Picolo Pro 2 - Multiple Camera Problem

[imblum]

Hello, right now I am using an old gateway (amd 700, 512Mb RAM) and a euresys picolo pro 2 to monitor the hallway outside my small buisness.

I am using Slackware 10, and so far setup has gone pretty well. Zoneminder is up and running, however, it is only working for one camera and my card has four bnc inputs. I suspect that it's something to do with the type of tuner on the board, and changing the channel, but I'm really not sure at this point.

zmu -d /dev/video0 -q -v
gives me:

Video Capabilities
Name: bttv video
Type: 235
Can capture
Can tune
Overlay onto frame buffer
Can clip
Uses the frame buffer memory
Scalable
Video Channels: 4
Audio Channels: 1
Maximum Width: 924
Maximum Height: 576
Minimum Width: 48
Minimum Height: 32
Window Attributes
X Offset: 0
Y Offset: 0
Width: 320
Height: 240
Picture Attributes
Palette: 4 - 24bit RGB
Colour Depth: 0
Brightness: 32768
Hue: 32768
Colour :32512
Contrast: 27648
Whiteness: 0
Channel 0 Attributes
Name: Television
Channel: 0
Flags: 3
Channel has a tuner
Channel has audio
Type: 1 - TV
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 1 Attributes
Name: Composite1
Channel: 1
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 2 Attributes
Name: S-Video
Channel: 2
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL
Channel 3 Attributes
Name: Composite3
Channel: 3
Flags: 2
Channel has audio
Type: 2 - Camera
Format: 0 - PAL

dmesg
gives me:

bttv: driver version 0.7.108 loaded
bttv: using 4 buffers with 2080k (8320k total) for capture
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 00:13.0, irq: 9, latency: 64, mmio: 0xfc9fd000
bttv0: subsystem: 0000:0002 (UNKNOWN)
please mail id, board name and the correct card= insmod option to kraxel@bytesex.org
bttv0: using: *** UNKNOWN/GENERIC *** [card=0,autodetected]
i2c-core.o: adapter bt848 #0 registered as adapter 0.
bttv0: using tuner=-1
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0

I am able to set up one monitor on /dev/video0 and channel 0, but none of the other channels give me video. It will even say that it is streaming at 5.00 fps and just give a black screen. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

matt

[BKahler]

Hi Matt,

Just wondering if you managed to get the picolo pro 2 card to work with more than one camera. According to the Video4Linux hardware list it seems to be supported.

I will be using it with Fedora Core 3.

Thanks,

Brad

[imblum]

nope, my picolo pro 2 still doesn't work with four cameras. so now I just use it with one. I ended up buying the cheapest thing I could find on e-bay with a bttv chip and it works great.

The picolo (card=97):
http://www.euresys.com/Products/picolo/Picolo.asp
is a single camera card. (I think this is the problem)

While the picolo pro 2 (what I have):
http://www.euresys.com/Products/picolo/PicoloPro2.asp
is a 4 camera.

And the picolo tetra (card=121):
http://www.euresys.com/Products/picolo/PicoloTetra.asp
http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.ph ... stPre.BTTV
is mad expensive.

That's everything I could dig up, let me know if you get it to work. I'll be really interested to hear about it. Thanks a lot for your response :)

-matt

[BKahler]

Matt,

What capture board did you end up getting? There are several different cheap cards on ebay, any enlightenment would be great!

I ended up buying the Picolo board because it was listed with Video4Linux.

Brad

[imblum]

I got mine from an e-bay guy in Australia. Here's a link to his eBay store:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZozauctionbroker

I am in no way affiliated with their company. I found them by searching eBay for keywords: "bnc card". I would recommend getting anything cheap that says outright in the auction that it works with linux.

Of course there is only one brooktree chip on the card and as you start adding cameras, you will cut your framerate in half each time. (50fps per card) which would be the case with the picolo pro 2 if it worked anyway.

hope this helps,

matt

[Jiberjaber]

Hi Guys,


Just a quick bump to this thread, I also have a picolo pro 2. I am running fedora core 4 and with the v4l drivers, card set to 97 I can use the multiple inputs.

/dev/video0

Input 0 is the top BNC
Input 2 is the third (from top) BNC

Those are the only inputs I have managed to get going so far. Hope that helps, at least thats 2 inputs usable