Sintrones VDB-310 Mini PCIe Video Capture Cards for 4 or 8 Analog CCTV Cameras

Many vehicles, depots and small sites still run analog CCTV cameras that do the job, and the cost of replacing them can outweigh the gain. The Sintrones VDB-310 series lets a compact computer record those cameras directly: a Mini PCIe video capture card that takes four or eight composite camera inputs, each with its own audio input, captured at the same time. VDB-310 cards connect on PCIe x1 and measure 30 x 50.95 mm, and Sintrones lists both builds as current products made in Taiwan.

Each input accepts NTSC or PAL video at D1, Half-D1 or CIF through a 10-bit ADC. Display output runs at up to 720 x 480 at 30 fps on NTSC or 720 x 576 at 25 fps on PAL, down to 320 x 240 or 320 x 288, in YV12, NV12, YUY2, RGB24 or RGB32. Recording uses MPEG4 or H.264 by software compression in a dual stream, so encoding runs on the host processor rather than on the card. Audio channels are mono at 8 to 16 bits and 8000 to 48000 Hz, and Sintrones supplies a software development kit with VC++, .NET, BCB and VB support, plus a watchdog set from 1 to 255 levels.

There are two builds. The VDB-310 captures four cameras and four audio inputs, which suits a single vehicle or a small site. The VDB-320 captures eight cameras and eight audio inputs on the same Mini PCIe card, for larger camera counts on one host. Because compression is in software, the eight-channel card puts more load on the host processor, which we check when we scope the build.

In practice, the VDB-310 series suits compact recorders for vehicle CCTV, retrofit recording on existing analog cameras and small security installations where a full rack recorder would be more than the site needs. The cards need a host Mini PCIe slot that carries PCIe rather than USB alone, and the camera and audio wiring has to leave the enclosure, so slot and cable exits are part of choosing the host computer. We fit and test the cards in the host as part of the build, with the wiring brought out to the enclosure.