Specifications

USB, Firewire, Analog

When using a capture card, or a USB or Firewire (IEEE-1394) camera that's connected to your

PC, you will need to use the USB, Firewire, Analog device type, which uses Microsoft's

DirectShow capture technology. Note: you must connect your camera and install its drivers

according to the manufacturer's installation procedure before the camera will appear on the

device list.

When you make a selection from the USB, Firewire, Analog list, the X,Y size list beneath it will

be updated to show the available resolution formats for the device you've chosen. The input

pin list will contain a list of possible source video inputs if you are using an analog capture

device that includes multiple inputs, such as composite, s-video and TV (this is known as a

video "crossbar").

Caution: some devices do not correctly report their supported X,Y resolution values. In fact,

choosing one of the incorrectly reported values may cause the driver to bring down the

system. For example, the Hauppauge Win/TV card reports PAL values here when you are

actually using NTSC. Choosing one of these values will crash the system. With this card, it is

necessary to use the "Stream/Format" property page to correctly choose the

resolution. Advanced users may override the presets and manually enter the resolution in "X

x Y" format.

Use the Frame rate option to specify the time between images. Many cameras may be able to

provide images as fast as 30 frames per second (fps) (or 25 for PAL format video). If your PC is

of sufficient muscle, Blue Iris will have no problem keeping up with these rates. However, this

is generally not required for security or web cam applications, as the amount of system

resources (CPU and hard drive space) consumed may quickly become an issue. You'll probably

find acceptable the 1 fps to 10 fps range. There are several "preset" frame rates from which to

choose, but advanced users are able to specify their own values here by either entering the fps

value (from 0.1 to 30.0) or the frame interval value in 100ns units (from 333333 to

100000000).

Caution: some device drivers will cause the system to halt (blue screen) if they are instructed

to use frame rate values outside of their normal operating parameters. For example, the

inexpensive "Twinkle Cam" driver will bring down Windows if fewer than 5 fps is specified.

The Advanced... button allows you to view and set various parameters for your capture device,

depending on what the manufacturer of your capture device has built-in to its drivers. You

may never find it necessary to use these features, but they are provided for advanced users,

and to aid in the diagnosis of any hardware incompatibility. If your camera has an adjustable

white balance, for example, this is where you will find this setting.