IEEE1394 two cameras acquiring from single framegrabber card

[SuperSan]

I am trying to grab images useing IEEE 1394 firewire card from 2 cameras, but I get an error saying "INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES FOR ACQUISITION". I have been told that IEEE1394 IMAQ 1.5.1 has a bug that cannot allow the packets for each camera
I want to use both the cameras without more framegrabber cards (I am out of PCI slots!)
Can u please provide me a way to grab from 2 cameras continuosly using a SINGLE FRAME GRABBER CARD - IEEE 1394 card. I appreciate any help in this regard

[Photon_Dan]

You can use several cameras at once on a single 1394 interface. The trick is to pay attention to the number of bytes per packet that each camera is assigned. The isochronous transfer mode of the 400 Mb 1394 bus allows 4096 bytes per packet. The thing is that by default a single camera is usually configured at the driver level to consume all 4096, or at least something larger than 2048. You must change the bytes per packet seting in MAX for each camera such that the total is less than the 4096 limit. You can usually do that by switching to Format 7, the user-defined video mode. Using Format 7 allows you to edit the Packet Size.

Packet Size = Bytes per packet

Using that technique, I have successfully run 4 cameras off of a single 1394 port with a hub. I
set all cameras to 1024 bytes per packet.

Daniel L. Press
Certified LabVIEW Architect
PrimeTest Corporation
www.primetest.com

[khsay]

Hi. I am in this situation. I have used up all the slots in my  framegrabber card. I need 1 more slot. Could I use a third party IEEE1934 card and Install IMAQ IEEE 1394 driver, as a temporary measure till my next framegrabber card arrived?

[BruceAmmons]

You only need one firewire driver license per computer.  You can put multiple firewire cards into the same computer and use the single 1394 license.

You can put practically any firewire card in your computer and use it with the firewire drivers.  You don't have to buy the expensive card from NI.

Bruce

[Imagineer]

LINK to another thread, same problem: http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=200&message.id=22057&jump=true