Almost completed - ZM, Spectra8, Fedora Core 3

[pmurdock]

Almost there! It's exciting.. I'll keep updating this thread as I continue with the project. I have purchased an AMD Athlon64, 1GB RAM, 200GB Hard Drive System and have installed Fedora Core 3 and I now have zoneminder running.

I am waiting on my iTuner Spectra8 card to arrive along with some cameras. As I get more details I'll update the status of the project.


Cheers,
Paul

[somepdguy]

<snip little rant>

Pete

[maciekc]

uptime:
17:39:05 up 78 days, 21:29, 1 user, load average: 0.18, 0.25, 0.31

Without any problems, and my administration.
Distro: debian unstable
Kernel: 2.6.8-1-686-smp
Zoneminder 1.20.1
3*bt878 4port cards with 11 cameras connected.
3830 events per day.
94945 all events stored in database.
System working all the time without turinng off.

HW specs:
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
512 MB RAM
harddisk 200GB

Autodelete old events with script from forum user contributions - run at night - I don't know why it makes my CPU load so high - that's the only problem.

And one mine modification:
When clicking on camera in montage view it opens this camera like you click on it on the main list.

This system is more, more stable than professional card(ADACS) working on M$ Windows XP

Also icecast2 is streaming sound from one camera.

Clients using Mozilla Firefox for viewing.

Now will be trying to build bigger system - about 20-30 cameras - more info in forum Hardware Queries

Best Regards,
maciekc

[somepdguy]

Ok nice to hear... what video capture card are you using?? Now I have had time to check the docs properly (i just checked the supported hardware list before buying the card, silly me) loads of people are having the same problems with the Spectra 8 card.

So what card are you using with success??

Many thanks


Pete

[maciekc]

It's generic 4 port bt878 card.
Here you have simple auction:
http://allegro.pl/show_item.php?item=53054379

I can make you scan today at evening if you want.

[somepdguy]

ok thanks, you have made me feel a bit better - knowing someone is really happy with it compared a commercial DVR


I have a few problems but will post each one seperately in the forum and go from there.



Pete

[pmurdock]

Okay here is the system I have setup and so far it works flawlessly.. If you'd like to check it out it is available for demo viewing at 69.2.251.143/zm/

username guest
password guest

bear in mind I only have so much bandwidth ok! please leave it on low setting..


Fedora Core 3
Installed with Fedora Core 3 RPM's.. works great! and simple to install.
AMD Athlon64 3200+ CPU
200 GB SATA 7200RPM hard drive
SiS 760 video built into motherboard (MICROATX size motherboard)
iTuner Spectra8 capture card (recognized right off the bat by linux)

I bought a camera from bluecherry.net that works great.

Right now I have two inputs being fed from the 1 camera and it works great!

Thanks Phil for such a great piece of software!

cheers,
Paul

[somepdguy]

Hi

Thanks for the link.

Excellent, my spectra8 card works fine in black and white but just not RGB.... can you put it into RGB mode and see how it handles it?

It looks like you have b/w cameras... ?


Thanks

Pete

[pmurdock]

If you look at the Monitor feed it shows live color images.. However in the monitoring records it is all grayscale.. Is there a way to configure it to record in RGB? It is a color camera..

good point! I didn't even realize it!

cheers,
Paul

[zoneminder]

It should not be possible to record in greyscale and show live images in colour. Are you sure this is what it is doing? My Spectra works without problems by the way, though when resold a few of them a while back I did get one having to be returned as it died.

Phil

[pmurdock]

I figured it out! it's is one of those Day/Night cameras that switches to a different sensor type in low light conditions.. it appears to be recording full color now that we have the light of day!

cheers,
Paul

[zoneminder]

Good. I was slightly confused there for a while!

Phil

[Ruler]

I've used several of the Spectra-8 cards, using all 4 channels and two inputs per channel, and haven't had any major problems to speak of. I'm running Slack 10.0 and 10.1 on the video boxes.

[somepdguy]

Excellent, the forum can get very confusing sometimes cause there are loads of thread saying it doesn't work. :\ !

I am in the process of wiping the box clean, installing a fresh spectra 8 and slackware 10.1, apache 2, zm 1.21.1 and will let this forum know if it works in RGB 4 cam mode without rebooting.

Fingers crossed



Pete

[somepdguy]

OK still no luck - brand new box installed with stock slackware 10.1, zm 1.21.1, apache 2 and a spectra 8 card.

Everything seems to work OK until I add a new monitor that is monitoring an input with no camera attached - the box then physically reboots. I have read threads about RAM and asus m/b's but this doesn't affect me.

Phil, and others who have this spectra 8 working, if you unplug a cam and set it to RGB and then restart everything does the box reboot when the cam isn't plugged in? Have you ever seen the problems I am experiencing? What kernel are you all on? What bttv drivers?

Help ?!!

Pete