Cut off video stream from cameras

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 7:52 pm

Hi Everyone,

First time poster. I hope I can find an answer to a problem I have. I have just installed Zoneminder on a dedicated DVR system at one of my stores. It is a four camera system. The strange thing that happens is that the streams from the cameras is get off, with only about a fifth of the image showing the actual stream. If I restart zoneminder it sometimes helps in rectifying this, but soon they go back to the same problem. I am not sure if this is hardware or software related. Any help would be appreciated.

My zoneminder often stops working where I will not be able to access the console, so I have to restart either zoneminder or the whole PC.

I have a screen shot but am not sure how to attached it!

Thanks for any help in advance!
[/img]

whatboy · Post by **whatboy** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 8:41 pm

Does your capture card shares chip for more than one camera??? if so, try increasing the OPTIONS -> CONFIG -> CAPTURES_PER_FRAME value... it will decrease the FPS of every camera, but it is the only way...

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 9:00 pm

Thanks for the response. It is a capture card so I assume it does share a chip for all cameras.

I tried increasing the CAPTURES_PER_FRAME value all the way up to 100 (not sure if that is too high or too low) and it made no difference to the images. At the moment two of the four cameras are running properly, the other two are cut off.

whatboy · Post by **whatboy** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 9:24 pm

No, not that high!!!

just increase it to 3 or 4, and restart ZM...

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 10:43 pm

Ok I messed around with that setting and the best I could get is still two full images and two split images, any other suggestions?

whatboy · Post by **whatboy** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 12:03 am

what card do you have???

If you wanna post an image, you better first upload it to sumtin like, http://imageshack.us then post the "Direct link" inside [img]directlink[/img] codes...

did you set the FPS on the monitors??? I think you should leave it blanks...

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 8:47 am

I am using a Brooktree BT878.

I have taken the FPS off each monitor and left it blank, and CAPTURES_PER_FRAME is set to 3.

This image is what I get.

[IMG=http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/3883 ... hotpsy.png][/IMG]

Thanks for you help.

whatboy · Post by **whatboy** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 6:41 pm

What I was reffering was, is you card looks like http://www.compucanjes.com/prod_images/0000015084_1.jpg with 4 chips 4 outputs, or like http://www.duncansonline.ca/cards/PICO1 ... s/104d.jpg 1 chip 4 outputs???

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 11:17 am

I will only be able to have a look at the card next week, but I can tell you it looks like neither as it is an 8 channel card, so it uses a serial plug with 8 BNC connectors.

Thanks

mastertheknife · Post by **mastertheknife** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 12:33 pm

Hi,

You can tell how many chips you have by counting how many videoX devices you have.
If you have 8 BNC connectors, perhaps you have a 8 chip card such as the Kodicom 8800 or its clone (http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Kodicom_8800, cloned one looks very similar)

Have you tried watching all 4 cameras in normal views and not montage view? I think montage is slightly bugged.
And also, sometimes there are conflicts. Deleting all monitors and creating them all one by one (with correct device) should solve it.

Regarding ZM often stops working, it usually keeps working but the web interface doesn't. This used to happen in the past here a lot, but i didn't have it happen for a while now. I noticed that when it happens, restarting apache fixes it.
One time i noticed that when it stopped working was because i had no free mysql connections, changing mysql_pconnect to mysql_connect in includes/database.php fixed that one.

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:50 pm

Thanks for the response, I have from video0 to video7 in my /dev folder, so I assume then I have 8 chips on my capture card.

I have tried watching each camera in normal view, but the output is identical to the montage view (nice to know at the moment my montage view isn't buggy).

I have re-created each monitor several times, I have re-installed zoneminder several times too. The only issue I suspect is that I installed zoneminder through synaptic, which didnt prompt me to create any mysql database. Maybe I should go over the how-to again and see if that might be the issue!

mastertheknife · Post by **mastertheknife** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:02 pm

Hi, what options are you using for your card?

It might be a kodicom 8800, and you can try these options:
http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Kodicom_8800

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 6:18 pm

I re-installed zoneminder, but the images were the same. I messed around with the output sizes and no have all four camera running for over an hour at 420x315 with no other problems besides the image quality in the link below:

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/7266 ... hotgqa.png

mastertheknife · Post by **mastertheknife** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 6:50 pm

Hi, yes, stick to 4:3 resolutions for best performance.
If your cameras are PAL, you might want to use 384x288, this is the highest PAL 4:3 resolution without interlacing (its what i use and many others)
If your cameras are NTSC, you might want to use 320x240, this is the highest NTSC 4:3 resolution without interlacing (many use this).

naschas · Post by **naschas** » Sat Apr 03, 2010 9:03 pm

The cameras are NTSC, but the problem is that as soon as I set them to 320x240 they give the cut-off problem that I originally posted, its very strange, so at the moment i am left with the higher resolution because atleast i get all four cameras working consistently.