National Instruments 778838-01 Image Acquisition Board

Part number 778838-01 is the identifying part number for the National Instruments PCI-1405 Image Acquisition Board. This device supports various analog cameras from various manufacturers and can acquire both monochrome and color images. Likewise, it can capture images in real time and store them in either the onboard frame memory or transfer them directly to the system memory. The device supports NTSC and PAL video standards. 

The video decoder on the 778838-01 converts video signal into RGB data. Parameters like input range, brightness, contrast, saturation, and frequency range can be tuned by the user. The advanced circuitry present in the module allows video acquisition from VCRs. Furthermore, the device features 16 MB of onboard high-speed SDRAM which can be used as a FIFO buffer where images are acquired and transferred continuously. Likewise, it can also 
be used to store the entire image for later transfer. 

The 778838-01 has 3 independent DMA controllers for data transfer between the onboard SDRAM and the PCI bus. The PCI interface implemented by the device is PCI MITE, which is a custom-built application-specific integrated circuit. The maximum data rate on the interface is 132Mbyte/s in bus master mode. Likewise, it can generate 8-, 16-, and 32-bit memory read and write cycles. 

This instrument comes with the NI Vision Acquisition Software, which also includes the NI-IMAQ driver software, used for setup and configuration. The NI-IMAQ features advanced functions for video configuration, continuous and single-shot image acquisition, trigger control, memory buffer allocation, and device configuration, and these can be called from applications like LabVIEW. 

The 778838-01 allows the start of image acquisition with various methods. First, you can control the number of fields or frames to be captured with the help of software. Likewise, trigger control allows the start of video acquisition on a rising or a falling edge. Similarly, through frame/field selection, the module can start acquisition on any odd or even field. Furthermore, you can also control parameters like the acquisition window and region of interest, to specify the region of active pixels or a subset of the image frame.