ZoneMinder Forums

Hi there,

I am pretty new to ZM, and I have managed to get it to install and function fine with a USB camera I had lying around. However, I have bought a USB DVR device (essentially just a serial converter) off eBay. It's a 4-channel card with an FTDI chip in it. The drivers for this install fine, as the output from lsusb shows it, and Linux registers it as an ftdi_sio device. The device shows up as /dev/ttyUSB0. I am, however, having trouble figuring out how I am supposed to get ZoneMinder to recognise the CCTV camera I have attached to one of the channels. I have tried pointing it directly to /dev/ttyUSB0 and configuring it with various settings, but this (as I initially expected) did not work.

Can someone please explain to me how I am supposed to get this to function, if it is at all possible? I have searched around the forums somewhat but can't find anything. I'm having trouble working out exactly what to search for anyway!

Thanks in advance,

Tom

I would suspect that this device has a Device Channel for each camera. Therefore, your Device Path should be:
/dev/video0
and the device channel could be 1 thru 4.

Check the /dev directory to see what /video? is there.

I would recommend upgrading to ZM 1.26.5 as, from my experience, it is easier to set up a local camera as the Capture Palette is "Automatic." You did not say which Linux flavor you were running but I recommend Ubuntu 14.04 which will give you ZM 1.26.5 from the Ubuntu sources. See: http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.ph ... e_easy_way

I will be installing my first Ubuntu 14.04 ZM server tomorrow morning!
bb

Sorry for the late reply, work is ridiculous atm.

I'm running Debian 7.0.4, so kernel 3.2. I can't see /dev/video0 there but dmesg shows the device is being registered, and it is showing in /dev as ttyUSB0. I may have to give it a test on Ubuntu, but I'll try upgrading to 1.26.5 first in my Debian env.

OK so i FINALLY managed to get 1.26.5 installed on my Debian box. I have tried probing, which failed as it always has, but I am now in a better position to begin working on this issue.

Can anyone else think of a solution to this problem? The DVR I have seems to be a serial convertor, hence it coming up as /dev/ttyUSB0. So, do I need some softwtware perhaps that will be able to map whichever channels I have my cameras connected to on the DVR to /dev/videox devices in order for them to work with Zoneminder? Just a though.

I have installed Ubuntu 14.04 on my other machine, and installed zoneminder 1.26.5. I tried probing with the serial controller connected, and my camera plugged in. The controller still shows as /dev/ttyUSB0, as expected, and when I probe it with Zoneminder I get the actual selection screen (something I didn't get in Debian 7), but the list is empty. I tried adding it manually using all manner of settings but still nothing.

One thing I did notice is that the text turns orange when I select certain channels, and with others it is red. It seems to be random (i.e. channel 2 was orange, 1 was red, then I tried a few others and when I went back to channel 2 it went red and then channel 1 turned orange), so I don't think it actually means anything, just thought I'd mention it.

Anyone have any ideas? Or any experience with serial controllers and CCTV cameras??