blue screen with a generic 16port BT878 based card

schweini · Post by **schweini** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:03 am

Hello,

I just found a 16 port capture card with 4 BT878 and one PLX technologies PCI6140-AA33PC (PCI-to-PCI bridge)chip on it. The card has 4 BNC connectors, and a internal "IDE style" connector used to connect 12 additional cameras using two "VGA connectors" (15 pins, each).

I'm just interested with getting the 4 BNC ports to work.

xawtv only shows a clear, blue screen on /dev/video0, but on /dev/video[123] i get some 'snow' (when set to PAL, and using the 'television' video source. if i use any other combination, i just get 'blue').

zoneminder only displays blue screens on /dev/video0 (channels 0,1,2,3),a nd i think it displayed the same 'snow' on /dev/video[123] (but i can't check anymore, since i only get 'shared memory not valid' errors, but that is another question for another day)

so, how can i get this card to work with ZM? if i understand correctly, the fact that i am at least getting some analog signal (the 'snow') on some ports looks promising. I have checked http://www.bttv-gallery.de/ and not found anything really similar (the 'Provideo PV149' looks kinda similar, but has different sub-chips).

i would gladly step through all the different bttv-driver card-options, if that wouldn't imply rebooting every time. is there a way to simply rmmod, and then modprobe with the given card=XXXX option?

or am i simply missing something really simple, like telling the card what input-channel to look at? why does video0 only give me blue, but the other devices at least give me 'scnow'?

thanks a lot for any help!

relevant dmesg output:

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[   53.820097] bttv: driver version 0.9.16 loaded
[   53.820107] bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
[   53.820215] bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
[   53.820256] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:00.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[   53.820273] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.0 to 64
[   53.820282] bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 0000:02:00.0, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xe3800000
[   53.820303] bttv0: subsystem: 32da:c84e (UNKNOWN)
[   53.820306] please mail id, board name and the correct card= insmod option to video4linux-list@redhat.com
[   53.820312] bttv0: using:  *** UNKNOWN/GENERIC ***  [card=0,autodetected]
[   53.820355] bttv0: gpio: en=00000000, out=00000000 in=00ff08ff [init]
[   53.855674] bttv0: using tuner=-1
[   53.855679] bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
[   53.856575] bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
[   53.857390] bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
[   53.858204] bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9887 @ 0x86... not found
[   53.859088] bttv0: registered device video0
[   53.859135] bttv0: registered device vbi0

lspci -nv:

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02:08.1 0480: 109e:0878 (rev 11)
        Subsystem: 32dc:c84e
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 16
        Memory at e1000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2

02:0c.0 0400: 109e:036e (rev 11)
        Subsystem: 32dd:c84e
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
        Memory at e0800000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2

scanpci -v

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pci bus 0x0002 cardnum 0x00 function 0x00: vendor 0x109e device 0x036e
 Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture
 CardVendor 0x32da card 0xc84e (Card unknown)
  STATUS    0x0290  COMMAND 0x0006
  CLASS     0x04 0x00 0x00  REVISION 0x11
  BIST      0x00  HEADER 0x80  LATENCY 0x40  CACHE 0x00
  BASE0     0xe3800008  addr 0xe3800000  MEM PREFETCHABLE
  MAX_LAT   0x28  MIN_GNT 0x10  INT_PIN 0x01  INT_LINE 0x0a

pci bus 0x0002 cardnum 0x00 function 0x01: vendor 0x109e device 0x0878
 Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture
 CardVendor 0x32da card 0xc84e (Card unknown)
  STATUS    0x0290  COMMAND 0x0002
  CLASS     0x04 0x80 0x00  REVISION 0x11
  BIST      0x00  HEADER 0x80  LATENCY 0x00  CACHE 0x00
  BASE0     0xe3000008  addr 0xe3000000  MEM PREFETCHABLE
  MAX_LAT   0xff  MIN_GNT 0x04  INT_PIN 0x01  INT_LINE 0x0a

[/code]

schweini · Post by **schweini** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:13 pm

ok, so i tried insmod-ing the bttv module with different card=n options, to no avail. am i doing this correctly?

insmod bttv.ko card=103

loads the bttv driver with:

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[44156.860336] bttv0: using: Grand X-Guard / Trust 814PCI [card=103,insmod option]

but he other 3 bt878 chips still get loaded with

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[44157.246091] bttv1: using:  *** UNKNOWN/GENERIC ***  [card=0,autodetected]

(even though i don't really care about the cameras beyond the first four ones)

i still get exactly the same blue screen on video0.

my question is: am i doing this correctly? do i have to modprobe bt878 after i insmod bttv (since this doesn't seem to happen automatically)?

the docs at http://linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Bt ... nd_running say:

?: I have a blue screen.

!: Good, the overlay is working. A blue screen is what you get if the grabber chip has no input signal. You are probably using the wrong video source, pick another. Also happens sometimes if the tuner type is wrong, check the driver configuration.

yet, the card doesn't have a tuner, and if the 'video source' refers to xawtv's options of 'Television, Composite0, etc' then this isn't helping either.

help!