Building a E1.31 Show Network without breaking the bank.

[Jeff Millard]

Lol.. for those that don't want to worry.. Just get an old switch and see if it works.. If it does great. If it does'tn then you can worry. <-- hows that for simple? Chances are it probably will!

Favorite post of this thread... :-)

Jeff

[mrpackethead]

Favorite post of this thread... :-)

Jeff

Yeah.. the problem is when it does go wrong.... If you look at one of my old posts, its all about 'TEST' / 'TEST' / 'TEST'. If you are going to take shortcuts and deviate from the standards, then be prepared for issues, Good chance it will work.. Back when DMX was still all the rage, people used to use 3pin XLR connectors and Microphone cable for DMX. Did it work? often. was it standard no. Did they have issues some time. yes.

Upshot. If you have no time to test and make sure it all works, then follow the rules to the letter.. If you have time and can figure out how to do it elsewhere, then good for you.

I'm actually just writing a support document for our commercial clients pretty much to this effect right now. that your own your own unless you follow the standard.

[dirknerkle]

mrpackethead;207528]
I'm actually just writing a support document for our commercial clients pretty much to this effect right now. that your own your own unless you follow the standard.

Good luck with that document. I've written those multiple times for our customers over the last 20 years. They won't read it, they will still call and expect you to bail them out, and if they do read it, all it does is hack them off.

[ErnieHorning]

A support document, pretty much the same as the manual/instructions. It seems as though these are only to see how you did.

"We don’t need no stinkin manual."

[Papa-lf]

The benefit of having two network cards, and not having any routing software running on your show PC means that all they can possibly effect is your show computer and can't get anywhere.

Exactly why this thread caught my eye. People do things - just ask my son. A second NIC appeals to me as a KISS method to keep most of the unwanted out.

[kidcole]

I bought a GS108 for sale locally for $14 and I'm curious if this one also has the IGMP capabilities discussed here ?

There's a comparison table on the GS108E page and it does not mention IGMP for the GS108 or the GS108E (unless it's listed under a different feature name) ..

http://www.netgear.com/business/prod...s/GS108E.aspx#

[aussiephil]

What an intersting read end to end and nearly 100% in agreeance with Andrew.

Are we loosing sight of the basics with all the talk on IGMP/IGMP Snooping, even the higher end private shows are not pushing the networking components and by the time you are at the higher end then you will be gaining the knowledge and experience to deal with the additional requirement of 100+ universes.

For the more average shows we will see this year, say 1 to 30 universes just about any old switch will work in terms of data throughput.

Andrew has said it before, the greater issue is the E131 controller being swamped processing all the IP packets it is seeing and so far for the controllers we have been using across the community this limitation doesn't become apparent till well north of 30 universes in real life.

Take some real numbers, using Vixen with 25mS timing and a completely random pattern to ensure all cells change every 25mS shows around 55Kb/s to 60Kb/s per Universe of Data.
Stick a ECG-P12R (currently the highest universe consuming device in general use by the community) on a port and you have around 720K/sb of data being sent to it across 12 full DMX Universes.

Staying in a level of normality a bigger show might have say 6 x ECG-P12R, 72 Universes with some worst case traffic around 4.8Mb total.

Actual network throughput will become an issue on a 10Mb switch, completely a non-issue on a 100Mb switch and won't even be noticable on a 1Gb.

100Mb is seriously more than enough and for even larger shows or certain requirements wireless is completely valid option.

Now once you get into MPH show level it's a whole different ball game with new requirements.

Using Unicast may just be easier in this hobby than actually being concerned about IGMP/IGMP Snooping.

I've actually gone back to Multicast this year with around 50 universes but i'm prepared to use unicast if the controllers get overloaded.

Ultimately to do it with breaking the bank just buy basic 1Gb switches and use either multicast or unicast as you prefer without worrying about IGMP/IGMP Snooping.

Phil