DVR Card with labview

[soliman]

how can i grab a video from DVR card that uses CCTV Cameras  in labview ?

can anyone help us  

[The_Chancenator]

Hi,

Could you please provide some more information about your application and your card?  What is the manufacturer/model number of the card?  What types of cameras?   What version of LabVIEW?  Do you  have any of the vision drivers or vision hardware that NI makes?

Please provide some more detail and we can take a better look at whether or not this could work and how. 

Cheers, 

[soliman]

so, these are the specs of the card , it can work with 4 cameras , it is GV-600 from geovision company www.geovision.com.tw

Specifications

Input Type	BNC		BNC X 4
Video Input(s)				1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 Cams
Audio Input(s)				1 Channel
Total Recording Rate At 320 X 240 Resolution / MPEG (ASP)				30 fps (NTSC), 25 fps (PAL)
Display Rate				30 fps (NTSC), 25 fps (PAL)
Video Resolution ‐ NTSC/PAL				Full D1, Half D1, CIF
Compression Format				Geo MPEG4, Geo MPEG4 (ASP), Geo H264, Geo H264 V2
GV‐A16 Support				Yes
GV‐NET Card Support				Yes
GV‐NET/IO Card Support				Yes
Dimensions (W x H)				GV‐600 BNC / D‐Type : 145 x 98 (mm) / 5.71 x 3.86 (in)

[soliman]

i just want to show the camera on the labview front panel, the cameras are connected to the card using BNC  connector (coaxial cable)

[The_Chancenator]

Hi,

You'll need some way of communicating with the card.  We make drivers for our IMAQ cards, but not for other manufacturers.  What you may be able to do, is if you are saving those images somewhere, to read the images into LabVIEW, instead of directly with the card.  It would be slower, but without a way to interface with the card itself, it may be your best bet.  

Cheers, 

[Ancle]

Another way is you can use BNC T connector, as attached image, then use NI IMAQ card to grab image. I done this before.

[Veg]

Hi,

I am facing similar situation. I need to communciate with Labview. The fixed and PTZ camera brand that I am using is Pelco from Schneider Electric. The video output fro fixed camera is coaxial i.e BNC connector and from PTZ is serial or coaxial.

I have a digital video recorder (DVR) which takes video inputs from fixed and PTZ cameras. There are 7 fixed cameras and 1 PTZ camera in total.

But in this case, I have to transmit data over Optical fiber. The DVR has Ethernet (TCP/IP) output which is converted to optical fiber using a modem. Ultimately, optical fiber terminates at central system consisting Labview configuration.

Is it feasible to communicate from DVR over TCP/IP with Labview? I also need to control PTZ movements from central system.

A T-connector following a NI IMAQ could be very possible solution but ultimately the output from IMAQ should be Ethernet.

Please help me with possible solutions.

Thanks

Nikhil

[Wee-Bey]

So to connect to our IMAQ or IMAQdx drivers, the standard way to read images into LabVIEW, you must be using one of a few protocols. The following document lists them.

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5386

That being said, you can still communicate to LabVIEW over TCP/IP, so if you know how to arrange that raw data as it comes in over TCP/IP, then you can start using NI's Vision Development Module to process those images. Basically, if you can get a 2D array of numbers representing an image's pixel values, you can use IMAQ ArrayToImage or IMAQ ArrayToColorImage to convert to our image type within LabVIEW.

[Veg]

Thanks Ravi

Based on your reply I could understand that the only way to communicate with labview is to use IMAQ as interface between camera and computer (Labview).

On the other hand, I desire to communicate with Labview directly from my third party device (digital video recorder) over TCP/IP via ethernet. My digital video recorder has ethernet output (TCP/IP). Does the same procedure (as mentioned in your reply) applies here? I suppose, a driver is needed to be developed.

In such a case, can the NI MAX platform be used to communicate ethernet TCP/IP and ping bth ends?

Has any driver being developed for third party video encoder devices?

Over TCP/IP from third party device, if I can arrange raw data and get a 2D array of numbers representing an image's pixel values then can I use IMAQ ArrayToImage or IMAQ ArrayToColorImage to convert to required image type within LabVIEW?

[Wee-Bey]

---

Based on your reply I could understand that the only way to communicate with labview is to use IMAQ as interface between camera and computer (Labview).

---

So this is not entirely true. If you want to communicate using our IMAQ drivers and our IMAQ VIs, then you must use the interfaces described above. However, you can certainly communicate with LabVIEW with many different protocols, such as serial, GPIB, and most relevant to you, TCP/IP (Ethernet). Just to clarify however, it's possible that this "Ethernet" you see is a form of the GigE standard (see above), which means you COULD communicate via IMAQdx (making your job a lot easier). Do you know if your camera is GigE compatible? If so, you can use IMAQdx. If not, then you might proceed to use TCP/IP communication, depending on what you can configure your camera to do.

This document has more about TCP/IP communication: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/2710