just starting, bttv drivers and more

sdel · Post by **sdel** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 6:16 am

Problem: Monitor image is broken.

I've been lurking around these forums for a couple weeks and purchased a GrandTec XGuard 4port card to use with Zoneminder.

I'm running debian (sarge 2.4kernel) on a p4 1.7ghz server, apache 2, php4.

Per the documentation, I ran # zem -d 0 -q -v. This showed that my video0 device has 16 channels. I've setup a monitor for each channels 0 - 3.

I only have one video source going into one of the channels, but all 4 images are blank when I click on Montage after logging in.

I am now stuck. I'm not sure where to begin my troubleshooting. One of these monitors should be viewing my video feed.

The video feed is definately good because I hooked it up to the tv to test it.

May this be a driver problem? I downloaded the bttv driver, but I've never installed a driver on linux before. The driver documentation says I need to define the kernel tree path, but I'm not sure what that is.

Then, once I do install the driver, how do I tell my device to use that driver?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
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sdel · Post by **sdel** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 7:00 am

ok, well i verified that i do have the bttv.o driver installed, so now i'm just wondering where else i should look.

one thing i did find in a log. this happens when i change a setting on one of the monitors:

Can't find process with command of 'zmc -d 0'
'zmc -d 0' started at 05/01/03 23:57:29
'zmc -d 0' starting at 05/01/03 23:57:29, pid = 1728
Can't find process with command of 'zma -m 3'

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Post by **zoneminder** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 12:14 pm

Hi,

I think the first thing you need to do is check that your feed is coming through to the right device. Have you tried using xawtv or some other application just to verify that video is accessible from your card?

Phil

sdel · Post by **sdel** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:29 pm

Hi Phil,

I used that zem tool to verify that my video0 is valid. I have not used xawtv yet, but maybe I should do that on my next attempt tonight.

I know that my vido0 channel 0 is the right port I'm requesting, because channels 1-3 are solid blue when i put them in record mode. ( no cameras hooked up to them )

When I record channel 1, I get a picture sequence in the event, but the pictures are not recognizable. It's not a solid color, but almost.. different colors depending on what video settings I have for that monitor.

I was up entirely too late last night with this, but here are some of my results from trying to view a stream:

- when trying to use the jpg sequence with that plugin, the plugin would install but the image just had a text path from my cgi bin inside of it. i'm thinking i need to tweek my apache cgi settings for this.

- when trying to use ffmpeg i would get a solid black stream in internet explorer. i configured --with-ffmpeg=/usr/local/ffmpeg .. and the settings for the path to the ffmpeg compiler is: /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg ( does this look right )

i appologize this post is all over the place, but i was trying to just get one of the ways to work, even if it was to display my almost solid color video disply.

i have 2 problems here:
1. not sure if my video card is capturing video accurately
2. can't get mpeg or jpeg sequence to stream

I'll give xawtv a try, and then perhaps my next post will be more focused.
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sdel · Post by **sdel** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:37 pm

oops, i got confused. i did use the zmu tool. here is the output of a zmu -d 0 -q -v

Video Capabilities
Name: bttv video
Type: 233
Can capture
Overlay onto frame buffer
Can clip
Uses the frame buffer memory
Scalable
Video Channels: 16
Audio Channels: 0
Maximum Width: 924
Maximum Height: 576
Minimum Width: 48
Minimum Height: 32
Window Attributes
X Offset: 0
Y Offset: 0
Width: 320
Height: 240
Picture Attributes
Palette: 4 - 24bit RGB
Colour Depth: 0
Brightness: 32768
Hue: 32768
Colour :32512
Contrast: 27648
Whiteness: 0
Channel 0 Attributes
Name: Composite0
Channel: 0
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 1 Attributes
Name: Composite1
Channel: 1
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 2 Attributes
Name: Composite2
Channel: 2
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 3 Attributes
Name: Composite3
Channel: 3
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 4 Attributes
Name: Composite4
Channel: 4
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 5 Attributes
Name: Composite5
Channel: 5
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 6 Attributes
Name: Composite6
Channel: 6
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 7 Attributes
Name: Composite7
Channel: 7
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 8 Attributes
Name: Composite8
Channel: 8
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 9 Attributes
Name: Composite9
Channel: 9
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 10 Attributes
Name: Composite10
Channel: 10
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 11 Attributes
Name: Composite11
Channel: 11
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 12 Attributes
Name: Composite12
Channel: 12
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 13 Attributes
Name: Composite13
Channel: 13
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 14 Attributes
Name: Composite14
Channel: 14
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 15 Attributes
Name: Composite15
Channel: 15
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL

this is only a 4 channel card so only 0-3 should be valid here. like i said, i think it's recognizing my video ( but the video doesn't look right ) .. i'm not concerned with the picture yet, i just want to get the online monitor to work with jpeg or mpeg ( preferably be able to do both ) .. then i can focus on the video settings.

could you verify that what i posted above regarding ffmpeg configuration and settings are correct?

i really appreciate the help.

Mike
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sdel · Post by **sdel** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:45 pm

OK .. moving on .. Now the only problem is streaming.

When I select 'record' for a minute on the monitor, I can view the event ONLY when I select 'stills' .. Even though I have the monitor settings set to RGB555, it is black and white. Another strange thing is that the video is out of frame, i.e. there is a black line about 1/3 up that shows the top part of the picture on the bottom.

Still trying to trouble shoot the streaming.

sdel · Post by **sdel** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 8:44 pm

well i got a good jpeg stream happening, so i'll end this thread and start new ones for more specific tweeking.
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