Zoneminder...your views

[#1]

im wanting to get a CCTV system up and running in linux... last time i tried to do this i had a BT878 CCTV card .... and i could not point zoneminder to show images
now i got a new CCTV card i was thinking of trying again... however i dont want to get rid on windows and it not work....
anyone know how to set up zoneminder? and what do you think of it

[#2]

If there is no video4linux driver for the chip on your new CCTV card (NVP 1104B is what it says on your ebay link), then it won't be usable in Linux, regardless of the program.

[#3]

I use Zoneminder 0.24 on Ubuntu 10.04, and it's great once it's up and running but...
The older versions of ZoneMinder were a bit of a pain to configure. A frequent problem was the shared memory settings, which would result in black screens on one or more of the video inputs. An alternative method was used in ZoneMinder 1.24, but I believe it has to be set when compiling ZoneMinder, and a lot of the packages in repositories (e.g. in Ubuntu) still use shared memory.
In theory, any card that works in V4L or V4L2 should work. I have a cheap "generic Chinese eBay special" 16-port card which has 4x Conexant Fusion 878A chips onboard which works for the most part (I sometimes have to restart ZoneMinder straight after booting up, but its fine after that). The BT878/Fusion 878A is by far the best supported capture chip, although its ancient. I couldn't get a newer CX2388x based card to work at all and forget about using most of the new PCIe chipsets (SAA716x, CX23885 etc) as the drivers for these on Linux tend to be for digital DVB support only (if there's any support at all).
In spite of the problems, it is fairly easy to install ZoneMinder these days, especially if you use a distro which has packages available (e.g. Ubuntu 10.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Debian 6.0). Back in 2008, it was a lot worse.

[#4]

I've been using Zoneminder for over 8 years now so that probably speaks volumes about what I think about it. However, my setup is exclusively IP camera based and so fairly straightforward when it comes to 'drivers' (or rather lack of). One caveat I would make is that for all intents and purposes the project seems to have died and, be single developer,this could well be the end of it. That said, it works perfectly for my needs and there is a community of users who might be able to help you out with any teething troubles.
I'm sure someone has packaged a LiveCD of it so you could always give it a spin to see if it works out of the box.
Mathee

[#5]

might be ok for ZM as windows driver date is 24/03/2010.... now for a card made in 2012 that seems a bit odd but then again it's china....
anyhows if i install linux and card is picked up with drivers... would someone be able to help me get it set up if needed?
ive done work with linux but last time i tryed to use ZM it killed my head and the steam trains came out of my ears
my choice is made i either use linux or winsteal 7 ... linux the better choice but need these cams up asap

[#6]

If you look at the capture card, what markings are on the chips?
One option, if you don't feel like jumping in completely, is to download Ubuntu 12.04, make a bootable USB (or use Wubi) and see whether your card is detected.
Plus, Ubuntu 12.04 has Zoneminder in its software repository, goes fairly trouble-free, and it installs the dependent packages (Apache2, MySQL etc.) for you.