Assistance with Conexant Security BNC Card

[raav]

Hey Zondminder forums. Thank you for taking the time. Maybe someone could assist me with trying to get my Zoneminder system running. I would be very much appreciated. I have searched the forum and found this similar thread but it wasn't resolved...any help would be appreciated.
viewtopic.php?t=23340

TLDR: I have my Zoneminder up and running on some 2010s hardware. Fully up and running, problems are getting some sort of signal to be recognized from my wired BNC cameras. I have /dev/video0-3 recognized with 4 channels a piece, but I can't seem to get it to see signals.

Card: NCP3000 (older card)
http://www.ascendtech.us/ncp3000-16ch-6 ... 00v22.aspx
NOTE: I don't have the additional ribbon cable/card pictured in the link.
It is a Conexant with 4x fusion 878A chips and PLX Technology chip on it.
I did find a guide that might help here, but I'm not as savvy with this stuff to kinda extrapolate what I need from it...
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/UDP_Technology_NCP3200v2
My card is identical to this one, except I put aftermarket heatsinks on the card.
It is installed right now and I would rather just leave it in the system instead of taking a picture of my exact card.
Card pic here:


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Details:
Zoneminder is installed, I used Debian and went with the standard install instructions. Within the WebGUI and SSH'd into Debian, I see the device listed, /dev/video0 through /dev/video3 and the devices have 4 channels a piece. The card has 4x878 chips on it, makes sense so far. The back of the card has 2xDB16 connectors with 8xBNC connections coming out of them apiece. I try plugging a camera into the back of what I would suspect would be channel 1 and I get nothing. I attached pics of my config setup. I have copied the same exact configuration down inside of the webGUI only changing the devices to /dev/video0 through /dev/video3 and then setting up channels 0-3 on each of those devices for a total of 16 channels. Attached a pic of that general setup.

The problem is I cant get a signal from a camera. I try to use the probes and I dont see any cameras when I have one connected into what seems like any port. I am currently connecting a single BNC camera into each port to see if I can get anything from any port. It feels like I am super close and maybe I just have some sort of weird configuration error, which is why I am here. Below is the output from the zmu command which I've seen requested a lot. I am trying to give as much info as I can, and it would be amazing if anyone could help me with this. Thank you.

Here is output for zmu -d /dev/video0 -q -v

Video Device: /dev/video3
General Capabilities
Driver: bttv
Card: BT878 video ( *** UNKNOWN/GENER
Bus: PCI:0000:02:0c.0
Version: 4.19.132
Type: 0x85200015
Supports video capture (X)
Does not support video output
Supports frame buffer overlay
Supports VBI capture
Does not support VBI output
Does not support sliced VBI capture
Does not support sliced VBI output
Does not support video output overlay
Does not have tuner
Does not have audio in and/or out
Does not have radio
Supports read/write i/o (X)
Does not support async i/o
Supports streaming i/o (X)
Standards:
NTSC
NTSC-M
NTSC-M-JP
NTSC-M-KR
PAL
PAL-BG
PAL-H
PAL-I
PAL-DK
PAL-M
PAL-N
PAL-Nc
PAL-60
SECAM
SECAM-B
SECAM-G
SECAM-H
SECAM-DK
SECAM-L
SECAM-Lc
Formats:
8-bit Greyscale (0x59455247)
8-bit Dithered RGB (BTTV) (0x34324948)
16-bit A/XRGB 1-5-5-5 (0x4f424752)
16-bit A/XRGB 1-5-5-5 BE (0x51424752)
16-bit RGB 5-6-5 (0x50424752)
16-bit RGB 5-6-5 BE (0x52424752)
24-bit BGR 8-8-8 (0x33524742)
32-bit BGRA/X 8-8-8-8 (0x34524742)
32-bit A/XRGB 8-8-8-8 (0x34424752)
YUYV 4:2:2 (0x56595559)
UYVY 4:2:2 (0x59565955)
Planar YUV 4:2:2 (0x50323234)
Planar YUV 4:2:0 (0x32315559)
Planar YVU 4:2:0 (0x32315659)
Planar YUV 4:1:1 (0x50313134)
Planar YUV 4:1:0 (0x39565559)
Planar YVU 4:1:0 (0x39555659)
Crop Capabilities
Bounds: 1063 x 608
Default: 924 x 576
Current: 924 x 576
Inputs: 4
Input 0
Name: Composite0
Type: Camera
Audioset: 00000000
Standards: 0xffbfff
Power on (X)
Signal detected (X)
Colour Signal detected
Horizontal Lock detected
Input 1
Name: Composite1
Type: Camera
Audioset: 00000000
Standards: 0xffbfff
Power on (X)
Signal detected (X)
Colour Signal detected
Horizontal Lock detected
Input 2
Name: S-Video
Type: Camera
Audioset: 00000000
Standards: 0xffbfff
Power on (X)
Signal detected (X)
Colour Signal detected
Horizontal Lock detected
Input 3
Name: Composite3
Type: Camera
Audioset: 00000000
Standards: 0xffbfff
Power on (X)
Signal detected (X)
Colour Signal detected
Horizontal Lock detected

[raav]

Doing a little more looking around on the forums I think I need to create and edit the /etc/modprobe.d/bttv.conf file and enter in some data.

According to the NCP3000v2 site, I need to enter in:
options bttv gbuffers=32 card=158,158,158,158,158,158,157,157

According to this: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/UDP_Technology_NCP3200v2

The problem is my card is a NCP3000 version 1 card I assume. It only has 4 chips onboard, not 8 chips.

So I think im getting closer. I just dont know exactly what gbuffers I need to use or how to find that information. Or, should I be using a 3.14 kernal? On the site linked above it says I should patch my kernal in order to fully use this card, but I've never done that before. Would anyone be so kind as to suggest what I should do?

[iconnor]

I find xawtv to be useful for testing old capture cards. Just a little easier to try out different settings.

[mikb]

... or "tvtime", which I use to watch analog input TV on a BT848 based card.

You could also try supplying a known-good analogue signal (from a composite output on a DVR/camera/anything else) to the card's inputs. If the signal from your camera is not a properly compliant PAL/NTSC signal, you may well get a bluescreen/junk situation and be trying to fault-find forever.

[raav]

I find xawtv to be useful for testing old capture cards. Just a little easier to try out different settings.

What package is that in? I tried a sudo apt install xawtv, it said something about tv-fonts, i tried that, not really sure how to use that command.

... or "tvtime", which I use to watch analog input TV on a BT848 based card.

You could also try supplying a known-good analogue signal (from a composite output on a DVR/camera/anything else) to the card's inputs. If the signal from your camera is not a properly compliant PAL/NTSC signal, you may well get a bluescreen/junk situation and be trying to fault-find forever.

Thank you both for your replies. I have basically tried what you suggested @mikb. I took a BNC wired camera, plugged it into power, the NV LEDS came on, I plugged it into each channel on the back of the card, would go to my laptop and refresh my status page on zoneminder a couple times, and I wouldn't see anything. I have each channel configured (I think) check the pics in my first post.

[raav]

On this link I found while digging it states that I might have to patch the kernal for 16 video inputs.
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/UDP_Technology_NCP3200v2

It says something about using a patch for the 3.14 kernal. Should I be using an older version of Zoneminder to work with this card maybe? I'm not quite sure how to patch the kernal.

It also mentions this:

To use the card with an unpatched kernel, create the file /etc/modprobe.d/bttv.conf with the line below.
options bttv gbuffers=32 card=158,158,158,158,158,158,157,157

Which I could and did do easy peasy. The problem is the card in the Wiki is NCP3200v2 while mine is a NCP3200. The card in the wiki has 8 chips while mine has 4. I'm thinking if I could get the correct /etc/modeprobe.d/bttc.conf settings added in, maybe I would be able to get something out of the card, verifying things are at least functional. But the problem is i dont know what settings to put down for gbuffers=? and card=?,?,?,etc. Could anyone point me in a direction that might shine some light on how to find those correct settings? Maybe one of the previous mentioned commands maybe?

[raav]

Still working on this project. I got all my cams wired to a power bank in my server closet so they are all hot and ready to go. I know some of those cameras worked in the past, so I'm pretty sure its just a matter of getting the kernal issues worked out with this card.

[burger]

Ref: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=30017&p=117860#p117860