I am looking for a safe configuration of system hardware and DVR cards to install Zone Minder on. If some stock brand names like Dell, HP etc are okay that will be fine. I would prefer those with 4 PCI slots and above.
Popular motherboards for self built systems too are okay.
In the case of the cards I would prefer 8 full rate channels, using a single card with support for 8 channels or 2 4port channels is preferred, rather than splitting a 4 port card to 8 channels.
If the cards can be much cheaper than the Ituner Spectra 8 cards that will be nice.
PS. Where can I buy decent dvr cards in the UK?
Looking for a safe ZoneMinder configuration
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zoneminder
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DVR cards are a bit specialist - finding a UK supplier? Well, "needle" and "haystack" spring to mind... You will find plenty of ready made systems, but at cost!
Looking around on EBay is your best bet - many people here have found a card on EB. The cards are usually rebranded versions of well made and well supported cards.
If you are going down this route, some points to remember:
1) Find a seller with a good feedback rating
2) Make sure the card has a BT fusion 878 chipset - very well supported in the later kernel versions of linux (2.6.12 onward)
3) Make sure you know exactly what you are getting. I have a 16 port card outputting 100fps - got it for £40!!! However, I must point out that the card has only 4 encoding chips and a multiplexing chip which switches between 4 inputs, therefore the performance of each chip is decreased 4x (so 100fps/16=10fps per channel max as opposed to 25fps!)
Motherboard wise, well I use a 2.4ghz pentium4 with 512mb, disk is 40gb, but size will depend on how many cameras and how much recording your will be doing.
A "safe" config? Well, your easiest route is to install the CD iso image and then upgrade the kernel to at least 2.6.12 (the one on the distro is only 2.6.7 and will not support the later capture cards) I have recently done this - look for my recent posts about my bt878 and how to get it working. To upgrade the kernel, the best bet is to buy a linux mag with a cover which has a recent distro of linux with the latest kernel and install that. The beauty of a cover cd is that it will also come with the dependency installs as it is a whole distro so no hunting around on rpmfind for the correct bits and bobs!!!
If you wait a few weeks, a new version of the install CD with the latest distro and version of ZM (the one on the install cd is 1.21.4 I think). Corey is doing this as we speak I think!
Looking around on EBay is your best bet - many people here have found a card on EB. The cards are usually rebranded versions of well made and well supported cards.
If you are going down this route, some points to remember:
1) Find a seller with a good feedback rating
2) Make sure the card has a BT fusion 878 chipset - very well supported in the later kernel versions of linux (2.6.12 onward)
3) Make sure you know exactly what you are getting. I have a 16 port card outputting 100fps - got it for £40!!! However, I must point out that the card has only 4 encoding chips and a multiplexing chip which switches between 4 inputs, therefore the performance of each chip is decreased 4x (so 100fps/16=10fps per channel max as opposed to 25fps!)
Motherboard wise, well I use a 2.4ghz pentium4 with 512mb, disk is 40gb, but size will depend on how many cameras and how much recording your will be doing.
A "safe" config? Well, your easiest route is to install the CD iso image and then upgrade the kernel to at least 2.6.12 (the one on the distro is only 2.6.7 and will not support the later capture cards) I have recently done this - look for my recent posts about my bt878 and how to get it working. To upgrade the kernel, the best bet is to buy a linux mag with a cover which has a recent distro of linux with the latest kernel and install that. The beauty of a cover cd is that it will also come with the dependency installs as it is a whole distro so no hunting around on rpmfind for the correct bits and bobs!!!
If you wait a few weeks, a new version of the install CD with the latest distro and version of ZM (the one on the install cd is 1.21.4 I think). Corey is doing this as we speak I think!