ZoneMinder Forums

Hello All,

My first post along with a big learning curve with linux (newbie). I have an old P4 2.0Ghz, 1 gig ram laying around that i wanted to put to use as a security system. I purchased a "Generic" 8ch dvr card with Philips SAA7134 chips and surprise surprise, the software that came with it was crap and only ran on MS. Enter Zoneminder. I have installed the livecd Ubuntu 10.04 bundled with ZM 1.24.3 and have traveled along ok untill now...
After a clean install, i can install Xawtv, fire it up and select Pal from the config menu and get a nice clean Colour picture displayed. Now over to ZM, i can config the system to capture all channels from the card but only at "320x240 GREY", no matter what i do i can't get any colour? Picture is displaying fine in grey, just nothing else. I have been researching as much as I can on the forum and have tried playing with some settings like memory config and video card settings but nothing really changes, Have i missed something along the way? How do I make ZM “grab” the image in the same format Xawtv is?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

I'm thinking 1.24.3 started using mmap instead of shared but just in case have a look in /etc/sysctl.conf or determine memory management method the CD used when installed. Reads like it could be a shared memory issue but I'd recheck the palettes. First step is to disable all but one monitor by unchecking enable on the monitor general tab. Next recheck palettes: Start with BGR24 giving the change at least a good 30 seconds after saving to determine if it's working. Post back your results, especially memory management type.

Hi bb99, Iv'e taken your suggestions on board and kept on trying some other ideas, i have removed any memory config changes within /etc/sysctl.conf and left "options saa7134 card=33,33,33,33,33,33,33,33" at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and went through different Pal and Palette settings. Now I have video showing on the one enabled monitor whilst selecting different palettes, some only show grey images, some don't show anything and BRG32 now gives a yellow tint to the image? Not sure if this is progress yet! Also, not sure how to check the memory management method?

O.k, a bit of an update, I thought i'd try going back to the old ZMLarch live cd (Zoneminder 1.24.2) that I used with great success on my first attempt at this with an old Pico 4ch card. The clean install of ZMLarch was able to “see” every one of the 8 channels on the new card AND in glorious colour (BRG24, PAL even at 640x480) without having to make any modification to any files!!
So the big question now… how do I make an updated ZM 1.24.4 (or even stay at 1.24.2) work like the ZMLarch does (in respect to the video side of things) in a more user friendly environment like Ubuntu 10.04 – 11xx?