i have been working on several systems (dell optiplex gx270's, pentium 4
processors) using a pair of osprey 210's and realnetworks producer plus
9.0.1. this setup worked perfectly using osprey 100 cards and the
open-source
drivers in the linux kernel. however, we required the 210's because of
their
audio capture capability. our development platform is debian linux 3.0
with
kernel 2.4.22. in sifting through the docs on viewcast's website, i saw
that
their reference platform is mandrake 8.1 with kernel 2.4.18. i have
tried
this setup, but it is not workable for us since we need support for
intel's
pro1000 ethernet adapter which is used in these dell machines.
the problems i have been experiencing are video dropouts when using
more than
one card at a time. i can capture and stream full-frame 640x480 video at
30fps from one card, but bad things start to happen whenever i try to
use
both cards at once (we need to capture at two resolutions at once from
a live
feed). i was trying to grab from one card at 640x480 and the other at
320x240.
here's what i get on STDERR (exerpted from /var/log/messages):
bttv: driver version 0.7.97 loaded
bttv: using 4 buffers with 2080k (8320k total) for capture
bttv: Host bridge is Intel Corp. 82865G/PE/P Processor to I/O Controller
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 17) at 01:07.0, irq: 11, latency: 64, mmio: 0xfc003000
bttv0: detected: Osprey-200 [card=88], PCI subsystem ID is 0070:ffffff01
bttv0: using: BT878(Osprey 200/250) [card=88,autodetected]
bttv: adding 12c bus to system
bttv: 12c bus added to system
bttv0: is now:BT878(Osprey 210/220/230) [card=89,autodetected] Serial#:
3200589
bttv0: using tuner=-1
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
bttv: Bt8xx card found (1).
bttv1: Bt878 (rev 17) at 01:08.0, irq: 3, latency: 64, mmio: 0xfc001000
bttv1: detected: Osprey-200 [card=88], PCI subsystem ID is 0070:ffffff01
bttv1: using: BT878(Osprey 200/250) [card=88,autodetected]
bttv: adding 12c bus to system
bttv: 12c bus added to system
bttv1: is now:BT878(Osprey 210/220/230) [card=89,autodetected] Serial#:
3200590
bttv1: using tuner=-1
bttv1: registered device video1
bttv1: registered device vbi1
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 ... ok
bttv1: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 ... ok
bttv0: PLL: switching off
bttv1: PLL: switching off
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769008
bttv1: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769808
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769008
bttv1: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769808
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769008
bttv0: aiee: error loops
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37630014
bttv0: aiee: error loops
bttv0: resetting chip
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769008
bttv1: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769808
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769008
bttv1: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769808
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769008
bttv0: aiee: error loops
bttv0: irq: SCERR risc_count=37630014
bttv0: aiee: error loops
bttv0: resetting chip
bttv1: irq: SCERR risc_count=37769810
bttv1: aiee: error loops
bttv1: resetting chip
when the chip resets, video drops out completely, but the sound
typically
keeps working. if i try to capture two 320x240 streams at once, i seem
to
have better luck (i get to capture for longer before it drops out), but
we
are talking about 2-3 minutes of capture before the chip resets and my
stream
dies. this is using the rc3 "stable" drivers from viewcast's ftp site.
i have
also tried the beta drivers from the same site. those seem to work a bit
better, but they eventually drop out video on at least one card as
well. the
bttv drivers from the kernel don't work at all. i have tried every
version of
the drivers that i could find, and four different versions of my capture
software (real producer), all with the same results. occasionally i can
maintain my stream, but the framerate drops to 1-2 fps as soon as any
error
appears.
any ideas how to fix this?
--
Robert Vineyard - Georgia Tech OIT Campus Services
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