Picolo Tetra is a cost-effective PCI capture card dedicated to demanding multiple cameras video surveillance applications. Picolo Tetra has a superior ability to manage streaming and switching. Thanks to its four color video digitizers, Picolo Tetra acquires four real-time image sequences in parallel. With the three video expansion brackets, this Picolo also manages efficiently quick switching from up to sixteen cameras.
TTL I/O lines are provided for system integration. In addition, Picolo Tetra is compatible with the MIO module, enabling to implement isolated inputs and outputs.

Picolo Tetra is able to simultaneously digitize four video signals and to send the resulting digital data in real time into the PC memory through the PCI bus. The video streams issued from four cameras are displayed and/or recorded in parallel.

Adding three Video Expansion Brackets, Picolo Tetra provides the four digitizers with sixteen inputs. This maximum configuration leads to a 16-camera system. The four digitizers of the Picolo Tetra board are switched between these inputs at a very high frame rate.

VEB™ -Video Expansion Bracket- compatibility

Up to three VEB can be connected on the Picolo Tetra to increase the number of video inputs connected to the board. Four buffered video outputs are offered on an additional four-BNC module as an alternative to loop-through connecting the video sources. These video signals represent the image applied to each internal video color digitizer.

MIO™ compatibility

Each MIO module adds four optically isolated inputs and four relay outputs. A maximum of twenty isolated inputs and twenty isolated outputs is achieved with five MIO modules. For more details about MIO, see on page 12.

The Picolo Tetra bus capability is 64 bits at 66 MHz. This PCI bus supports a peak data transfer rate of 528 Mbytes/s. Picolo Tetra is compatible with conventional PCI architectures, including 32 bits and 33 MHz. Signaling voltage compliance is 3.3 V and 5 V for maximum versatility.

With a top performance 64-bit 66 MHz PCI bus, Picolo Tetra is able to simultaneously acquire full size video images in real time. System consideration may lead to functional trade-off. In order to reach the targeted performance, the user will consider downsizing images (SIF or CIF), operating in parallel with less than four digitizers or tailoring the bitmap image format. In particular, YCrCb 4:2:2 and RGB16 formats are highly recommended.

TTL I/O lines are provided for easy system integration. An internal 16-pin header connector provides 13 general purpose input / output TTL lines usable for triggering image capture and interfacing to alarm system. This connector is pin to pin compatible with the Picolo Pro 2 solution.

Picolo Tetra supports the acquisition of full resolution images or any smaller-size format, such as CIF. Acquisition of full frame (two fields) or single field images is selectable. Individual fields or frames as well as video sequences are captured directly to the PC memory. Picolo Tetra ensures an excellent fidelity of the grabbed bitmap in respect of the original video signal.

A hardware watchdog is available on Picolo Tetra. Its purpose is to monitor the software application and to restart the PC after an anomalous inactivity time-out. This ensures a reliable operation of unattended systems. This watchdog implementation is identical to the Picolo Pro 3 solution.

Picolo Tetra and the Video Extension Brackets are equipped with a dip-switch to conveniently enable or disable the 75 ohms termination resistors from outside the PC.