Help building PC based DVR for HIGH bandwith capture

[Fireball 0]

My problem is that I need to capture video from 4 cameras simultaneously using a single PC.

 

The catch is that it's 20MByte/sec from each camera - I need a relatively high frame rate for catching meteors/fireballs otherwise the software I would use will have a hard time properly detecting these events.

 

As far as I know, a PC based capture card will be limited to 33MB/s (PCI-EXx1 bus speed), so multiple input capture cards will be useless for me.

 

I have been speaking with the developer of the software I'll be using, and he thinks I can run 3 cameras using 3 seperate capture cards on IEEE 1394 interfaces. One on the MB, and two IEEE 1394 PCI-EXx1 cards.

 

Since there are usually only 2x PCI-EXx1 on most mother boards (as far as I know), it seems I will be limited to running 3 cameras, or using 2 PCs, but I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.

 

I'd probably have to use the same model capture cards (Canopus ADVC-55) to avoid driver problems, and also stick with IEEE 1394, since the capture card I'm thinking of using/have been advised to get uses the IEEE 1394 interface.

 

Canopus ADVC-55:

http://www.smartdv.co.uk/product.php/123/1/canopus_advc_55

 

So the only solution I can think of is to find a mother board that has two separate on-board IEEE 1394 buses/interface chips, if such a thing exists?

 

Anyone have any other ideas?

 

Thanks for looking.

[sinbad 0]

what analog camera is 20MByte/sec ?

you sure u didn't get confused a bit.

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

what analog camera is 20MByte/sec ?

you sure u didn't get confused a bit.

agreed - you only need a capture card if you're using analog cameras, and analog cameras don't have a "bitrate".

 

a bigger limitation for you will be the fact that analog video is limited to 30fps by ntsc spec (or 25fps for pal). you'd need to get into specialized high-speed cameras and capture devices to go beyond that.

[Fireball 0]

Thanks for the replies guys. Sorry I did not reply sooner - I thought I had enabled notifications, but had not.

 

The camera is the Watec WAT-902H2 Ultimate (Resolution: 570TVL)

 

http://www.modernastronomy.com/camerasAstroVideo.html

 

20MByte/sec is what I was told was needed by the developer.

 

30fps (NTSC) is enough, and yes, as you say analog.

 

I'm new to this so I'm a little confused about this too, but I would assume that the 20MByte/sec figure is what is required by each camera/channel after analog>digital conversion.

 

I think that the developer believes that IEEE 1394 is the "bottle neck", but I'm not sure if he may be missing the point that an internal multi-input PCI capture card gets around the need for IEEE 1394. I think he is more familiar with external capture "devices" (like the Canopus ADVC-55) using firewire/USB2 interfaces.

 

From the little bit of reading I've done on this forum, a "D1" spec. 4 input card sounds about right, unless I'm missing something obvious?

[ak357 0]

Thanks for the replies guys. Sorry I did not reply sooner - I thought I had enabled notifications, but had not.

 

The camera is the Watec WAT-902H2 Ultimate (Resolution: 570TVL)

 

http://www.modernastronomy.com/camerasAstroVideo.html

 

20MByte/sec is what I was told was needed by the developer.

 

30fps (NTSC) is enough, and yes, as you say analog.

 

I'm new to this so I'm a little confused about this too, but I would assume that the 20MByte/sec figure is what is required by each camera/channel after analog>digital conversion.

 

 

You want quality ?

 

4 of your Watec camera connect to 4 Ch Avigilon IP Encoder

you will have real time 30 fr at full D1 resolution per channel

and next to nothing bandwidth with top of line software

[Fireball 0]

 

You want quality ?

 

4 of your Watec camera connect to 4 Ch Avigilon IP Encoder

you will have real time 30 fr at full D1 resolution per channel

and next to nothing bandwidth with top of line software

 

Yes, quality is not a bad thing.

 

That looks very interesting, thanks for posting.

 

I think the software might have a problem connecting to it unfortunately (if I understand the way it works - it's not very clear in the links I've looked at), but I'll run it by the software developer.

[ak357 0]

 

You want quality ?

 

4 of your Watec camera connect to 4 Ch Avigilon IP Encoder

you will have real time 30 fr at full D1 resolution per channel

and next to nothing bandwidth with top of line software

 

Yes, quality is not a bad thing.

 

That looks very interesting, thanks for posting.

 

I think the software might have a problem connecting to it unfortunately (if I understand the way it works - it's not very clear in the links I've looked at), but I'll run it by the software developer.

You have your own soft

my fault I miss it

then you have to tell us what do u have

otherwise we have no idea

please be lot more specific

[Fireball 0]

You have your own soft

my fault I miss it

then you have to tell us what do u have

otherwise we have no idea

please be lot more specific

 

The software is UFOCaptureV2:

http://sonotaco.com/soft/e_index.html

[kdoske 0]

According to the softwares manual, IP cameras are unfortunately not supported. The manual is very vague for card support. You may want to ask them directly if there software supports multi camera capture boards like aver or geo. Either way you go you are going to want a card that can record at D1 at 24+ frames a second per channel.

 

http://sonotaco.com/soft/UFO2/help/english/2-1.html

[Fireball 0]

Thanks kdoske,

 

I'll speak with the software developer again as you suggest and see what he says.