Doug -
I was considering a KWorld capture card( one bt878 w/four ports ) as the seem relatively inexpensive (~$150). Can you give any feedback on it? Can it capture at 640x480? How is the FPS? Is it worth the $150 or would I really be getting what I'm paying for?
SeanAdams -
I live in the Fremont area and use to live in Campbell if you need any assistance.
linux crashing - $500 bounty!
Sweet Jesus, this is great!!
I've got three cameras going (for a 180 degree view down my driveway) and everything has been running solid now since I replaced the spectra8. The zoneminder... minding zones... the zoninator...
pchan, the guys at iTuner are close to you (automall) and even though I wasted several days due to the bad card, I won't hold a grudge. They seem like good guys and they swapped the card out in person no problem (no receipt even).
I am getting good performance here with 3 cameras at 320x240. I plan to hook up more cameras later and we'll find out how well it scales...
Doug, I just caught your earlier post. Small world indeed! Thanks for the lead on those guys. Their factory had some difficulty getting the first run of plastics cranked out but after that it's been good.
To anyone thinking of trying zoneminder:
1) don't dick with doing a self-install. Use the livecd and save yourself an evening or two
2) don't be dissuaded by some of the problems people report here. In this case it was not Linux's or Zoneminder's fault but the hardware. Sometimes it happens. Aside from that problem everything was very straightforward to get going.
Philip - paypal sent. Thanks for the great software and please consider increasing your suggested donation. Any typical zoneminder install is going to cost a few hundred in cameras, cabling, capture card etc so I think you deserve a little bit bigger cut.
I've got three cameras going (for a 180 degree view down my driveway) and everything has been running solid now since I replaced the spectra8. The zoneminder... minding zones... the zoninator...
pchan, the guys at iTuner are close to you (automall) and even though I wasted several days due to the bad card, I won't hold a grudge. They seem like good guys and they swapped the card out in person no problem (no receipt even).
I am getting good performance here with 3 cameras at 320x240. I plan to hook up more cameras later and we'll find out how well it scales...
Doug, I just caught your earlier post. Small world indeed! Thanks for the lead on those guys. Their factory had some difficulty getting the first run of plastics cranked out but after that it's been good.
To anyone thinking of trying zoneminder:
1) don't dick with doing a self-install. Use the livecd and save yourself an evening or two
2) don't be dissuaded by some of the problems people report here. In this case it was not Linux's or Zoneminder's fault but the hardware. Sometimes it happens. Aside from that problem everything was very straightforward to get going.
Philip - paypal sent. Thanks for the great software and please consider increasing your suggested donation. Any typical zoneminder install is going to cost a few hundred in cameras, cabling, capture card etc so I think you deserve a little bit bigger cut.
Ask me about my Squeezebox
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
I spoke too soon! This stupid thing is crashing again!
It ran fine for an hour and half after I put the new card in, and then it rebooted.
Then it rebooted again after 15 minutes.
Now it's rebooting after about 1-5 minutes.
The case has half a dozen big fans. I even put one right next to the bt878 card. Everything is cool.
wtf.
I spoke too soon! This stupid thing is crashing again!
It ran fine for an hour and half after I put the new card in, and then it rebooted.
Then it rebooted again after 15 minutes.
Now it's rebooting after about 1-5 minutes.
The case has half a dozen big fans. I even put one right next to the bt878 card. Everything is cool.
wtf.
This really really sounds like a memory problem. I just had the same symtoms last month with my system.
I ran memtest86, the Microsoft memory tester, and PC Bug Doctor memory tester for 48hrs with no problems at all but my system kept rebooting on me when I did anything useful. As soon as I replaced the memory, all my problems went away and now all is well.
Moral of my story is - just because memory tests pass doesn't mean that all the memory is good. It JUST means the memory is good for what the tests tested.
I ran memtest86, the Microsoft memory tester, and PC Bug Doctor memory tester for 48hrs with no problems at all but my system kept rebooting on me when I did anything useful. As soon as I replaced the memory, all my problems went away and now all is well.
Moral of my story is - just because memory tests pass doesn't mean that all the memory is good. It JUST means the memory is good for what the tests tested.
Yes but I had this with a different motherboard and different RAM too. And the problem went away for a relatively long time (1.5 hrs uptime compared to 5 seconds before the swap) immediately when I replaced the spectra8.
It seems like a thermal problem, in that the frequency of crashes is clearly increasing over time... but the system is extremely well cooled. And shutting it down for several hours has never made any difference.
It's as if these spectra8 cards just start dying a slow and certain death the instant you plug them in. I will call them tomorrow and ask them to test the card that I returned and tell me what they find.
I am also going to try a different capture card. I don't know what else to do - I've swapped out every part of the system now.
It seems like a thermal problem, in that the frequency of crashes is clearly increasing over time... but the system is extremely well cooled. And shutting it down for several hours has never made any difference.
It's as if these spectra8 cards just start dying a slow and certain death the instant you plug them in. I will call them tomorrow and ask them to test the card that I returned and tell me what they find.
I am also going to try a different capture card. I don't know what else to do - I've swapped out every part of the system now.
Ask me about my Squeezebox
Also I see that the Linux Media Labs cards come with heatsinks attached (including the PCI bridge):
http://www.linuxmedialabs.com/Images/LMLBT44.gif
Perhaps they discovered that the BT878s just have a problem with burning up???
http://www.linuxmedialabs.com/Images/LMLBT44.gif
Perhaps they discovered that the BT878s just have a problem with burning up???
Ask me about my Squeezebox
Sean, I was going to say to look at PCI card creeping( bad alignment/moving ) but now that you mention the bt878 heatsinking, that makes more sense. If you have some old Pentium or 486 CPU's around, grab the heatsink and paste it to the 878s( probably have to turn your case upside down or sideways though so the sinks don't slide off ).
FWIW, the KWorld SEC800 that I have does not have a heatsink on it's ONE bt878 either. But, then again, I've not been able to pound on it since my cheapo cameras don't show good data in ZM. Forking out >$400 for four cameras isn't in the plans right now.
The specs on the LinuxMedia boards sure look nice though... 4 channels at 60fps(640x480), 1A alarm relays(3), and isolated sensor inputs(4). Sweet.
This one doesn't look bad either but my guess is that the 120fps is divided over the 4 channels( 30fps ea ). Notice there are no heatsinks on it's 4 chips either.... Could be dependent on how hard the parts are driven. I noticed the Spectra8 pushes each bt878 to 30fps also.
http://www.provideo.com.tw/SD-149P.htm
UPDATE: Correction, after looking at the spec sheet for the bt878,bt879(linked on LinuxMedia site), it looks like those parts are 30fps parts. So maybe there is something to why LinuxMedia is heatsinking the parts. It also tells me that KWorld( w/1 bt878 ) can only do about 7fps per channel.
FWIW, the KWorld SEC800 that I have does not have a heatsink on it's ONE bt878 either. But, then again, I've not been able to pound on it since my cheapo cameras don't show good data in ZM. Forking out >$400 for four cameras isn't in the plans right now.
The specs on the LinuxMedia boards sure look nice though... 4 channels at 60fps(640x480), 1A alarm relays(3), and isolated sensor inputs(4). Sweet.
This one doesn't look bad either but my guess is that the 120fps is divided over the 4 channels( 30fps ea ). Notice there are no heatsinks on it's 4 chips either.... Could be dependent on how hard the parts are driven. I noticed the Spectra8 pushes each bt878 to 30fps also.
http://www.provideo.com.tw/SD-149P.htm
UPDATE: Correction, after looking at the spec sheet for the bt878,bt879(linked on LinuxMedia site), it looks like those parts are 30fps parts. So maybe there is something to why LinuxMedia is heatsinking the parts. It also tells me that KWorld( w/1 bt878 ) can only do about 7fps per channel.
Hi all,
Just had time to briefly scan this thread, and thought I would relate an experience that may shed some light. I tried a LML 4 chip card and had the same problem with the macine rebooting. I did get it working by going back to a 2.4 kernel and avoiding xawtv. A client has been using it now for 6 months or more with 6 cameras and no problems.
Last week he called to say that he had accidently deleted a monitor. I was able to talk him through adding the monitor back, and it seemed to be working fine. 10 minutes later he called back to say the machine was rebooting every few minutes. After pondering for a few, I realized I had him set the pallette on the new monitor to rgb24. Wrong for that card. Had him chang it to YUV422P, and problem fixed!
So you might just check that the pallette in all monitors is correct for the spectra card.
best regards,
Ross
Just had time to briefly scan this thread, and thought I would relate an experience that may shed some light. I tried a LML 4 chip card and had the same problem with the macine rebooting. I did get it working by going back to a 2.4 kernel and avoiding xawtv. A client has been using it now for 6 months or more with 6 cameras and no problems.
Last week he called to say that he had accidently deleted a monitor. I was able to talk him through adding the monitor back, and it seemed to be working fine. 10 minutes later he called back to say the machine was rebooting every few minutes. After pondering for a few, I realized I had him set the pallette on the new monitor to rgb24. Wrong for that card. Had him chang it to YUV422P, and problem fixed!
So you might just check that the pallette in all monitors is correct for the spectra card.
best regards,
Ross
Ross,
Thanks for the tip. This is the first advice I've ecnountered regarding the color pallette.
So far, an astounding 31 minutes uptime after chaging from RGB24 to YUV422P. Let's see if it survives overnight.
I'm not so experienced with video. Can anyone explain why choosing the wrong pallete should cause a crash? Both look identical in the monitor window...
Thanks for the tip. This is the first advice I've ecnountered regarding the color pallette.
So far, an astounding 31 minutes uptime after chaging from RGB24 to YUV422P. Let's see if it survives overnight.
I'm not so experienced with video. Can anyone explain why choosing the wrong pallete should cause a crash? Both look identical in the monitor window...
Ask me about my Squeezebox
That's great Sean but I sure hope we hear how this could have happened and why. There was another thread about a guy who's box would keep rebooting and it seemed to have been a toss up between it being a mobo problem or a memory problem. They were saying ASUS was bad but I have ASUS and not problems...
BTW, did you watch your CPU usage at all? If so, has it changed with the different palette configurations?
BTW, did you watch your CPU usage at all? If so, has it changed with the different palette configurations?
The load avg fluctuates quite a bit (cars going by; me opening and closing monitors) but I seem to recall it dropping a bit when I changed the pallette. But I wasn't keeping a real close eye on it...
Right now with the 4 cameras going at 320x240, 5fps, the load avg is 0.48
I too would really like to know why such a simple miconfiguration was crashing the whole system. Perhaps there should at least be a warning, maybe even lock out the setting for the spectra8. And certainly a FAQ.
I would hate for someone else to have to endure as much troubleshooting as I did. At least now we know there's a quick fix.
Right now with the 4 cameras going at 320x240, 5fps, the load avg is 0.48
I too would really like to know why such a simple miconfiguration was crashing the whole system. Perhaps there should at least be a warning, maybe even lock out the setting for the spectra8. And certainly a FAQ.
I would hate for someone else to have to endure as much troubleshooting as I did. At least now we know there's a quick fix.
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I will certainly add a FAQ on this issue.
As I understand it the symptoms are :- Intermittent reboots of a ZM system when one of the monitors on a Spectra8 card is set to RGB24
And the fix is :- Change the palette.
Am I missing something else? I'm using RGB24, or at least have done for extended periods with no issue. Does it relate to having other monitors already set up or something like that?
I'd like to pin this down as much as possible really, ideally also including any distro, kernel and bttv driver versions to see if there is a pattern.
Phil,
As I understand it the symptoms are :- Intermittent reboots of a ZM system when one of the monitors on a Spectra8 card is set to RGB24
And the fix is :- Change the palette.
Am I missing something else? I'm using RGB24, or at least have done for extended periods with no issue. Does it relate to having other monitors already set up or something like that?
I'd like to pin this down as much as possible really, ideally also including any distro, kernel and bttv driver versions to see if there is a pattern.
Phil,