Using the client

overview the bluecherry client lets you watch live and recorded video from your bluecherry server it is a cross platform application that runs on android, ios, windows, macos, and linux download, installation refer to readme md for installation instructions requirements you will need a bluecherry server to use this application you can buy a license from the bluecherry website https //www bluecherrydvr com/ connecting to the server these steps will guide you through easily connecting to your bluecherry server you can add as much servers as necessary the steps are similar for all platforms 1\ enter the hostname or ip address of the bluecherry server the default login and password for new installations is admin and bluecherry you can optionally click use default to have this information automatically entered for you click next to connect 2\ you can optionally change some settings for the server, such as the streaming type, rtsp protocol, and rendering quality you can optionally leave these as they are click finish to add the server 3\ if the server was successfully added, you will be able to see the server in the server list and view the cameras click finish to close the process viewing cameras after your server is added, you will be redirected to the camera list you can view the live video from the cameras by clicking on them or by dragging them to the layout you can repeat this process or any camera or dvr that you have listed on the left side note it’s possible to connect as many devices together as you need, and mix and match the videos in different layouts ptz the ptz feature allows you to control the pan, tilt, and zoom of a camera to enable it, click on the ptz button on the camera tile the ptz feature is only available for cameras that support ptz if the camera does not support ptz, the ptz button will not be available you can press and move the mouse to control the camera you can perform the following movements pan press and move the mouse left or right tilt press and move the mouse up or down zoom scroll the mouse wheel up or down the ptz movements are scheduled and will be executed after the previous movement is completed depending on the speed of the internet connection, you can experience minor delays between the movements and the camera response it is recommended to wait for the camera to complete the previous movement before performing another one, but scheduling multiple movements is possible ptz zoom is not supported on mobile devices see this issue \[beta] matrix zoom the matrix view is a feature that allows you to zoom into a camera this is useful for multicast streams this works better with cameras with larger resolutions to enable it, go to settings > updates > beta features > matrix view zoom layouts you can create layouts to organize the cameras you can add cameras to the layout by dragging them from the camera list to the layout multiple layout the multiple layout allows you to view as many cameras as you want in a grid the grid will adapt to the number of cameras you add compact layout the compact layouts creates a 2x2 grid with sub 2x2 grids this is useful for viewing a large number of cameras in a small space cycling you can enable the cycling to change the layouts automatically at a given interval (defaults to 30 seconds) this is useful for monitoring a large number of cameras external streams you can add external streams to the layout this is useful for adding streams from other sources, such as webcams, ip cameras, or other bluecherry servers to add an external stream, click on the add external stream tile and enter the stream url in the example above, we add a test video to the layout external streams are added to the external stream layout open app from configuration file you can open the app from a configuration file this is useful for opening the app from a web browser or from a file manager the configuration file is a bluecherry file that contains the devices data here is an example of a configuration file \[stream] video = rtsp\ //demo bluecherry app 7002/live/1 \[videoscreen] fullscreen = false \[audio] sound = true the stream section contains the video url the app will try to connect to this url when it is opened the videoscreen section contains the fullscreen setting, which determines if the app should open in fullscreen mode or add the video to the layout the audio section contains the sound setting, which determines if the stream should have sound or not you can open the app from the configuration file by double clicking it and opening it with the bluecherry client additionally, you can add overlays to the video by adding the following sections to the configuration file \[overlay] text = "this is overlay number threee" size = 24 color = #000000 opacity = 80 show = true position x = 10 position y = 30 the overlay section contains the text, size, color, opacity, show, position x, and position y settings the overlay is persistent and will be shown on top of the video the position x and position y determines the position of the overlay on the video, being 0 the top left corner of the video the overlay can be edited from within the app press finish to add the stream to the layout events the events section allows you to view the events that were recorded by the server you can view the events by clicking on the events history tab browse events select the camera you want to view the events and click on the filter button you can filter the events by date range timeline of events the timeline of events allows you to view the events in a timeline this is useful for quickly finding events you can filter the events by date you can only view 6 cameras at the same time in the timeline of events use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the timeline use the arrow keys to move the timeline forward and backward downloads you can download the events by clicking on the download button to see the downloaded events, click on the downloads tab you can choose the download location in the settings the default download location is the downloads folder