Re: P5/Celeron comments?

Found my current video card:

http://www.grandtec.com/xguard.htm

The 4000 model for 4 cameras

"bob9" <b@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fKWdncsWWup2hgPZnZ2dnUVZ_qudnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Holy crap! I've been checking your recommended sites, and YES, there are
a lot of cheaper products out there! When I first installed the current
system +5 years ago, there was not that much available without going to
professional equipment. Obviously, that has changed a lot.

bob


"bob9" <b@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:HeednRIKx95phQPZnZ2dnUVZ_vWdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wow! What a tremendous amount of work you put into this post!

I can't thank you enough. I have to print and digest it, but you've
certainly provided more information than I've ever found before!

Right now, I have an Asus A7V AMD 1.2hz/512 with XP2 and ATI 9000 Pro.
The four Sony cameras feed the a video board from that same source but
it's dated now and not posted on the site.

Okay, so far, and only a few minor issues. Mostly, the video
hangs\freezes from time to time. Naturally, it takes a while and many
steps to "un-hang" it. The site owner warned me in advance [a couple of
years ago] that the AMD would most likely cause problems. If nothing else
is running, everything is fine, but if online [cable modem] or getting
mail, etc., it often hangs. With nothing else running, all is perfect,
and before going to bed or to work, I ensure that it's working for the
wife.

The site owner then helped me time and time again to get it working, and
he did put in extra effort, even after cautioning me about the AMD
problems. I am grateful for his help.

One of my "retirement" jobs is creating backup systems for a few small
offices here in town. I am rather experienced with this, knowing about
using VSS/VSC technologies and utilizing Task Scheduler to make copies of
critical files to other hard drives at 2 am, etc. Oddly enough, this
small success has created the problem as I also do some backups, and many
of their files and apps are becoming gigantic. I need to burn copies of
500mb folders, and my little 1.2/512 simply cannot keep up or it takes
hours.

Ergo: time for an upgraded system, and therefore the problem of "what
board" and "what chip"?

The P5P800 SE, at first glance, looks promising, but I need to spend more
time reading your post again, and checking all those sites.

Again, many thanks, and you have NO idea how much I appreciate all this
help!

bob


"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nospam-2506060017560001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <CNCdnVA9c97tHQDZnZ2dnUVZ_sCdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "bob9"
<b@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes, a lockup is the downside, but we have managed that quite well.

It's for outside viewing of our three outside doors; this is a rather
common
neighborhood that was once proud and has since deteriorated. Living on
SS
and small pension, we cannot move.

So, I provide the best security I can, particularly when I'm not here.


So this is not really a P5 motherboard/Celeron question.
First, you need to understand where the limitation on
your vendor's page is coming from. The limitations are
caused by the amount of PCI bandwidth that some of this
type of video capture card require.

http://spyshop2000.com/16120_dvr.htm

"Will not run on 915 chipset computers."

That restriction is caused by the mix of PCI Express and PCI
bus in the 915 chipset. I have seen some general comments about
PCI Express systems, but don't know anything in particular
about the 915. It seems that in terms of data bursting,
there is a tendency to favor the PCI Express x16 video card slot,
which means a PCI bus card may get the "short straw".
This has been noted by people who do digital audio, and some of
their complaints about the newer PCI Express systems and how they
don't play fair with hardware capture cards.

"Pentium 2.4GHz or better for best results."

I interpret this to mean, the MPEG compression mentioned in the
advertisement, is actually implemented in software.

"Recommended Motherboard: Asus P4P800-SE 865PE Chipset"

That motherboard is probably the last chipset before the
PCI Express motherboards showed up. Fortunately, you get
the same chipset in a P5P800 SE (LGA775 socket) motherboard,
and that motherboard takes a variety of modern Intel processors.

http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpu_support_right_master.aspx?type=1&name=P5P800%20SE&SLanguage=en-us&cache=1

With respect to these video capture cards, there are a ton of
these for sale. You can definitely get a better price than the
spyshop if you look around.

http://search.ebay.com/16-channel-dvr_W0QQfnuZ1QQfrtsZ0QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1

One thing all of these products share in common - all the pictures
of the hardware are low resolution, so it is impossible to read the
part number off the chips. You can, however, compare the chip
pictures to pictures on this page. In my analysis below, I'm making
an assumption that in fact a "Fusion 878" is being used, but with
all these pictures on the Ebay (or spyshop) pages, I cannot offer
any guarantees.

http://yanyan.dtdns.net/capture/

These days, there are several levels of hardware support in video
capture products. The BT848/BT878 (Brooktree company, acquired by
Rockwell, eventually spun off as Conexant) is a chip type that is
long in the tooth. It is used in dirt cheap video cards at all
price points.

BT848/BT878 does not support data compression. It has a four
input multiplexer, and can only "look" at one video source at
a time. If you connect four cameras to a single chip, you can
only look at one camera at a time, and "time multiplex" the sources.
So frames are lost, and you only get time slices from each camera.
This is just the same effect you see on a security guard's
TV monitor as it switches from one camera source to the next.

http://www.conexant.com/servlets/DownloadServlet/DSH-200115-001.pdf?docid=116&revid=1

If you stick four BT848/BT878 on a PCI card, there are sixteen
camera connectors, but you can only view four camera at a time
without any compromises.

The next issue, is bus bandwidth. I'm going to have to fudge
this math, because I cannot find a ready-made reference. But
this will give you the idea. If I take a 640x480 image, collect
it 30 times per second, and capture in 24 bit color (which is
3 bytes of data per pixel), the result is 640x480x30x3 = 27.6MB/sec
The data format used in the Brooktree chips might be a bit
more efficient than that, but that should give you some idea
what ballpark you are in. That is a lot of data to move, and
just for one camera.

The PCI bus on a desktop motherboard, is 33MHz, and the bus
is 32 bits (4 bytes) wide. If data is transferred on each
clock cycle, this is 132MB/sec transfer rate. Since many
PCI cards are sharing the bus, and taking turns, there are
gaps in the data transfer, as one card "lets go" and the
next card starts its transfer. The result when all these
overheads are taken into consideration, is about 110MB/sec
or so.

If all four Brooktree chips were capturing at the same
time, at full resolution (whatever that is), then we are
looking at 27.6 x 4 = 110MB/sec. The four chips are connected
to a fifth chip, and that chip is a PCI-to-PCI bus bridge.
The PCI-to-PCI bus bridge funnels the data across to the
computer. (It provides electrical isolation, so the long
lengths of copper track on the capture card, don't upset
the signals on the motheboard PCI bus.) Notice that now,
your single video card has used up all the practical bandwidth
on the bus!

This is basically a "data-streaming" problem. We want to
move this 110MB/sec of data, without problems. Ways to do
that:

1) Keep other interfering PCI devices off the bus. If you
had an Ethernet chip on the PCI bus, then running a lot
of traffic through the Ethernet chip, would chew into the
available PCI bus bandwidth.

2) Prevent other busses in the computer from horning in on
the action. The PCI Latency tool can be used, for example,
to "turn down" the AGP bus a bit, if necessary.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951

3) Use a chipset where a separate hub bus is used to connect
the chipset together. The first diagram is the "old" way
of doing things. This would be previous to Intel i810
chipset. Here, Southbridge data transfers have to share
with the rest of the PCI bus, a recipe for disaster.

+---------------+
| Northbridge |
+-------+-------+
| +---------------+
PCI +------------| Southbridge |
bus | +---------------+
|
v (other PCI devices, capture card etc)

Virtually all chipsets made in the last few years, use a
hub bus. The hub bus always has more bandwidth than the
busses below it. For example, the P5P800 SE would have a
266MB/sec hub bus, feeding the 133MB/sec PCI bus below it.
Some even more modern chipsets, use 1066MB/sec hub busses.
Note that VIA, SIS, Nvidia, and others, use a hub bus, so
this is not an Intel exclusive feature.

+---------------+
| Northbridge |
+-------+-------+
| Hub bus - 266MB/sec
+-------+-------+
| Southbridge |
+-------+-------+
|
PCI | 133MB/sec max
bus |
|
v (other PCI devices, capture card etc)

The plain truth of it is, that no one bothers to review and
measure PCI bus performance any more. This leaves the owners
of PCI video capture (or audio cards for that matter) out in
the cold, since no one can tell them which chipsets are good.
Either latency (time from request, until the data transfer
is allowed) or aggregate bus bandwidth, can interfere with
a high bandwidth PCI card.

My _suspicion_ would be, that you could run your capture card
on an A8V motherboard (with an Athlon64 processor). The chipset
in that case, has an AGP video card slot (so no PCI Express
interference), and the chipset uses a hub bus. If I had to
experiment, that would be the first motherboard I would try.
It is possible that a motherboard that happens to have both
PCI Express and PCI bus could be made to work, but that would
have to be laboriously tested one motherboard at a time.

On the Intel side, the 865/875 chipset is the last one
before PCI Express. So the P5P800 SE would be the first
motherboard I would try, if looking for a reasonably cheap
commodity motherboard.

Obviously, people do build security systems that monitor
more cameras than this. One way to manage that, is to
use a motherboard with multiple PCI busses on it. Each
PCI bus is independent of the others. As long as the bus
architecture has the bandwidth and fairness to handle these
multiple busses, then more capture cards can be used.
But that requires expensive server motherboards.

Some day, there will be PCI Express capture cards. PCI Express
has a hell of a lot of bandwidth to offer, and the x4 slot
on some motherboards, gives you 1GB/sec of bandwidth, enough
to support 32 cameras comfortably.

One company makes an expansion chassis, where the chassis
connects via a PCI Express card, to the main computer. Inside
the chassis is a PCI bus. This scheme allows video capture
card(s) to be placed on a PCI bus, while the main motherboard
can be PCI Express based. I have not seen any experiments or
reports of this new product, as it may not be shipping yet.

If you use just 3 cameras on your uncompressed quad capture
card, that should easily work on just about any modern
motherboard. Adding the fourth camera and enabling the
fourth chip, is where things get tougher.

The BT878 is amazingly flexible. For example, it has
frame decimation, so if it cannot download at 30 frames/sec,
is will downshift to 15 frames/sec and chuck every second
frame. That avoids the "random frame loss" problem, and while
15 frames/sec loses a bit of real time responsiveness, it is
one way to instantly get relief from PCI bus problems.

The biggest limitation with your new setup, could well be
the software. It is hard to say how many of the features
in the BT878 or for that matter, any other capture chip
types, are fully supported by the driver/display software.
(Since "spyshop" is probably just redistributing the
software that came from Hong Kong, they likely don't have
source, and would have no idea how the software works.)

So, lets say you get a P5P800 SE and _one_ quad chip
capture card. What processor to get ? MPEG compression
does take some compute power, and the requirements are
easily tapered by dropping the frame rate from 30 frames
per second, down to 15 frames per second or less. I
would get a 6x1 series P4. These are a couple examples
of 600 series processors, and while the power numbers
don't reflect it, the 631 is 65nm and may run a bit
cooler.

P4 3GHz/FSB800/2MB cache (first one 90nm, second one 65nm)
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL7Z9 (630)
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL8WJ (631)

On Newegg, the 631 is $177 now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116004

If you wait until July 23, you'll be able to afford a much
nicer 6x1 series processor:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2547

To go with the P5P800 SE, 2 x 512MB PC3200 DDR unbuffered memory
should do the job. Even CAS3 would do (the industry norm) or
if you want to go crazy, some CAS2 enthusiast memory is also
available.

Report back on how your project turns out...

HTH,
Paul


"DP" <nospamxx@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FKeng.99501$QU3.30488@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bob:
I hope you noticed these two cautions: Will not run on 915 chipset
computers. Pentium 2.4GHz or better for best results.
I wonder if they consider a Celeron to be a Pentium. You might want
to
ask.

So... In the case of:
1) A power outage or blown fuse/circuit breaker or
2) A computer lockup
your security system becomes useless?

I don't want to delve too much into your privacy, but are you looking
for
something where you can see the camera images from another room? Or
are
you looking to monitor these images from an entirely different
location?
If you're monitoring from within the same house, wouldn't a simple
closed
circuit setup be better?






"bob9" <b@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:--adnY14hbKh9QDZnZ2dnUVZ_v6dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Many thanks.
Yes, the security program will not run on AMD, and I have no idea
why.
But I know this: they won't warranty their app or even provide
support on
anything but Intel chips.

[been there, done that] Here's the system I will install:

http://spyshop2000.com/16120_dvr.htm

I have the older version now, which works fine, but I need to
upgrade.

[Long story, but a personal note: have wife with serious health
problems,
and I cannot leave her alone without security]


"DP" <nospamxx@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5Tbng.31477$EX2.13228@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:449D44A8.8030902@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you can wait, wait. The entire landscape of CPUs and
motherboards
will
change dramatically on July 23rd, when the Intel "Conroe"
processors
are
released.

If you can't wait, look at the boards that can run the Pentium D
805.


Of course, if he's looking at a Celeron, then he may find the price
of a
Conroe setup too expensive.

To the OP: I've never used Celeron, but I've always been suspicious
of
them.
What is it that Intel has done to its regular chips to turn them
into
Celerons?
I've never understood why they didn't just kill the Celeron line.
Seems
to
me they'd save enough money by not having to manufacture, package,
advertise
and support a separate product that maybe they could bring down the
prices
of their better chips to make them more affordable to folks who are
looking at Celerons.

Wikipedia (not always reliable, I realize) says this about Celeron:
"These
processors are suitable for most applications, but their
performance is
somewhat limited when it comes at running intense applications,
such as
cutting edge games or graphical modeling programs, especially when
compared
to that of their high-end counterparts."

It could be your home security application may be too much for a
Celeron.

And what exactly is this you're trying to run? I'm confused by the
idea
that
it won't run on AMD. Are you sure it even runs on Intel?
Or is it possible your current AMD is not up to the task but a more
powerful AMD chip would be able to handle it?
Since AMD and Intel are supposed to be 100% compatible, maybe the
issue
is not chip brand but chip/mobo/memory muscle.
Maybe you just need a more powerful system.

It makes no difference to me which one you buy. (BTW: I own stock
in
Intel, but both of my home computers are AMDs) I just want you to
be
aware of the possible pitfalls. Would hate to see you shell out
money
for an Intel, only to find that it doesn't work either.




















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