Lines (NOT interlacing) in Images

[joako]

I've searched and searched and searched and all I come across is information about interlacing. I know what interlacing is and how it works. What I am seeing does not appear to be interlacing.

What I am seeing is horizontal lines accross the image when there is motion, but outside the field of motion. When the issue happens it happens across all cameras. If I set all cameras to 30fps I will without a doubt see it. If I lower the framerate OR disable some of the cameras the issue will go away. It's almost like there is a bandwith limitation on the PCI bus.

I am using 8 chip/8 port BT787-based card with various analog cameras.

My setup is as follows:

ASUS P5BV-C mainboard
HP E200 SAS-RAID controller (PCI-E) -- OS on RAID 1, ZM data on RAID 0, but I had run this with a single disk, OS on PCI RAID-1 Adapatec controller w/ same results
openSUSE 11.3 (tested CentOS 5.5 w/ same results)
Generic 8 port/8 chip 878 card
Some PCI sound card (added later, doesn't affect the problem)

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3200/3210 Chipset DRAM Controller (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 3200/3210 Chipset Host-Primary PCI Express Bridge (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 01)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA AHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
01:01.0 PCI bridge: Hint Corp HiNT HB4 PCI-PCI Bridge (PCI6150) (rev 04)
01:02.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 07)
01:02.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! Game Port (rev 07)
01:03.0 VGA compatible controller: XGI Technology Inc. (eXtreme Graphics Innovation) Z7/Z9 (XG20 core)
02:08.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:08.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
02:09.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:09.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
02:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:0a.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
02:0b.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:0b.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
02:0c.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:0c.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
02:0d.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:0d.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
02:0e.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:0e.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
02:0f.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
02:0f.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
06:00.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom EPB PCI-Express to PCI-X Bridge (rev b4)
07:04.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev b2)
07:08.0 RAID bus controller: Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array E200i (SAS Controller)

[curtishall]

This is usually the result of a power supply issue. Try swapping out power supplies and seeing if the issue goes away

[joako]

Well the reason I've switched from CentOS to openSUSE and Adaptec to HP RAID controllers was because the server was a work in progress. During that time it also went from 430 watts Antec ATX 1.x power supply to a brand new 550 (or was it 650?) watts Antec ATX 2.3 power supply.

The server itself is only using about 130 watts measured at the 120 volts power supply input.

[timcraig]

I had the same issues with my 16 port, 4 chip BTTV card as well. I was using RGB24 when I was having the problem. When I switched to RGB555, the lines went away.

Try using some other capture pallets that give a clear picture and see if you continue to have those lines.

[joako]

I am using BGR24. Will using RGB555 cause any increase in CPU usage? Anyways I have set it and will see tomorrow during the day if it looks any better.

Oh and already I have set in my modprobe.conf (well /etc/modprobe.d/50-tv.conf in openSUSE)

options bttv gbuffers=16 radio=-1 tuner=4 card=102,102,102,102,102,102,102,102

And that seemed to make things a little better from the recordings I am watching. I had already added Enzotech BCC9 copper heatsinks a few weeks ago as a first reaction.

[timcraig]

I didn't see any difference in CPU usage when I changed changed to rgb555.

[DREMA]

An offtopic question, can you setup all your 8 channels to 640x480 resolution at the same time? It doesn't cause any problems beside that lines, or any freeze or hard lockups on your machine?

[joako]

At very first I was when I stuck the card in CentOS without any config, but I never saw this again after I set the modprobe options and also I had a PCI winmodem that was to be used with Asterisk PBX. When the driver (DAHDI + wcfxo) was loaded I got constant FXO PCI Bus Master Abort Errors... but I don't think that was related to the crashing. I removed the modem and replaced it with Linksys SPA3102.

But right now I only have 6 channels setup. Also I feel if I add another of these PCI cards I will have IRQ issues like I did with the modem... I can't figure out how to change the IRQs despite with different OS I get different IRQ.

I did see some little bit of these lines today but not as bad as I was seeing on almost all motion with BGR24.

I have 6 cameras:
* 2 modect 5fps / 12fps alarm frame skip 4
* 2 mocord 18fps / 30fps alarm frame skip 8
* 2 mocord 9fps / 18fps alarm frame skip 4

With this configuration load is about a constant .20 - .40, CPU use about 30% (Core2 Duo E6750) Disk write (from iotop) between 300-800 K/s but more around 400 K/s (I assume not alarm).

I am afraid to test it out now 30fps but I can make some time to connect 2 more cameras and set it all to a constant 30fps and see what happens. It's a generic card a little similar to Kodicom clone but it has 8 chips, 8 inputs (no audio) and the breakout cable has the same plug as a joystick port and was USD 85 locally.

[timcraig]

oh, your card is a BRG palette type.

I noticed Zoneminder doesn't have the BRG555, 565 and 444 types. I think they do exist in v4l2 (I think I've seen them in a .h file for the v4l2 libraries). Hopefully someone will provide a patch to include those palette types in Zoneminder.

[Normando]

Joako, are you close all unused inputs for your capture card? I mean, set all unused inputs to "none" and uncheck "Enable" checkbox.

If you have only 2 cameras on your systema, but leave 6 inputs open, then you will get these lines. A solution is to add the rest (6) of the monitors in ZM to each input (/dev/video...) but leave as "None" mode and uncheck the "Enable" checkbox.

Tell me if you fix the issue.

[joako]

all the unused inputs were already set to disabled and none. But I don't see why that should matter since in this card it is 1 chip per input.

Ever since I set it to RGB555 it is much better but still there are 2 or 3 or sometimes a few more lines. But also many times there are no lines during quick motion.

[kingofkya]

IS it possible it is a heat issuse? Meaning do you have heat syncs on the chips?

Quick way to test is to shut off the system for a few hours then turn it on. See if lines are there, if not check back later see if they come back.

[joako]

I already have solid copper heatsinks applied to a clean surface. I really doubt it is heat, after changing to RGB555 the lines are much reduced but simply not 100% done.

[beire]

This is usually the result of a power supply issue. Try swapping out power supplies and seeing if the issue goes away

Do you mean the camera's power supply or the PC power supply?

[joako]

If it is the camera power supply I suspect it could be overloaded a little.... the box says one rating the power supply says another and both are a big range I think 3-5 and 5-7 Amps are the conflicting numbers.

But also today I installed a PTZ camera with a separate power supply and I do see some lines.