (q) and scale (s) parameters. Quality is a percentage from 1-100, and scale may be any number >0.

/image/{cam-short-name}?h=100
You may also specify a specific height (h) or width (w) instead of scale.

/thumbs/{filename}
A thumbnail image from a specific file in the New clips folder.

/alerts/{filename}
A JPEG image from the Alerts folder.
____________________________________

Here's the most complete list of ALL BI URL's that I have:

In addition to serving HTML pages, Blue Iris can also act as a "video server." There are a number of methods for retrieving images and video from the Blue Iris web server for use on mobile devices, converting a USB camera into a web camera, or for any other purpose. Here are the paths to these methods:

/image/{cam-short-name}?q=50&s=80 A single JPEG image from a specific camera or group, with optional quality (q) and scale (s) parameters.

Quality is a percentage from 1-100, and scale may be any number >0.
/image/{cam-short-name}?h=100

You may also specify a specific height (h) or width (w) instead of scale.

/mjpg/{cam-short-name}/video.mjpg An M-JPEG stream. This stream is compatible with Blue Iris's "MJPEG stream request."

/file/clips/{filename}&mode=jpeg&speed=100 An M-JPEG stream of a clip from your New clips folder.

You may include additional subdirectory names in the filename. The speed parameter is optional, a percentage of normal playback speed.
/thumbs/{filename} A thumbnail image from a specific file in the New clips folder.

/alerts/{filename} A JPEG image from the Alerts folder.

/admin?profile=x&lock=y Set the active profile to x.

Use x=-1 to toggle the lock status, or set the lock=y, 0=run, 1=temp, 2=hold
/admin?schedule=1 or 0 or schedule name x=0 or 1 to disable/enable Options/Schedule, or a name to set the current schedule

/admin?signal=x Changes the traffic signal state and returns the current state. x=0 for red, x=1 for green, x=2 for yellow. This requires admin authentication.

/admin?output=x&msec=y or &force=true Temporarily change the active profile to x. Use x=-1 to toggle the lock status.

/admin?input=x Set DIO output x=0-7 on for y msec, or force on indefinitely

/admin?macro=x&text={text} Set macro number x=1-9 to value {text}

/admin?console={group name} Select the specified group for display on the console, "index" is All cameras.

/admin?camera=x&trigger Trigger camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&manrec=1 or 0 Start or stop manual recording on camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&snapshot Snapshot on camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&reset Reset camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&ptzcycle=1 or 0 Trigger camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&pause=x Send pause command to camera x (short name), x=-2 to 10 matching right-click Pause menu

/admin?camera=x&enable=1 or 0 Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&motion=1 or 0 Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&hide=1 or 0 Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&mdelay=x Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&webcast=1 or 0 Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&preset=x Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&schedule=1 or 0 Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&profile=x Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/admin?camera=x&alerts=x Enable or disable camera x (short name)

/audio/{cam-short-name}/temp.wav Pull a raw audio stream (MIME type audio/x-wav).

/cam/{cam-short-name}/pos=x Performs a PTZ command on the specified camera, where x= 0=left, 1=right, 2=up, 3=down, 4=home, 5=zoom in, 6=zoom out

/cam/{cam-short-name}/pos=100 Causes a snapshot image to be captured from the specified camera.

/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.

***THIS IS THE ONE I SUSPECT YOU NEED ***
/h264/{cam-short-name}/temp.ts Pull an MPEG-2 transport stream (MIME type video/MP2T).

/h264/{cam-short-name}/temp.m or .m3u8 Pull a virtual M3U8 file (MIME type application/vnd.apple.mpegurl). This will play in QuickTime, iPad and the iPhone using the Apple HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) format.



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Just testing for you - the H264 stream definitely works with VLC as described above:

http://<IP_ADDRESS>:<Port>/h264/{cam-short-name - THIS is eg cam1, cam2}/temp.m

The issue I have with the BlueIris driver is it encrypts the URL being used I don't know why since you can get the URL's from the documentation. There use to be a camera driver that allowed you to enter your own URL. Just can't remember what it was or where I put it :)

 

Here is a screen shot of the details with the url above (the blurred part I did its not the camera :) )

 

The reason I asked about:

2 hours ago, ILoveControl said:

Just for clarification you have 0 feed in the navigators or you h e when you open the thumbnail?

Is I haven't got that to work either in terms of the thumb nails updating live. It takes a snapshot and only shows that. Which is frustrating as I want to see what is going on then click into that camera.

Camerah264.png

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ILoveControl - thanks so much for your insights. I'll look into these further today.  To your question, I get the thumbnails working just fine.  When I click into the thumbnail, I get a static picture, not live video of the actual camera.  I'm able to get the thumbnails to refresh.  I have the "Snapshot Refresh Rate" set to 1 second; however, it looks like the thumbnail actually refreshes every 10 seconds despite the 1 second setting.  

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I was able to successfully load the live feed in VLC.  It's the same URL that C4 is doing via the "Get H.264 URL".  Is there a way to force C4 to use the MPEG stream and not the H264 stream?  After reading your stream writeup, I'm still not able to get the live video to work on the the navigator and T3 devices.

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ILoveControl - thanks so much for your insights. I'll look into these further today.  To your question, I get the thumbnails working just fine.  When I click into the thumbnail, I get a static picture, not live video of the actual camera.  I'm able to get the thumbnails to refresh.  I have the "Snapshot Refresh Rate" set to 1 second; however, it looks like the thumbnail actually refreshes every 10 seconds despite the 1 second setting.  


Can you check on blueiris what frame rate you have specified in the camera options (the actual camera) I have 30fps on mine as they support that. I do get 1sec refresh so it def works. Funny enough I get static images on the thumbnails.


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I was able to successfully load the live feed in VLC.  It's the same URL that C4 is doing via the "Get H.264 URL".  Is there a way to force C4 to use the MPEG stream and not the H264 stream?  After reading your stream writeup, I'm still not able to get the live video to work on the the navigator and T3 devices.

Can you post the driver info right click on driver in composer, info select all or ctl click on each line.


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The Houselogix Blue Iris driver works.  I can see a live feed properly on C4 navs.  The same camera using the C4 native driver does not work, meaning I only get a static image.  No live feed. 

The Houselogix driver allows you to select which encoder stream to use in a drop down (plus a lot of other settings and feature).  The H264 stream in the drop down down doesn't display properly on a T3 (diagonal lines across the screen), but Encoder Stream  0, 1, and 2 display a live feed properly (as expected) because I set those to work within C4 recommended settings.

Hopefully its an easy fix for the C4 native drivers to work properly soon.  I'm not sure if its possible to buy a licence for the Houselogix version anymore.

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Well here is something interesting not to sure if this is your situation or not. I use iOS alot in the house and this works in the scenario we discussing. Gave my domestic worker a samsung galaxy s3 (tablet) I tried it out now .... guess what confirm the images in “full view” are static .... on my iOS devices they fluid as per expectation.

Now the kicker went to check my T3 devices and they static in full view to never noticed as I re did my BI server last week.

It is def BI driver this is why. I have four Wyze cameras I just bought. I am using Alans Dfang / wyze driver. This stream works on all os’s and devices. These 4 cams don’t go through BI at the moment.

Which narrows it down to two things either BI itself or the BI driver. Going to do some more testing tonight as now you provoked my OCD




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The Houselogix Blue Iris driver works.  I can see a live feed properly.  The same camera using the C4 native driver does not work, meaning I only get a static image.  No live feed. 

The Houselogix driver allows you to select which encoder stream to use in a drop down (plus a lot of other settings and feature).  The H264 stream in the drop down down doesn't display properly on a T3 (diagonal lines across the screen), but Encoder Stream  0, 1, and 2 display a live feed properly (as expected) because I set those to work within C4 recommended settings.

Hopefully its an easy fix for the C4 native drivers to work properly soon.  I'm not sure if its possible to buy a licence for the Houselogix version anymore.

 

Well as per above I just noticed the same outcome as dirtyceo. Now I am running the C4 3.0 beta for the iOS devices .... maybe they fixed it in the beta?

 

Someone did say the Android version is freely available but could t remember where otherwise I would install it and see if it is something they fixed.

 

The dfang driver works on all platforms ios C4 beta as well as stick c4 3.0 for Android

 

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