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Blue Iris Changelog

What's new in Blue Iris 5.9.0.3

Apr 29, 2024
  • Integration with the Windows Location API. A new Settings/Location page has been added
  • to manage this integration. Additional location settings moved from the Schedule tab

New in Blue Iris 5.8.7.2 (Feb 15, 2024)

  • In addition to a number of post-trigger images to send to the AI, and in place of the “motion leading image” option, you may now also specify a number of pre-trigger images as well. These images are synthesized from direct-to-disk frames stored in the pre-trigger buffer.

New in Blue Iris 5.8.5.1 (Jan 24, 2024)

  • The AOI (area of interest) function has been expanded to support dual-streaming and BVR direct-to-disk recording and snapshots (new clips).
  • The Anamorphic (force size) function has been expanded to support arbitrary sizes with dual-streaming.

New in Blue Iris 5.8.5.0 (Jan 23, 2024)

  • The AOI (area of interest) function has been expanded to support dual-streaming and BVR
  • direct-to-disk recording and snapshots (new clips).
  • The Anamorphic (force size) function has been expanded to support arbitrary sizes with
  • dual-streaming.

New in Blue Iris 5.8.4 (Jan 19, 2024)

  • Improved watchdog effectiveness when a main stream or audio stream is lost. If the camera does not support audio, please disable it on the Audio tab to prevent watchdog resets.
  • Motion detection zone crossing has been expanded to offer negated zones for more complex object travel rules.
  • PTZ UI and controls are automatically hidden when a single camera window is displayed which does not have PTZ UI enabled.

New in Blue Iris 5.8.3 (Jan 19, 2024)

  • You may now filter alert actions by specifying required global DIO bits.
  • All dialog windows now draw more efficiently, removing redrawing flashing effects.
  • For increased resilience, the two largest and most important DB views (new and alerts) are automatically recreated upon startup and all compact/repair operations, just as index.dat has been for some time.
  • Unmanaged drives or folders no longer complain about the disk/s being offline.

New in Blue Iris 5.8.2 (Jan 19, 2024)

  • Audio analysis may be configured from the Audio tab in camera settings. This includes power, spectral analysis and spectrograms. Sophisticated patterns may be applied when evaluating the audio signal for triggers.
  • Audio visualization now occurs in the clip viewer, regardless of playback speed.

New in Blue Iris 5.8.1 (Jan 19, 2024)

  • Recording folders and drives may now be designated as shared, exclusive-use, or unmanaged.
  • Used and free space are not considered on unmanaged drives. New clips/images are not added to the database or automatically moved/deleted in unmanaged folders.
  • The Options/Storage page has been reworked to include an interactive graphical display of the disk usage to facilitate easier distribution of disk space to folders. Also now you will be
  • prompted to repair the DB following any folder path changes.
  • An option on the right-click menu over the timeline view allows you to set an idle timeout for returning to the live camera view and ‘now’ position.
  • It’s possible to reroute “talk” audio to an alternate camera.
  • A 64-bit version of the UScreenCapture driver is now included in the installation.
  • Unfortunately it still seems no longer possible to use this when running as a service.

New in Blue Iris 5.8.0 (Oct 26, 2023)

  • The flow of the Motion sensor, Trigger and Alert pages has been made more logical. The Alert page timer for X triggers within Y seconds has been moved to the more appropriate Trigger/Motion page. The timer for minimum/max time since last trigger has been moved to the trigger tab and is now used to prevent the generation of new alert images. The remaining alert timers now prevent actions from firing rather than preventing the alert image itself.
  • The Watchdog tab in camera settings may now have profile-specific settings and may be synced with another camera as was the case with the Trigger, Record and Alerts tabs. Previously monostable ONVIF triggers (without corresponding trigger reset events) were handled as external. These are now more appropriately labeled as ONVIF as well.

New in Blue Iris 5.7.3.0 (Mar 31, 2023)

  • A new option on the right-click menu over the Viewer window allows you to modify the now-default setting to use a BVR's sub stream (if recorded) for scrubbing and high-speed playback.
  • A small change has been made to the 5.6.8 feature which caused alerts as to be considered locked/protected while their associated clips remain—this now applies only to the age limit of the alerts folder. It will no longer apply to the size limit on the folder if alerts are being saved as JPG (and .DAT) files.
  • You may now select to save Al-unknown (aces on a per-camera basis. You may also select a specific folder for local faces management instead of using a folder in the Program Files folder, or you may choose to not use local management at all.

New in Blue Iris 5.7.2.0 (Mar 31, 2023)

  • This update is all about identifying and resolving storage errors and pitfalls. In addition to overallocation, additional storage issues are now identified and reported.
  • If a drive is of line, over allocated, or another issue is present, this information is prominently displayed at the bottom of the clips list in a new DB status window. You may display this window manually with a right-click menu option. However, the window may not be dismissed until any issues are resolved.
  • The software tracks the aggregate MB/s being recorded to each drive. When files are MOVED from one drive to another, this rate is also calculated. When doing continuous recording and archiving files to a NAS, you will want to make sure the recording rate does not exceed the rate at which may be moved.

New in Blue Iris 5.7.1.0 (Mar 31, 2023)

  • Motion zones now have associated colors. A new custom GUI control was also developed for zone selection. Double-clicking in this control as well as the profile selection control may now be used to quickly set a single value or to set all values.
  • It's now possible to add motion zone letter specifications to individual alert action "required Al objects" or "skip with" settings.
  • Updated Apple push notification service which will expire April 2, 2023; use version 5.7.1 or newer for uninterrupted push notifications from the iOS app. The new expiration is April 2, 2024.

New in Blue Iris 5.7.0.0 (Mar 31, 2023)

  • A search box has been added to the top of the clips/alerts list to allow for the quick searching of license plates and Al results. A keyboard shortcut may be added to set focus to this box, and Esc or Return may be used to restore focus to the clips list.

New in Blue Iris 5.6.7.0 (Dec 21, 2022)

  • Multi-camera selection and temporary group
  • Other minor fixes and enhancements

New in Blue Iris 5.6.6.1 (Dec 14, 2022)

  • Time selection and timeline export
  • Other minor fixes and enhancements

New in Blue Iris 5.6.6.0 (Dec 14, 2022)

  • A right-click context menu has been added to the Timeline window.
  • The concept of “time selection” is introduced. You may either right-click to use the “set start frame” and “set end frame” commands, or you may double click in the timeline’s date/ time header to select a unit of time (depending on the zoom level) and then Shift+click at another location. Double-clicking anywhere below the date/time header will invalidate the selection.
  • Once time has been selected, it’s now possible to Convert/Export from the viewer’s Timeline playback mode. The output size and camera layout will mirror what’s currently shown in the viewer window. An audio track may be included for the selected camera. The “skip dead air” functionality is available.
  • Holding control + left or right arrow keys may be used to move forward or backward in the timeline view to the next or previous time division (depending on the zoom level).

New in Blue Iris 5.6.3.5 (Nov 8, 2022)

  • Audio has been enabled for the selected camera during timeline playback on either UI3 or locally when a camera is selected and playback speed is normal (1x).
  • A bug fixed where when cancelled/occupied alerts with files are moved out of the alerts view, “errors” shown in the log when database maintenance is ran.
  • The code-signing certificate used to verify secure binary deliverables has been renewed for another three years and all executables have been re-signed.

New in Blue Iris 5.6.0.3 (Aug 19, 2022)

  • Algorithms for AI “static object detection” have been rewritten to prevent fewer false static inferences when a new object is actually in motion. Static objects are now saved to the .DAT files for comparative analysis. Additionally, images which were captured but not completely analyzed by the AI are now marked with the “cancelled” symbol in the .DAT file.
  • Many database manipulation functions have been rewritten to allow for records to be inserted rather than strictly appended as was previously required. This allows for new clipboard items to be shown on the All Clips list and to appear on the timeline and arranged by content date rather than by clipboard creation date. It’s also possible to move a clipboard item into the alerts list, providing a way to create an ad-hoc alert after the fact.
  • Alert JPEG and DAT files are no longer renamed when the alert is finalized. Instead, the metadata that was previously added to the filename is now saved as EXIF data within the JPEG file. The changing filename was always challenging for scripting and actions that relied on &ALERT_PATH.
  • A new camera status “bell” icon replaces the trigger icon once an alert is confirmed. This helps to emphasize the difference between the “triggered” and “alerted” states—not all triggers become alerts based on filters and AI analysis.

New in Blue Iris 5.5.9.0 (Jun 30, 2022)

  • A new option for stream encoding, “direct to wire,” may be found on Settings/Web Server/Advanced/Streaming configuration. Video may now be passed directly from a camera’s direct-to-disc frame buffer to the browser UI3 and other clients.
  • A new option for the upload alert action to send an MP4 file. If an email alert action is also configured, this file is shared between these actions.
  • If you’ve installed SenseAI, please update that now to version 1.5, which is now called CodeProject.AI Server.

New in Blue Iris 5.5.7.6 (Jun 7, 2022)

  • Support for Gmail’s OAuth2 authentication. Gmail will be discontinuing the support for “app passwords” and “less secure apps” at the end of this month. Visit the Settings/Email page to complete OAuth2 authentication if you are using Gmail for alerts.
  • A new screen capture option to include a mouse cursor with highlighted clicks. This gives you the ability to use the software for general screen recording production, as was done for our Gmail OAuth YouTube demonstration videos.
  • You may add PTZ preset positions as arguments for firing or skipping individual action set items. Use the format Pn, where n is the preset number 1 or greater.
  • A new option from the right-click menu in the Clips list allows you to edit the memo field. The option to only display items with memos was previously available.
  • MQTT code updated to use the Mosquitto version 2.0.14 library.
  • &ALERT_DB and &ALERT_FILE action set macros now return values which will survive a database compact or rebuild.
  • Support for 2-way audio on CantonK compatible cameras (those that use port 34567).
  • JPEG timed “slideshow” playback when the option is used to automatically advance to the next item in the clips list at the end of a video.

New in Blue Iris 5.5.0.9 (Sep 15, 2021)

  • Groups are now created and deleted explicitly. Previously, the only way to delete a group was to remove each camera individually. In addition, the role of a group has also been expanded to include layout. A group’s layout now consists of a set of cameras in a particular order. Each camera may have a default zoom position, relative size, and aspect ratio. The group itself may specify a height and aspect ratio, or these may be determined automatically. In addition to the existing left-right ordering, a group’s layout may also be broken into columns.
  • When a camera is zoomed, all layout space available is utilized (previously the zoomed portion was cropped to fit the original aspect). Using this new camera zoom functionality together with layout options to “scale to fill,” it’s now possible to create layouts which force cameras into grid patterns without spacing via scaling and cropping.
  • Groups when displayed via clients now appear as the group does on the console with headers, borders and icons. You can also force a group’s height/aspect on the console to make adjustments easier.
  • Dynamic layout for phone and other clients. If a group is configured for an automatic aspect ratio and the client sends both a width and height request (&w=xxx&h=yyy) then a temporary layout is created to custom-fit the requested aspect ratio (and resolution if the group is also configured for an automatic height). The next release of the phone apps will support this feature, making group streaming look great in both landscape and portrait on any device

New in Blue Iris 5.4.9 (Jul 6, 2021)

  • Enhanced synchronization between alert images and alert processing. Alert images are not created until timer conditions are met on the Alert tab in camera settings. Processing of “re-triggers” is improved following a cancelled alert.
  • Improved handing of DeepStack static objects and objects outside of detected motion areas.
  • On the DeepStack status page you may now choose to show/hide Blue Iris detected motion rectangles, helpful for diagnosing objects which do not overlap these areas. Also you may now drag & drop saved alert analysis “.dat” files into this window.
  • The “run a program or script” action is now “run a program or write to a file.” This will be handy for external logging

New in Blue Iris 5.4.1.2 (Apr 6, 2021)

  • By popular demand, you may now delay recording or snapshots until alerted rather than starting immediately upon a trigger. This allows the AI time to analyze the trigger before recording begins.
  • Support for DeepStack facial recognition. Maintain the face list from the AI page in Settings.
  • Alerts may now be cancelled with specific DeepStack labels. It’s now possible to Alert only when “unknown” faces appear or only when there is NOT a dog present, etc

New in Blue Iris 5.4.0.0 (Apr 1, 2021)

  • Support for DeepStack integration (without the separate AI Tools package) via new Settings AI page. DeepStack may be used for object classification to confirm alerts containing persons, vehicles, pets, and more.
  • Plate Recognizer ALPR configuration has been moved to the new Settings AI page. You will need to reconfigure this integration, now done globally.
  • Support for legacy SeaIO devices from SeaLevel.
  • Test button added and UI updates to the camera Schedule/Events page.
  • You may now select to use a specific global schedule on the camera Schedule page.
  • “Use defaults” button added to the video encoding configuration pages.
  • Updated Apple push notification service which will expire February 28, 2021; use 5.3.9.10 or newer for uninterrupted push notifications from the iOS app. The new expiration is March 25, 2022.

New in Blue Iris 5.3.9.10 (Mar 1, 2021)

  • Updated Apple push notification service which will expire February 28, 2021; use this version or newer for uninterrupted push notifications from the iOS app. The new expiration is March 25, 2022

New in Blue Iris 5.3.9.0 (Feb 9, 2021)

  • A new option on Settings/Other allows you to perform an encryption on all passwords stored by Blue Iris (they are otherwise Base-64 encoded). Changing this setting does not affect stored passwords until they are next loaded and re-saved. While this does provide strong security for your passwords in the event someone will have access to your PC registry, the major disadvantage of password encryption is that if you must transfer your .REG settings to another PC, you will need to re-enter all of your passwords, as they may only be decrypted on the PC on which they were encrypted—not ideal for a backup/restore unless they are done on the same PC.
  • A new button in the Timeline view for “instant reply.” This will automatically begin
  • timeline playback 30 seconds back. You may click it multiple times to transport back 30 seconds at a time.
  • A new interface to the Sentry Smart Alerts system allows you to select person and/or vehicle detection. Make this change by using the Artificial Intelligence button found on the Trigger tab in camera settings. This may not be fully functional until 5.3.9.1.
  • When switching from main stream decoding back to sub stream decoding, the main stream frame buffer is now deallocated, returning RAM to the system. Previously once the buffer was allocated, it remained until the camera was reset

New in Blue Iris 5.3.8.0 (Jan 25, 2021)

  • By default, alerts are simply database entries which reference actual video files (clips). You may now right-click on the alerts list to export individual alert segments as video files. If you choose to “replace” the alert, the MP4 file reside in the Alerts folder. When you open the alert while it’s still associated with a clip, the clip will be opened for playback, not the exported file.
  • You may also choose to automatically export alerts as MP4 videos with a new option on the Trigger tab in camera settings. This may be useful for immediate backup or AI analysis of alert video.
  • When you delete a clip, its alerts which have their own associated files (JPEG or MP4), now will remain in the alerts list and the alerts folder.
  • Alert list items are now updated with any additional trigger sources and zones when the trigger ends.
  • Clip list preview images are prepared and drawn asynchronously in order to display the clip list more efficiently and to retain UI responsiveness on systems with very large displays and/or large databases.

New in Blue Iris 5.3.5.0 (Nov 27, 2020)

  • The ONVIF device inspection now pulls all available video profiles as well as profile details
  • Necessary to distinguish multiple cameras on the same device.
  • The network camera configuration page has been revised to allow the selection of an ONVIF
  • Profile for each of the main and sub streams. Also, the “params” box was removed. If you
  • Had previously specified anything here, it will be added automatically to the end of the video
  • Path.
  • The ONVIF GetEvents function has been revised to select only events relevant to the
  • Camera’s selected video source configuration (important for devices with multiple cameras).

New in Blue Iris 5.3.4.3 (Nov 25, 2020)

  • Support for new Doorbird models doorbell and motion sensor.
  • The MQTT “publish” function was moved into the MQTT thread to maintain UI
  • responsiveness when the MQTT server is offline or misconfigured.
  • A new option on the Settings/Users pages “camera admin” allows a user to administer
  • specific cameras without having full system administrator privileges. For proper remote UI,
  • this does require an update to the phone app as well.
  • Motion rectangles are now added to main stream JPEG captures as configured

New in Blue Iris 5.3.3.3 (Oct 5, 2020)

  • When using dual-streaming, JPEG images will be created from the main-stream instead of the sub-stream where possible. Rather than fully spooling up main-stream decoding, the software uses the direct-to-disc pre-trigger frames buffer to synthesize these images. This means you should specify at least enough pre-trigger time on the Record tab to span the key-frame interval for your main-stream.
  • An optional parameter &jpeg=path has been added to both the &trigger and &flagalert web server admin requests. This allows you to replace the alert image with one potentially “marked up” by external analysis.
  • An optional parameter &decode=x has been add to the /image/camx server request. Use x=0 for automatic sub/main stream selection based on resolution; the sub stream will also be upsampled until the main stream is available. Use x=1 to wait for the main stream or x=0 to always select the sub-stream.
  • The RTSP server was updated to accommodate requirements of the Monocle portal for viewing cameras on Echo Show.

New in Blue Iris 5.3.2.0 (Aug 25, 2020)

  • Changes and preparations are underway for the new major iOS app release.
  • Status/Storage has been revised to more closely align with what you will see in UI3 and in
  • The new client phone apps.
  • A QR code has been added to the final page of the Remote Access Wizard which may be
  • Read by the client phone apps to quickly enter all server details.
  • More efficient database rebuild/repair for larger databases.
  • With a new option on the Record tab in camera settings, you may now choose to re-size
  • JPEGs captured on the clips list or as hi-res alert images

New in Blue Iris 2.63.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The Options page now has a field to specify a name for your Blue Iris system. This will be used to identify the connection once established from the iOS client. This page also has a new button to export or backup your entire Blue Iris configuration from the registry.
  • The Trim feature now allows you to specify MP4 format with H.264 encoding.
  • You may specify a volume setting (1-100) for sound alerts.
  • A potential pitfall for H.264 decoder instability with some IP cameras has been resolved.

New in Blue Iris 2.62.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Two new Options pages have been added for Mobile Devices and Digital I/O.
  • From the Options/Digital I/O page you may now enable serial port communication with the Arduino UNO open-source project board. This is a very inexpensive device available at electronics hobby shops or online via eBay. Although less expensive, configuration of this device will not be as simple as the Sealevel board. The UNO must actually itself be programmed to respond to data it receives via the serial port from Blue Iris. When an alert is triggered, Blue Iris will send a single byte of data to the UNO, an ASCII number 0-7 representing the output number specified on the Alerts tab. Blue Iris also monitors for incoming serial data, and interprets each incoming byte as the 8-bits representing digital input numbers 0-7, which may be used to trigger the motion detector.
  • A Blue Iris iOS client is under development. When this app is released next month, and you use it to connect to your Blue Iris server, an entry for each device will appear on the Options/Mobile devices page. In addition to tracking mobile device client connections, this page will allow you to "pair" with each device, in order to allow your Blue Iris to send "push notifications" to these devices. Following the release of the iOS client, work will begin on an Android version. Client apps are not planned for other devices at this time.
  • On the Alerts page, support for the IM alert has been discontinued. This alert relied upon outdated technology. It has however been replaced by the Mobile device push notification option.
  • Development has begun on the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) interface. This HTTP-based interface will provide the basis for a very powerful set of remote administration capabilities which will be leveraged first by the upcoming mobile device clients before then being applied to the basic web browser-based access pages.
  • A new and long-overdue FAQ page has been started to address the most commonly asked support questions.

New in Blue Iris 2.61.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • ActiveX version 1.0.3.4 allows the ability to select between 3 preconfigured streaming configurations for varying connection speeds. Right-click on the window to select. On the Options/Web server page, you may now configure these streams independently.
  • The use of the pre-trigger frames recording option is now much easier on your system resources. These images are now maintained in RAM as 12-bit I420 (YUYV422) blocks of memory instead of the previous full 32-bit RGB DIBs, saving considerable RAM. This new format is also more easily digestible by the encoders, so when it comes time to record all of those images all at once, it's not as great of a shock to the system.
  • Up to 10 seconds of audio is now also recorded into a pre-trigger buffer to be recorded along with the pre-trigger frames.

New in Blue Iris 2.59.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • If you are using Windows 7 or Vista, you will notice a considerable performance improvement when using the clip viewer to shuttle or to playback BVR files. The Media Foundation's Enhanced Video Renderer is now used to draw video instead of GDI+ calls.
  • The EVR is also used by the updated version 1,0,3,4 of the ActiveX control. You should manually click on the link at the top of the default HTML page to install this updated component.
  • Audio/Video sync has been improved when playing BVR files locally or remotely

New in Blue Iris 2.58.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • This version is now Unicode compatible. It is now possible to use characters from any language throughout the software, including the web server. All installed HTML pages, as well as email alerts, are formatted in UTF-8.
  • This version is now more easily localizable into other languages. It is possible to link to an external resource file which will be made available for several requested languages.
  • A new version of the ActiveX component is installed, 1,0,2,0, which is also Unicode compatible, and has been signed with a renewed code-signing certificate. This version also allows you to right-click to select a new option "Copy image to clipboard."
  • When attaching an image to an email alert, two images are now inserted, one at the leading edge of motion and another taken from the current image stream.
  • A new Software Option for double-click to open the temporary full-screen window on either the Blue Iris UI monitor or at the camera desktop window's most recent monitor.
  • The Recycle Bin option for clip deletion is now defaulted OFF. It was found that this feature has a tremendous OS performance impact (excessive CPU and memory utilization for extended periods). If you have seen Blue Iris inexplicably use high system resources for large blocks of time, this may be the culprit.
  • By placing a hyphen (-) at the end of a preset name/number, it is excluded from the preset auto-cycle.

New in Blue Iris 2.57.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The Alternate frame rate option that was previously only available for Continuous recording may now be used for manual and motion based video recording.
  • A new Options page has been added to manage Email Server settings. Instead of re-entering this information over and over again on each camera's alert/email and SMS pages, it's now done in one centralized location. The Email server configuration page now also features a Preset option to help configure many popular email servers such as GMail.
  • Support for email servers which require the STARTTLS command have been added. These include Yahoo and AOL.
  • A new Options page has been added to manage FTP Server settings. Instead of re-entering this information over and over again on each camera's Post page as well as the Options/Clips page, it's now done in one centralized location. The FTP server configuration page features a Test option to check your settings prior to deployment.
  • A new Options page has been added to manage User settings. The role of the user eventually will be expanded to allow for varying levels of access to management features of the software.
  • Support for the Sealevel SeaDAC Lite (P/N 8112 and similar) has been added. This is a DIO (Digital Input/Output) device which will allow you to trigger a camera's motion detector based on a digital input signal received from an external source such as an alarm system, home security system, PIR sensor, electric gate, electric eye, etc. It may also be used to send an output signal to another device or system when the motion detector is triggered. The Sealevel 8112 has 4 digital inputs and 4 digital relay outputs. Support for other devices may be added based on device manufacturer's developer support and customer demand. In addition to the device and its drivers being installed, you must also have the SeaMAX.dll in your Blue Iris program folder.

New in Blue Iris 2.55.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The Motion Detector algorithms have been overhauled and enhanced. A quantization algorithm is first applied which has an inherent de-noise effect. A persistence algorithm is employed to provide for more accurate background separation. Finally blob detection algorithm may be enabled which attempts to locate a rectangular region of interest. With the "overlay motion" test option enabled, you will see this represented as a red rectangle. This will form the basis for advanced motion-tracking.
  • The MIME type for the ActiveX video streams has been changed from application/streamingmedia to video/mpeg. It was discovered that the former MIME type caused the stream to be subject to scanning by antivirus "web shield" software, adding significant buffering and stream delays. As a reminder, you should add blueiris.exe to exclusion and "trusted process" lists in these types of packages whenever possible in order to achieve maximum performance. Also add the New and Storage folders to your "file system shield" exclusion lists. Also add the MIME type application/sdp to your "web shield" exclusion list if you are streaming from any RTSP network cameras.
  • Video latency and audio sync issues have been addressed with use of the ActiveX control. You should be able to open a browser on your Blue Iris PC or LAN to the default.htm page and receive no dropped frames when viewing a single camera. If you do, you may have a network/web scanning issue as noted above.

New in Blue Iris 2.56.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The Audio trigger has been modified to use an average-energy algorithm instead of a peak value in order to allow for further "less sensitive" settings. This was necessary to account for devices on which it is not possible to adjust the audio gain downward.
  • A new software option allows you to select to Prioritize cameras which are sensing motion during the Full-screen auto-cycle
  • A new recording option to record continuously, but cut (create a new movie file) each time the motion sensor is triggered
  • A new Web server option to List only clips from enabled cameras. This was previously the default mode of operation, but you may now disable this functionality.

New in Blue Iris 2.54.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • A new option on a camera's PTZ tab allows you to automatically cycle through a camera's preset positions during specific scheduled times
  • A new option on a camera's Schedule tab will disable live video and webcasting while the camera is inactive
  • Following a watchdog network reconnection attempt, the camera image will become blue to indicate a loss of signal
  • The web server now properly handles absolute URI requests (which may assist with proxy server support)
  • The ActiveX control has been updated to 1.0.1.5 in order to properly handle "chunked" HTTP transfer-encoding, again for proxy support
  • If the console process crashes while Blue Iris is running as a service, you may now re-run the console without having to first reset the service

New in Blue Iris 2.53.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • HTTP Live Streaming support has been advanced for iPhones/iPads to request live AVC/AAC streams from /h264/cam1/x.m, where cam1 is the camera's "short name."
  • A requirement for having a sound card that was inadvertently added to version 2.52 has been removed. Without a sound card, the Clip Viewer crashed for non-BVR files.
  • PTZ commands including those from the TrackIT software no longer cancel the motion detector's triggered state
  • The camera Audio tab now has a checkbox to disable audio webcasting for live streaming

New in Blue Iris 2.52.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The ActiveX control has been updated to version 1.0.1.4. This version has several enhancements, including 8 PTZ presets instead of 5, a higher-quality rendering technique, and a full-screen mode.
  • The clip viewer has been updated to use higher-quality rendering techniques to smooth images.
  • The clip viewer will now open and display MP4 and M2T file types in preparation for these recording formats. If you plan to use these formats, you should install the K-Lite codec pack onto your Windows systems.
  • The email alert now offers the option to include a 10 second MP4 movie file attachment in place of a still image.

New in Blue Iris 2.51.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The default video recording compression is now H.264. MJPEG and WMV are still options, but support for recording with XVID or MP42 has been discontinued. Older recordings will however still open with the Viewer. The default video quality for H.264 in percentage terms is now 70%, and you will find that higher values consume much larger amounts of hard drive space without much benefit, so you should re-examine your quality settings for all cameras.
  • The H.264 codec is not found on the majority of Windows systems. So, if you attempt to create an AVI file with the H.264 codec, it may open on your system only if you install the FFdshow codec. To obtain this, it is recommended that you Google for and install the K-Lite codec pack. If you use only BVR files locally or WMV files, this step is not necessary.
  • In a future release, new file formats may be introduced as well such as MP4 (which could potentially replace WMV) and M2TS (which could potentially replace BVR).
  • Dates shown in the Clip List, Viewer, and remote access now reflect "file creation time" rather than "last modified time".

New in Blue Iris 2.50.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Efficiency of the console's video display (when running as a service) has been greatly increased. Display bugs as well as a potential "hang" while shutting down have also been fixed in the console.
  • The 4-up camera display option was briefly removed but has been restored. A new 2-up option has also been added.
  • Local camera window layout options have changed. You may now select the previous "fit to window" option, where all cameras are sized equally, or you may choose one of the new ratio options (from 1:2 to 1:8) to specify the relative size of the first window to the others. A slider has been placed on the main UI to quickly change this setting.
  • Local camera window position layout is now managed graphically via drag-and-drop. When you have multiple camera windows, click on a camera and drag it onto another camera's window to move it to the new position. By default the move is a remove/insert. If you would like to "swap" the two camera positions, hold the Control key while dropping.

New in Blue Iris 2.49.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • ActiveX webcasting now supports camera audio; next release BVR audio playback as well
  • ActiveX webcasting has been greatly enhanced in terms of throughput and quality by implementing a new buffering mechanism and H.264 video compression. You may choose the encoder settings from the Options/Web server page. The Quality and Scale settings on each camera's Webcasting tab now only apply to JPEG (and motion JPEG) webcasting.
  • The legacy MP42 codec has been removed from the webcasting code and will be removed soon from the clip recording code where it will also be replaced with H.264.
  • The Motion sensor page now has Copy and Paste buttons so that you can quickly transfer one profile's settings to another profile. Also the word "triggered" now appears on to the right of the meter to emphasize the fast that the sensor is triggered when the meter reaches 100%, and not just when it crosses the position of the sensitivity slider.

New in Blue Iris 2.48.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The RTSP camera stream option now supports MJPEG streams (RTP/AVP 26), as used by the LeveoOne WCS-0030.
  • The Web Server now supports the HTML "Ranges" header to allow clients to download partial files; as a result it's now possible to serve MP4 files to iPhones.
  • The Stats window has been revised to contain a single camera activity summary page, and a single web server connections page.
  • The Web server now uses a single connection sound setting, which may be overridden on a per-user basis for custom user login alerts.

New in Blue Iris 2.47.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • If you are using camera groups, each group now has its own index page (all cameras view), and the entire "all cameras" view has been restored for logins with admin access.
  • JPEG/MPEG/H.264 video stream serving has been improved to better distribute CPU load.
  • You may pull a virtual M3U8 file (MIME type application/vnd.apple.mpegurl) from the Blue Iris server using /h264/{cam}/temp.m or .m3u8. This will play in QuickTime, iPad and the iPhone using the iPhone Live Streaming format. This stream is not yet segmented as per the specification, but will provide an hour of viewing at a time with the appropriate bandwidth. This is experimental at the moment, but is functional, and will be formalized in the near future.

New in Blue Iris 2.46.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • You may pull a raw H.264 stream (MIME type video/H264) from the Blue Iris server using /h264/{cam}/temp.h264. This stream will play in a tool like VLC, and may be used in future versions of the ActiveX control.
  • You may pull an MPEG-2 transport stream (MIME type video/MP2T) from the Blue Iris server using /h264/{cam}/temp.ts.

New in Blue Iris 2.45.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • You may pull a raw audio stream (MIME type audio/x-wav) from the Blue Iris server using /audio/{cam}/temp.wav. Audio playback will be added to the ActiveX control very soon using this capability.
  • You may limit the framerate for video preview from the Options/Software page. Previously, frames were written to the screen as rapidly as they were received from the camera, which may not be desirable if either CPU cycles or video display capability is nearing physical limits. Note that all frames continue to be internally processed and recorded as configured.
  • Serial port Pelco-D and Pelco-P protocols are now supported from the camera PTZ page.
  • New DDE commands: "schedule=1 or 0" to enable/disable the schedule for a camera, and "profile=x" to override the active Motion Sensor profile for a camera. If x=0, the camera is inactive (no recording or alerts at all). Use x=1 for the default Motion Sensor profile. The schedule is automatically disabled if you send the profile=x command.
  • If you specify the Motion Sensor option to "Restore window when triggered," Blue Iris will also "wake" your monitor if it's in power-saving mode.

New in Blue Iris 2.44.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Specify the camera number 0-3 in the Parameters box when adding multiple Aviosys 9100/a/b cameras and set the device for round-robin. Images will be automatically routed to the correct Blue Iris camera.
  • It is now possible to use the Sound alert while running as a service.
  • When using remote desktop the camera image is updated once each 10 seconds instead of displaying the message "Remote terminal session detected." You may still use a checkbox on the Options/Startup page to override this and display video as quickly as possible.

New in Blue Iris 2.43.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • The install now includes an XCastInstall.exe which should be used to install and update the ActiveX control. Too many systems are blocking the automatic download and installation of the Blue Iris ActiveX control. A link has been placed on the default.htm page.
  • PTZ cameras with separate button-down and button-up events (for variable duration movement) are now better supported in the main UI, the ActiveX component, as well as the Java and JPEG web pages.
  • The JAVA/JPEG remote page requires that you install JAVA from http://java.com. JAVA version 6 update 21 has been tested and does fixe the IE crash that would sometimes cause IE to hang/crash when navigating away from the JAVA/JPEG page.
  • The efficiency and throughput of the Web Server has been greatly improved for larger file downloads, such as the ActiveX EXE installer.

New in Blue Iris (Nov 23, 2011)

New in Blue Iris 2.42.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Assign each camera to a group by entering a group name on the camera General properties page
  • Specify camera groups accessible to each remote view user on the Options/Web server page
  • Specify additional camera groups to trigger when any camera's motion sensor is triggered
  • The range of the sensitivity slider on the motion sensor page has been widened to allow you to make the detector even more sensitive than previously possible

New in Blue Iris 2.40.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Foscam/BSTi audio decoding
  • The ActiveX control has been updated to version 1,0,0,29 which allows a larger XVID frame size, allowing for large index (all cameras) streams.
  • H.264 streaming cameras that support the RTSP protocol may be added using the RTSP stream network IP camera device option.
  • It should now be possible to connect a camera to a Windows Media (ASF stream) server by using the WM/ASF stream Network/IP camera device type. You must separate the URL into two components, the IP/host name and the video path. For example,
  • The mouse wheel was not working for certain mice/settings to digitally zoom video, and this has been corrected
  • The 4-up camera window layout no longer swaps out the camera in the 4th position for the currently selected camera; this camera-swapping now only occurs in the 1-up view. The camera "position#" setting controls the ordering of the cameras for now; in a future release, a way to graphical arrange your camera windows will be offered.

New in Blue Iris 2.39.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • A significant change to the motion detection "make time" algorithm has been made. If you set the make time to 0, the detector will be triggered immediately just as before. In order to trigger the detector with higher values, additional motion must continue to occur without a time equal to half of the make time elapsing. The advantage to this is that it's now easier to configure the rejection of ephemeral motion. However, if you are triggering recording, you may miss some of the initial motion in your recording. To compensate for that, you may use the "include pre-trigger images" option on the Record tab.

New in Blue Iris 2.38.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • XVID bugs fixed in custom xvidcore.dll distribution
  • The camera Post page now allows both "post to a folder" and "post to an FTP server". Previously, it was one or the other.
  • The Windows Media setup window now allows you to specify an audio stream offset value with a range +/- 8 seconds. If your Windows Media audio recording or webcasting is out of sync with the video, this will allow you to tweak it.

New in Blue Iris 2.37.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • XCast ActiveX control updated to use GDI+ drawing if DirectX is unable to obtain video memory surfaces. This should eliminate drawing anomalies on remote viewing systems with lower-end video cards.
  • The XVID DLLs have been updated to version 1.2.2 with additional memory safety features enabled
  • The Trim/Export function now employs a worker thread to prevent UI "not responding" messages; the Cancel button should now also function during the operation

New in Blue Iris 2.36.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Serivce/Console communication now supports up to 2048x1536 resolution cameras to be previewed. Also, a GUI bottleneck in drawing console camera images has been fixed.
  • Time formatting codes may now include the # character after the % to eliminate leading zeros
  • Integration of the Hikvision DS-40xx SDK to allow the DS-4000 8-port card to be used. Obtain the Hikvision DLL from the blueirissoftware.com support/3rd party page and place it in your Blue Iris program folder. A Hikvision device option will then appear on the Video tab when you add a new camera.
  • A new advanced option on the Motion profile page to force continuous recording when specific profiles are active according to the Schedule
  • The remote viewing of the "all cameras" stream now favors a wider display, 3x2 cameras will be shown instead of 2x3 for example

New in Blue Iris 2.35.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • A single-click of the tray icon will now restore the UI window (was previously double-click)
  • Separate HTTP and RTSP/video ports may now be specified on the IP network camera configuration window. Please check that these are set appropriately if your cameras use ports other than HTTP for streaming.
  • Much faster startup/shutdown times for systems with multiple cameras.
  • Camera startup/shutdown/resets no longer block the main UI thread, providing for a more responsive UI.
  • When running as a service with a second instance open as a console, video is now updated at a rate of 3fps overall, split between all cameras. If you select a specific camera or bring it to full-screen, that single camera will receive all 3fps of video updates. De-select all cameras by clicking anywhere in the video window but outside of a specific camera's window in order to once again update all windows.

New in Blue Iris 2.34.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Web server code modified to allow up to 1000 clips to be listed at a time remotely
  • An effort has been made to prevent false motion detector triggering as the result of signal loss/restoration
  • BVR playback speed now more accurately reflects the position of the playback speed control slider
  • Several potential bugs affecting the use of the "run as service" option have been repaired
  • Support for ACTi MJPEG cameras (requires firmware update)

New in Blue Iris 2.33.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • An alternate phone# may be entered on the Telephone Alert page to be used in the case of Watchdog Timer alert.
  • For each motion sensor profile, you may choose to NOT trigger alerts when the motion sensor is triggered. Used with the Schedule page, this allows you to specify times during the day during which to record on motion but not send alerts.
  • Several new IP cameras added

New in Blue Iris 2.32.00 (Nov 23, 2011)

  • Tested and working with Windows 7
  • Several new IP cameras now supported
  • Removal of the "Run Blue Iris automatically when you login to Windows" option from the Startup options page. This feature only worked with XP, or when UAC was disabled, which is not recommended. The correct way to run Blue Iris at startup is to either use the Service option (advanced users), or to use the Windows Task Scheduler (Start/Administrative Tools) to create a task (do not use the Basic option) to automatically run Blue Iris with highest privileges at login, startup, or a specific time of the day.
  • On the Startup options page, a new option to "Prevent power management from turning off the display" has been added. In 2.31.11, this behavior was added to the "prevent screensaver" option, which caused some confusion.
  • The "prevent suspend" option has been renamed to "Prevent power management from putting the PC to sleep"
  • When running as a service, the recording path and red camera borders are now correctly displayed in the console

New in Blue Iris 2.31 (Aug 12, 2009)

  • By (extremely) popular demand, the remote viewing HTML pages have been modified to allow the video to stretch to fit the browser window. In addition, the clip list selection box will also stretch to fit.
  • The XCast ActiveX control has been updated to version 1,0,0,26 to fix an initialization error.
  • The Advanced Direct Show configuration window now allows you to specify an analog video standard.

New in Blue Iris 2.29 (Jun 2, 2009)

  • If you have more than one camera, there's a new Auto-cycle camera view in full-screen video mode option to perform a "patrol" function. To activate this feature, enable the option on the Software Options page, then go into full-screen video mode by either using the icon at the top-right of the Cameras window, or right-clicking anywhere in the Cameras window and selecting the Full-screen video command. Finally, a camera must be selected to start the patrol. Each camera will be selected and shown as a full-screen window in sequence. If all cameras are unselected, or you select a camera with its own desktop window, the patrol is discontinued. Use the Esc key to exit full-screen video.
  • The XCast ActiveX control is now version 1.00.24. This version will automatically begin playback of a selected clip without the need to also press the play button.

New in Blue Iris 2.28 (May 11, 2009)

  • This version handles XVID encoding for clips and webcasting via direct use of the xvidcore.dll. There are many advantages to this, including reduced overhead, and the more direct control over XVID encoding configuration, thereby reducing the potential for user generated errors due to mis-configuration. XVID is also now the default codec used for clips and webcasting. Previously, MJPEG was used for clips by default, but this codec uses a large amount of hard disk space; MP42 was used for webcasting by default, but allowed for only a single viewer and was dated technology.
  • The XCast ActiveX control is now version 1.00.22. It now includes xvidcore.dll in place of MP42, and also communicates directly with the DLL for maximum performance.
  • NOTE that although xvidcore.dll is now redistributed, in order to open XVID AVI format files in Windows, you must still install the full XVID package from www.xvid.org.

New in Blue Iris 2.2.2 (Oct 10, 2008)

  • Support for many new IP cameras
  • HTML formatting fixes for the default web pages so that they properly display on a wider collection of browsers
  • Bug fix: viewing the index image (all cameras) online while it was being resized (due to enabling/disabling cameras) would result in a crash
  • The ActiveX control has been updated to version 1,0,0,21. Its digital signature has been extended 2 years (now expiring 10/2010), and there is a new optional parameter bHideUI, which when set to "TRUE" will hide the camera/file title and PTZ toolbar.
  • An attempt is made by the web server to identify mobile device connections and forward them to the appropriate default page; iPhones using Safari to jpegpull.htm, others to cell.htm.
  • Fix for streaming from some cameras (including Y-Cam) in 320x240 resolution
  • You may resize posted images to any arbitrary size. Leave the Size box at (default) in order to use the same size as the images captured by the camera.
  • The Text overlay dialog now includes selection boxes for standard date/time formatting codes.
  • The Snapshot tool in the Viewer now allows you to pull a JPEG image out of a movie, which may be more convenient than using the clipboard and pasting the image into Paint or a Word document.

New in Blue Iris 2.2.0 (Aug 6, 2008)

  • The viewer's Trim/Export feature can now create WMV files instead of AVI files (full version only).
  • Clicking on the video window no longer stops a manual record; you must either use the Record icon or right click and select Stop from the popup menu.
  • Two new DDE commands "recstart" and "recstop" to use instead of the "record" command. This allows you to assert the manual record state rather than to toggle it.
  • An Invert tool button has been added to the Motion Mask Edit window
  • The first five PTZ preset positions may now be selected via the ActiveX remote view

New in Blue Iris 2.1.9 (Jul 9, 2008)

  • DLink 950/g support has been updated to allow newer versions of the firmware to use the "DLink 950/1110 video port" driver option, which has been found to be more stable than the "web port" option.
  • Support for the Ganz 785, 787, etc. video servers
  • For time zone correction in a text overlay, add the special sequence { n} to the beginning of the string, where n is a number 1-23, and the sign is either or -. For example, a text overlay of { 3}%c will display the time 3 hours ahead of local time.
  • The camera Record page contains a new option for Continuous recording. You may also specify an alternate recording frame rate if you wish to record at a lower frame rate. IMPORTANT NOTE: you should revisit the Record for each camera to insure proper settings using the new options.
  • When you record video without audio at a frame rate of less than 2fps, the playback frame rate is now forced to 2fps. The effect is a "time lapse" where video will playback faster than real time.