ZoneMinder Forums

Hi,

Now when I have bought a colour camera I just can't get it working. I'm on MDK 10.1 OE and all cameras are working on grey-palett, but not on any other settings, zmc just craches with err=255.

I've a BT878 board with 4 input, running zmu gives:
Video Capabilities
Name: BT878 video ( *** UNKNOWN/GENER
Type: 171
Can capture
Can tune
Overlay onto frame buffer
Can clip
Scalable
Video Channels: 4
Audio Channels: 1
Maximum Width: 640
Maximum Height: 576
Minimum Width: 48
Minimum Height: 32
Window Attributes
X Offset: 0
Y Offset: 0
Width: 384
Height: 287
Picture Attributes
Palette: 1 - Linear greyscale
Colour Depth: 8
Brightness: 32768
Hue: 32768
Colour :32768
Contrast: 32768
Whiteness: 0
Channel 0 Attributes
Name: Television
Channel: 0
Flags: 3
Channel has a tuner
Channel has audio
Type: 1 - TV
Format: 3 - AUTO
Channel 1 Attributes
Name: Composite1
Channel: 1
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 3 - AUTO
Channel 2 Attributes
Name: S-Video
Channel: 2
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 3 - AUTO
Channel 3 Attributes
Name: Composite3
Channel: 3
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 3 - AUTO

The only way it works it with GREY and device format = 3. It should I think work on device format=0 since it's a PAL camera, any ideas?

cheers, tord

This is a limitation of your capture card more than likely.
Single chip BT878 cards must have all ports configured for the same size and color pallet.
Cheers,
Cordel

yes, you are right, but if I only got one camera on the board, shouldn't that be enougth, or do I've to setup all four even although I only have one camera?

thanks

All configured ports must match. So if you only set up the one port on that card then you should be okay. Have you tried verious color pallets to see if maybe the one your using is not supported by the card?

yes I've tried them all, every one with different device format as well, it just don't give a colour Most of the pallets crashes zmc. When I try to send USR1 to the zmc deamon some more pallets works without crash, but still no colour.

thanks for your help!

Maybe you have bad card number set in bttv configuration? For 4 bnc input card bt878 try to use 77.

thanks, how do I change that?

If that is the case the file is /etc/modprobe.conf on most distros. You can find a list in the kernel documents that goes over the card types. You can do a search for that file on this forum and get an idea of what you need to do. It all depends on what card you have.
Cheers,
Cordel

thanks for that Cordel, I've manged now to set the board type to 77 (it works for my first board, but the second board still loads on card=0. I don't know how to pass the parameters to my second board)

Still no colour zmc just crash with exit=255 when I try setting anything outside grey.

For a PAL camera on composite video, should it not just be RGB24, device format=0 (PAL) and capture with in my case 384x287?

Cheers,
tord

just put a comma after 77 and to ID for the second card. So if both cards are the same do
77,77
cheers,
Cordel

the dogs mate! it's getting closer, only thing missing now is colour

my modprobe.conf now looks like:

options bttv radio=0 tuner=0 pll=0 gbuffers=8 card=77,77

On the good side, I now get colours from another application, 'camstreams'. That must mean that the capture board is working, problem back to ZM. Any ideas?

cheers,
tord

the zero option for tuner could probably be set to 4,4
If I remember correctly 0 is autodetect and 4 means it has no tuner
All your options should probably be set like so so both cards get the config like so:
options bttv radio=0,0 tuner=4,4 pll=0,0 card=77,77

thans for that, both cards now deliver colour, but not through ZM(?) still only grey, no other device format works.

Can Width x Height have any connection to that zmc craches?

Cheers, tord

Yes it can. If the settings you have in ZM don't match what the card can deliver ZM will crash. But I think ZM will give you an error that will suggest that maybe the issue but I'm not sure.

so if I use 384x287 that works with grey should it not also work with RGB24?

What are you using?

cheers, tord