ZoneMinder Forums

Do I need a capture card if all my cameras are ip cameras or do I only need one if I use 'regular' BNC type cameras?

You do not need a capture card for IP cameras. I currently have several people setup with VPS machines that only use IP type feeds, works great.

So with zoneminder, can I have say 16 regular cameras connected via BNC to a capture card and have another 16 ip cameras not on the capture card and all 32 work at the same time through zoneminder?

newvisionantenna wrote:You do not need a capture card for IP cameras. I currently have several people setup with VPS machines that only use IP type feeds, works great.

limitlessent wrote:So with zoneminder, can I have say 16 regular cameras connected via BNC to a capture card and have another 16 ip cameras not on the capture card and all 32 work at the same time through zoneminder?

newvisionantenna wrote:You do not need a capture card for IP cameras. I currently have several people setup with VPS machines that only use IP type feeds, works great.

Yes...you would need a beefy box and supported IP cameras

Cool...
so.. once I get zoneminder installed, how much trouble is it to add a capture card?

Once installed, does it create /dev/video* devices that zoneminder can read? Or is this a lot more to setting it up?

limitlessent wrote:Cool...
so.. once I get zoneminder installed, how much trouble is it to add a capture card?

Once installed, does it create /dev/video* devices that zoneminder can read? Or is this a lot more to setting it up?

Depends on the card that you purchase. Cheap ones on ebay / Newegg / Tigerdirect will cause hours of frustration. Others will work just fine and create /dev/video* devices

What do I need to be able to run 16 cameras at 30fps each?
What I'd like (if possible) is to setup motion recording where it displays the feeds at 15fps or maybe even lower and then when motion is detected, bump that cam up to 30fps.

That may not even be possible, but either way I want the capability to do 30fps. My dvr now can only do 30fps TOTAL at 720x480 so I'm only getting 3.75 per channel. Is there card that can do 240fps at 640x480 or 720x480 so I can have 30fps per channel?

I've got 8 cameras now and would like to add 8 more later but will also be adding 2-3 ip cameras which is why zoneminder made so much sense to me originally.

curtishall wrote:

limitlessent wrote:Cool...
so.. once I get zoneminder installed, how much trouble is it to add a capture card?

Once installed, does it create /dev/video* devices that zoneminder can read? Or is this a lot more to setting it up?

Depends on the card that you purchase. Cheap ones on ebay / Newegg / Tigerdirect will cause hours of frustration. Others will work just fine and create /dev/video* devices

First you have to find a card that can capture at 30fps per input x 16. Be careful as there are many cards that do not use enough processor chips, and they advertise "30fps" but that is only for half the inputs. Such a card will be pretty expensive.

Once you have a card that can capture at 30fpsx16, you need enough CPU for Zm to be able to process that data...imagine processing 30 640x480 images per second, times 16. You will need at least a quad core CPU server.

One thing to consider though is, you will probably not have all 16 of your inputs in alarm state simultaneously, so you do have some breathing room.

Just make sure you don't get one of the cheap cards that drops fps the more inputs are in use.

Blazer wrote:First you have to find a card that can capture at 30fps per input x 16. Be careful as there are many cards that do not use enough processor chips, and they advertise "30fps" but that is only for half the inputs. Such a card will be pretty expensive.

Once you have a card that can capture at 30fpsx16, you need enough CPU for Zm to be able to process that data...imagine processing 30 640x480 images per second, times 16. You will need at least a quad core CPU server.

One thing to consider though is, you will probably not have all 16 of your inputs in alarm state simultaneously, so you do have some breathing room.

Just make sure you don't get one of the cheap cards that drops fps the more inputs are in use.

Any 16-channel card recommendations?