Sintrones VDB-320 8-Channel Mini PCIe Video Capture Card with 8 Audio Inputs

Larger depots, yards and multi-camera vehicles can carry eight or more analog cameras, and a recorder that handles them on one card keeps the computer compact. The Sintrones VDB-320 is a Mini PCIe video capture card for that scale: eight composite camera inputs and eight audio inputs, captured at the same time. It is the eight-channel build of the VDB-310 series, and the VDB-310 is the four-channel version.

Each input on the VDB-320 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, so the host processor does the encoding, with a dual stream at the same resolutions. The audio channels are mono, at 8 to 16 bits and 8000 to 48000 Hz.

The VDB-320 is a Mini Card on PCIe x1, so the host’s Mini PCIe slot has to carry PCIe rather than USB alone. Cameras and audio connect through wire-to-board headers on the card, with RCA connections for audio. Sintrones supplies a software development kit with VC++, .NET, BCB and VB support, and a watchdog can be set from 1 to 255 levels. With eight streams encoded in software, host processor headroom is worth checking when we scope the build.

The card measures 30 x 50.95 mm. It suits Sintrones computers with a free Mini PCIe slot that carries PCIe, and we fit and test the VDB-320 in the host computer as part of the build, with the camera and audio wiring brought out to the enclosure. Sintrones also offers the VDB-810G GPS card with a G-sensor in the same Mini PCIe form factor, so a vehicle recorder can log position and motion alongside video where the host has a second slot.