Grandtec Grand X Guard
These cards a relatively inexpensive by using one Brooktree (bt) video capture chip shared for a number of inputs. The upside is low cost, downside is performance.
- Using 1 source you get 25 fps
- Using 2 source you get 5 fps each (10 fps total)
- Using 4 sources you get 2.5 fps each (10 fps total)
...and so on. if you use more than 1 source, total FPS is 10/12
Please note that this will only show up as one video input (/dev/video0 for me). You will use channels of the input to access the multiple ports.
- bttv supported card types
- 57 -> GrandTec 'Grand Video Capture' (Bt848) [4344:4142]
- 77 -> GrandTec Multi Capture Card (Bt878)
- 103 -> Grand X-Guard / Trust 814PCI [0304:0102]
GrandTec Grand X-Guard 4P (GXG-4000)
Autodetected correctly and confirmed working with bttv driver.
GrandTec Grand X-Guard 9P (GXG-9000)
Confirmed working under ZoneMinder 1.22 (probably earlier). bttv driver 0.9.17 incorrectly detects this as a card type 57. You need to edit modprobe.conf (see below), then do a rmmod bttv and modprobe bttv to get it to work correctly.
/etc/modprobe.conf
options bttv card=103
I haven't had any problems testing with a single input but with each input added, the image gets brighter and more washed out. At 4 monitors, the image is no longer viewable with the default monitor brightness and contrast. The current theory is that providing a live connection to each input will resolve the problem and is supported by the following statement from Grandtec
Q. All of the cameras are just white screens. Why?
A. The card attempts to automatically color-balance all of the cameras at once. If a camera port is listed as active (9 and 16 port) or if a preview window is open (4 port) for a port that does not physically have a camera connected, then it tries to balance with a camera that is not there. The result is a white screen for all cameras. To resolve this, close or de-list as active any ports without cameras connected.
GrandTec Grand X-Guard 16P (GXG-1600)
Needs the same configurations changes as the 9P card above.
