How do you assign video devices?

[heyarnold]

Forgive me if this is a really dumb question, but I have a Hauppage WinTV card and an IBM C-It USB camera and I can't get them to both work at the same time. If I remove the USB camera then xawtv works fine with the Hauppage card. If I remove the Happauge card then the USB camera works fine. Of course when I remove one or the other then /dev/video0 is being used.

This must be a basic Linux configuration problem, because Zoneminder works fine with one or the other but not both. If I could figure out how to make the Happauge card video0 and the USB camera video1, then I think it will all work right.

I am using Redhat 9.0 Thanks in advance for any help, and forgive me for this basic question.

[zoneminder]

Hi,

I don't know what (if anything) you have in your modules.conf file (in /etc) but I would think it would be something like mine below except mine assigns USB drivers (and their options) to video0 and video1 and then two four port bttv cards to the next eight.

alias char-major-81 bttv
alias char-major-81-0 ov511
options ov511 cams=2
alias char-major-81-1 cpia
options cpia usb_alt=2
alias char-major-81-2 bttv
alias char-major-81-3 bttv
alias char-major-81-4 bttv
alias char-major-81-5 bttv
options bttv card=94,94,94,94 pll=1
alias char-major-81-6 bttv
alias char-major-81-7 bttv
alias char-major-81-8 bttv
alias char-major-81-9 bttv
options bttv card=42,42,42,42 pll=1 radio=0 tuner=4 sloppy=1 chroma_agc=1 mmap=1 vbibufs=4 v4l2=1 gbuffers=16

I would think yours should be something like

alias char-major-81 bttv
alias char-major-81-0 bttv
options bttv card=?? # You may need to specify options such as card type here, if not then delete
alias char-major-81-1 <your USB driver>
options <your USB driver> usb_alt=2 # You may need additional options here, esp if using multiple cams per USB bus

Phil,

[zoneminder]

Hi,

I don't know what (if anything) you have in your modules.conf file (in /etc) but I would think it would be something like mine below except mine assigns USB drivers (and their options) to video0 and video1 and then two four port bttv cards to the next eight.

alias char-major-81 bttv
alias char-major-81-0 ov511
options ov511 cams=2
alias char-major-81-1 cpia
options cpia usb_alt=2
alias char-major-81-2 bttv
alias char-major-81-3 bttv
alias char-major-81-4 bttv
alias char-major-81-5 bttv
options bttv card=94,94,94,94 pll=1
alias char-major-81-6 bttv
alias char-major-81-7 bttv
alias char-major-81-8 bttv
alias char-major-81-9 bttv
options bttv card=42,42,42,42 pll=1 radio=0 tuner=4 sloppy=1 chroma_agc=1 mmap=1 vbibufs=4 v4l2=1 gbuffers=16

I would think yours should be something like

alias char-major-81 bttv
alias char-major-81-0 bttv
options bttv card=?? # You may need to specify options such as card type here, if not then delete
alias char-major-81-1 <your USB driver>
options <your USB driver> usb_alt=2 # You may need additional options here, esp if using multiple cams per USB bus

Phil,

[heyarnold]

Hi Phil!

You were right! I had not set up my modules.conf file! Taking you advice I added the following to the modules.conf file:

# Hauppage is video1
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-1 bttv
options bttv radio=0 card=10
options tuner type=2

# IBM USB CAM is video0
alias char-major-81-0 ibmcam
options ibmcam framerate=1 size=2

After fixing the conf file I rebooted the computer just to make sure. When the computer rebooted I was able to run seperate instances of xawtv using commands: xawtv -device /usr/video0 and xawtv -device /usr/video1

B.T.W.: It seems that the order makes a difference! It seemed to work better with the USB camera as video0. I don't know why. If anyone can explain this to me I would be greatful.

I could see both cameras working simultaneously on my screen! Next I added the two monitors into the ZoneMinder console and tried to view them there. Unfortunately only the Hauppage card would show an image. The IBM C-It USB camera only showed noise (kind of like a bunch of broken lines).

No matter what I tried it would not work. I am stumped again! The IBM C-IT USB Camera seems to be V4L compliant and even works with xawtv. It is a cheap camera that was being sold off for little money here where I live. There also seemed to be a lot of support for it ( http://www.linux-usb.org/ibmcam/ ) and the diver was already included in the Redhat 9 I had loaded. I think it should work, but again I am not sure why Zone Minder cannot get an image from it.

Phil, thanks for you help with the modules.conf. You really know your stuff! I think this thread will help others with a similar problem. Perhaps I should open a new thread for the IBM C-It camera?

[zoneminder]

One thing to try here is to make sure that your IBM camera can actually do single image capture. There is an option in xawtv to capture a single frame so try that and verify that it works. Normally xawtv is just doing a kind of pass-thru video map which is a different mode of operation than that which ZM uses and now and again you come across cameras that won't do image capture.

Phil,

[heyarnold]

Hi Phil,

I tried using the "Grab Image (jpeg)" and "Grab Image (ppm)" under the options menu in XAWTV. Both seem to work, as I could grab an image from the IBM camera.

You must be right, this IBM C-It camera must not be compatible with ZoneMinder. It's a pity, because its a really nice (inexpensive) camera.

Hopefully this thread will help someone else. Thanks for all your help Phil!

[zoneminder]

If you can grab an image from xawtv then your camera will work with ZM, unless something unusual is going on.

Have you tried changing the format (ie PAL, NTSC etc) or the capture palette of the camera? If you get noise then at least that means that images are being capture so try usuing a small image size to start with and changing some of the settings.

Phil,

[heyarnold]

Hi Phil,

Once again, you were right! I was able to get it to work by playing around with the format, palette, width and height .
The only combination that would work was: NTSC, RGB24 and 176 by 144 pixels.
The reason I chose 176 by 144 resolution was because that is the native resolution of the camera.

Well, it all works now! Both my room and hallway can be watched!

Phil, you are the BEST! Zone Minder is the BEST!