I bought a usb3 card from radio shack and plugged it in. It has a socket for power input like a hard drive.

First thing, it is suppose to have two channels, but one socket had a failure while plugging a camera. So only one works. This is not the first time a usb port has failed on me. It happens.

But what a difference. The best I could do before with 4 cameras was 320x240 at 30fps. now with only one camera in the usb3 port I get 320x240 at 60fps or 640x480 at 30fps with no drop out. I wish the other port would work because I think that have just one more camera on usb 3 would improve my recording fps.

In conclusion, I have only one slot open for a usb3 card and for the 30 bucks I only wish that I had more open slots that take the usb3. So move away from the usb2 and get a computer that has lots of usb3 ports or can be up graded to them and only one usb3 card will make a difference.

dueyftw,

please, visit this page: http://www.ipisoft.com/en/wiki/index.php?title=USB_controllers

Is it usefull?

I looked at device manager and found that I only have one Enhanced usb host controller so I bought a 4 port usb card. It replaced my dial up modem. Any one need a dial up modem? :) But it only added one Enhanced and two Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller.

So the best input setup for 4 cameras is; one on my computer two on the new usb 2 card and the last one on the usb 3 card. I'm now getting 50 fps at 640x480. There is one open pci slot, if I get another usb 2 card I should be up to 60 fps with four cameras.

In a few weeks I will get a new usb 3 card to replace the one that is half working. With usb3 hubs my computer should handle six cameras.

Had to mail a check to Digital River today, you don't like hotmail? Sorry, but I changed IPS so many times that hotmail is almost a god send.

Dale

Technically, one USB controller should be good for two cameras. If you're still having trouble there may be something else taking up the bandwidth, or it could be that your video capture drive isn't fast enough to capture the streams. Also, the number of processors on your computer will make the difference in the capture res and frame rate. According the the requirements a quad-core is recommended for four cameras at 640 x 480 and 60fps; six cores for six cameras.

Good luck! It took me a long time to get my system up to spec and running well, but it was worth the effort. :)

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

I have a hp AMD Athlon 64x2 dual core processor 4200+ 2.2 GHZ, 3gb ram and 32 bit vista os. A gforce 210 Navidia graphic card. I have hated this system from day one. I'm getting use to things not working and trying to figure out what is wrong. I have been temped to put XP in it.

Dale