External video multiplexer

[mike]

Hello everyone,

First of all - nice work, Phil. This is an impressive bit of software!

I'm currently looking into the possibility of having ZoneMinder control an external video switcher in order to cheaply expand the number of cameras that could be run off a low-cost, single channel BTTV card. What I'm proposing is a simple unit that could be home-built with a little electronics experience. A quick back-of-an-envelope calculation suggests that a serial port connection running at a reasonable speed (say 115200bps) would be sufficient to switch to another camera within a time-frame of a few scanlines. Looking at zm_local_camera.cpp, it seems that integration into ZM should be fairly straightforward.

The main reason for my post is to check if anyone else is, or has been working on anything similar before I go away and re-invent the wheel!

I will, of course, be placing the hardware design in the public domain, along with any necessary ZM patches, so any comments would be most welcome.

Cheers,
Mike

[fernando]

http://www.geocities.com/zoomkat/

this is in parallel. will be no to fast but can be built very easy

[madmax]

Is there any possibility of adding support of the ASEL video switcher?
http://www.controlanything.com/html/asel.htm

Windows based 'homewatcher' supports it now... but I would really like to see zoneminder support it.