Blue Iris

I have a client that does in-home counseling. The counselors are in different homes all the time. Is there any way to use a portable camera or laptop camera to push the stream back to BI? If not that, could it be recorded locally and then the video be imported into BI later?

Thanks,
James

What is the intended purpose of keeping the videos in BI, why not just save them as video files with the client notes for each patient?

if the camera has a public ip address and supports rtsp then it should work. I dont think its a good idea, but it could work.

@HenryH, not sure sending video from a counseling session over the internet is good for confidentiality reasons!

BruceH wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 10:07 pm @HenryH, not sure sending video from a counseling session over the internet is good for confidentiality reasons!

Well, I often doubt what users here are asking for and try not to get into their reasons/rationale. Too many times people ask "can I do x?" and everyone comments on whether they should or not but never on actually answering the OP question.

Good Point!

My question is more of, is there a way to push a stream to BI, rather than BI pulling it in? Of course, there are security ramifications. If it is not possible, then I won't even consider the the security of it. In some ways, it is just a thought experiment.

James

I would say that BI pulls the stream from the camera, it needs to be connected to the camera to be able to record the video, it is designed to be a live security system that watches/records the camera feed not really a place to just store recorded video clips. Explain a bit more about what you are trying to accomplish and we can try to provide a better response!

I have set this client up to use Blue Iris to record several cameras in-house without problem. At times, they have individuals travel to random homes to conduct sessions. They need a way to record these sessions. Of course, they can be recorded locally and then copied to a repository later. That said, I was exploring to see if there was a way to record it automatically with BI, thus streamlining this process. The less user interaction needed the better. Also, because they currently use BI, it seems reasonable to me to have it be the repository for all of their video clips, not just the in-house clips. Does that help? It sounds like the real answer to no and that doesn't even touch on the security of the data.

James

I think that what you are suggesting may be possible, the real issue with BI recording a camera that is only available occasionally is that the user would have no idea if the camera is actually connected to BI when they want it to record. They would have to connect to the BI server and verify that the camera is on line before trusting that it was actually working. Sounds much easier in these cases to just record it locally, then copy it back to a central storage after the fact!