ZoneMinder Forums

Posted: **Sun Aug 19, 2007 9:01 pm**

I am using a PV-143 - 4 port video capture card (30FPS) from Bluecherry and tried lots of different things but can't get over .5 or .6 fps per input. It isn't a big deal but I would like to get some of the jerkiness out. I am running Ubuntu Edgy and played with the bttv card options and tried 77,98,103,171. Only 77 and 98 produced video and 77 seemed to work the best but really didn't make a difference. I also modified the gscanbus setting to 16 but that didn't help either. I increased the shared memory w/o much help

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administrator@fileserver:~$ more /proc/sys/kernel/shmall
2097152
administrator@fileserver:~$ more /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax
256000000

Here are some more settings to hopefully help with troubleshooting.

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administrator@fileserver:~$ sudo zmu -m 1 -q -v
Monitor 1(Back_Lot)
Id : 1
Name : Back_Lot
Type : Local
Device : /dev/video0
Channel : 0
Format : 1
Width : 320
Height : 240
Palette : 3
Colours : 3
Event Prefix : Event-
Label Format : %%s - %m/%d/%y %H:%M:%S
Label Coord : 0,0
Image Buffer Count : 40
Warmup Count : 25
Pre Event Count : 10
Post Event Count : 10
Alarm Frame Count : 1
Section Length : 3600
Maximum FPS : 4.00
Alarm Maximum FPS : 4.00
Reference Blend %ge : 7
Track Motion : 0
Function: 5 - Continuous Record with Motion Detection
Zones : 1
  Id : 1
  Label : All
  Type: 1 - Active
  Shape : 4 points
    0: 0,0
    1: 319,0
    2: 319,239
    3: 0,239
  Alarm RGB : ff0000
  Check Method: 3 - Blobs
  Min Pixel Threshold : 20
  Max Pixel Threshold : 0
  Min Alarm Pixels : 2304
  Max Alarm Pixels : 0
  Filter Box : 3,3
  Min Filter Pixels : 1536
  Max Filter Pixels : 0
  Min Blob Pixels : 1536
  Max Blob Pixels : 0
  Min Blobs : 1
  Max Blobs : 0

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### video4linux device info [/dev/video0] ###
general info
    VIDIOCGCAP
        name                    : "BT878 video (ProVideo PV143)"
        type                    : 0xab [CAPTURE,TUNER,OVERLAY,CLIPPING,SCALES]
        channels                : 4
        audios                  : 0
        maxwidth                : 768
        maxheight               : 480
        minwidth                : 48
        minheight               : 32

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sudo xawtv -hwscan
/dev/video0: OK
type : v4l2
name : BT878 video (GrandTec Multi Cap
flags: overlay capture

Video Capabilities
  Name: BT878 video (GrandTec Multi Cap
  Type: 171
    Can capture
    Can tune
    Overlay onto frame buffer
    Can clip
    Scalable
  Video Channels: 4
  Audio Channels: 0
  Maximum Width: 768
  Maximum Height: 480
  Minimum Width: 48
  Minimum Height: 32
Window Attributes
  X Offset: 0
  Y Offset: 0
  Width: 320
  Height: 240
Picture Attributes
  Palette: 3 - 565 16 bit RGB
  Colour Depth: 16
  Brightness: 32768
  Hue: 32768
  Colour :32768
  Contrast: 32768
  Whiteness: 0
Channel 0 Attributes
  Name: Composite0
  Channel: 0
  Flags: 2
    Channel has audio
  Type: 2 - Camera
  Format: 1 - NTSC
Channel 1 Attributes
  Name: Composite1
  Channel: 1
  Flags: 2
    Channel has audio
  Type: 2 - Camera
  Format: 1 - NTSC
Channel 2 Attributes
  Name: Composite2
  Channel: 2
  Flags: 2
    Channel has audio
  Type: 2 - Camera
  Format: 1 - NTSC
Channel 3 Attributes
  Name: Composite3
  Channel: 3
  Flags: 2
    Channel has audio
  Type: 2 - Camera
  Format: 1 - NTSC

Any ideas? Thanks Allan

Update: I found that if I delete all but one camera I get 40 fps. Two cameras 1.1 fps. Three cameras .7 fps. Four cameras .5 fps.

Posted: **Sun Aug 19, 2007 10:54 pm**

Assuming its a single chip card and your using all 4 the best you will ever get is about 2 fps per input.

If your only getting 0.5 per input and you havnt set a limit of that then you have a problem. You have either hit a limit on your machine or you have cams with awful sync. If you diss all the cams does the framerate improve?

And what hardware you running as if this is a P3 500 id be expecting the above

Posted: **Sun Aug 19, 2007 11:18 pm**

Thanks for the help James

I found that if I delete all but one camera I get 40 fps. Two cameras 1.1 fps. Three cameras .7 fps. Four cameras .5 fps.

It's an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz with 512 MB of RAM

Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:12 am**

Please tell me it is not a Via chipset motherboard. Many cards have "issues" with the Via chipset.

Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:17 am**

yeah i echo above but i wouldnt have thought that would affect frame rate so badly. If you create 2 monitors and unplug the cams what framerate does it report then?

Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:42 pm**

The Via problem is a timing issue. And what he is showing looks like that to me. Go from 40fps to 1.1 fps with 2 cameras...

Posted: **Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:01 pm**

I have a system right now running AMD 2800+ Sempron and VIA chips K8M800 and VT8237 and 512M RAM on the job with three cameras that is getting 3.5 fps and I did not test it with one and won't take it off the job to do so.

I have a new system (it used be be production with Pico2400 software - good for Windows but poor next to Zoneminder) with Intel 2700, 1G RAM, and Intel bridge chips, with Zoneminder running and it gets 40 with 1 camera, 5fps with 2, and 2.5fps with 3 inputs. So that drop can also be blaimed on Intel and not limited to VIA.

Both of these systems use openSUSE 10.2 (full KDE install) and Zoneminder 1.22.3.

So I claim that the claim that VIA and AMD are not usable for DVR systems IS an old wives tale. If older versions were bad, that is no longer the case.

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:38 am**

john_l_b wrote:So I claim that the claim that VIA and AMD are not usable for DVR systems IS an old wives tale. If older versions were bad, that is no longer the case.

Just to clarify what I said... Some cards have timing issues with Via chipsets. This is a well known problem, and I have seen it in a few cards in the past few months. It happens. Not all the time, but enough to consider it.

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:23 pm**

Yup it is a Via Rhine II chipset. I thought I had went away from those but I bought this box a couple of months ago and it must have been before I started noticing they didn't perform as well. When you say the chipset has timing issues exactly what does that mean for the chipset. I know it controls video, audio, etc. Does that mean the PCI bus as well which is why my speed is so slow? Thanks for the help.

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:31 pm**

I am going from distant memory here, but I think the timing of the pci to host bridge and the timing on some capture cards doesn't sync. This can cause poor performance, poor switching, or just not recognizing. Some will even fail to post. Apparently the ATI chipset can also have this problem with some cards. (Found out on a Dell I ordered. They thought an Intel CPU meant Intel chipset.)

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Can't get more than .5 fps from 4 port card

Can't get more than .5 fps from 4 port card

VIA problem? An old wives tale?

Re: VIA problem? An old wives tale?