Howell-Tempest VC 878B-Q

This PCI card is sold as a generic 16-port Conexant 878a card on EBay. It features 4 Conexant chips and a PLX chip. There are 2 connectors on the outside which resemble VGA ports (DB15). The card is distributed with 2 pigtails (breakout cables) with 8 BNC connectors per input.

Because each 878a chip is being used to drive 4 inputs, the maximum FPS per input is lower than if there was a 878a chip for each input.

Ubuntu /etc/modprobe.d/bttv.conf contents:

options bttv card=77,77,77,77

Zoneminder settings:

• Disable V4L_MULTI_BUFFER (found in options >> config)
• Change CAPTURES_PER_FRAME to 2 (found in options >> config)

There are 4 cameras per Device Path (/dev/video0, /dev/video1, /dev/video2, /dev/video3)

The cameras are accessed as Device Channel 0, 1, 2, and 3 on each Device Path.