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epiphan Networked VGA Grid, User Manual

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Networked VGA Grid User Guide                                     

Live video mixing / switching

 3.  The currently active layout has a red button in the right-most column.

 4.  Touch  the empty circle for another layout to make it the active layout; the layout changes in the live 

stream (and recording), and the new row gets the red button.

 5.  Continue to switch layouts as needed for the duration of your event or recording.

Switching / mixing using Epiphan Live

Epiphan Live is a simple and easy to use interface which is used for confidence monitoring, 
streaming/recording control and live switching. (See 

Epiphan Live

 for more information.)

Within Epiphan Live, the Switcher view allows you to seamlessly switch between a channel's custom layouts 
while live streaming and/or recording.

To switch a layout while live streaming and/or recording using Epiphan Live:

 1.  Log in to Epiphan Live; the Dashboard view opens by default. See 

Accessing Epiphan Live

.

 2.  Click the 

Menu 

icon in the upper-right corner of the Dashboard screen and click 

Switcher 

to navigate 

to the Switcher interface.

177

Summary of Contents for Networked VGA Grid

Page 1: ...Networked VGA Grid User Guide Release 3 17 0n July 5 2016 UG104 08 ...

Page 2: ...ATE AT TIME OF WRITING BUT ARE PRESENTED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EXPRESS OR IMPLIED USERS MUST TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR APPLICATION OF ANY PRODUCTS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL EPIPHAN BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL SPECIAL CONSEQUENTIAL EXEMPLARY OR OTHER INDIRECT DAMAGES THAT RESULT FROM THE USE OF OR THE INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT OR THE INFORMATION CONTA...

Page 3: ... additional information about Epiphan s Networked VGA Grid Warranty All Epiphan Systems products are provided with a 100 return to depot warranty for one year from the date of purchase Technical support Epiphan s products are backed by our professional support team If you are having issues with your product please gather details about your system and contact our team by l Emailing support epiphan ...

Page 4: ...layouts as overlay text and update variables with a script for dynamic layout overlay text Refined streaming control Precisely control streaming with ease using convenient start stop streaming buttons in the Admin panel Portable configuration presets Save system settings into portable configuration presets for backup and or easy transfer of configuration settings to additional VGA Grid and VGADVI ...

Page 5: ...ssue where minor signal noise was detected when capturing from HDMI sources Discovered through our ongoing automated frame by frame testing but not perceptible to the human eye some frames captured from HDMI sources had an undesirable flicker that is resolved in this release ...

Page 6: ... Step 4 Add the encoder as a channel 25 Step 5 Configure the channel 27 Step 6 Testing the stream 28 Step 7 Recording the stream 29 What s Next 29 Epiphan Live 31 Accessing Epiphan Live 32 Streaming recording and monitoring using the Dashboard interface 34 Live switching using the Switcher interface 44 PART 1 Setup 50 The Admin panel 51 Connect to the Admin panel 51 User administration 55 View sys...

Page 7: ...ration preset considerations 94 Configure date and time 99 Synchronize date and time for HD Encoders and VGA GridGrid 99 Verify date and time settings 100 Configure synchronized time NTP PTP v1 and RDATE 101 Configure the date and time manually 103 Change the time zone 103 Configure a local NTP server 103 PART 2 Capture 105 What is a channel 106 Create an HD Encoder channel 107 Configure encoding ...

Page 8: ...use a specific EDID 193 Unstretch the output video 195 Video not centered VGA sources only 196 Remove the combing effect on images 197 Video looks squished VGA sources only 197 Video too bright too dark or washed out VGA sources only 199 PART 3 Stream 200 What is streaming 201 Choose a streaming option 201 Supported streaming formats 202 Stream to viewers 203 Stream content using HTTP or RTSP 203 ...

Page 9: ...es of stream settings 257 Streaming video content 257 Streaming slide content 258 PART 4 Record 259 What is a recording 260 Recording basics 260 Record a channel via the Admin panel 261 Record a channel via Epiphan Live 263 Configure recording file size and type 265 Control recording with a mouse 268 Restart recording 269 Recorders 270 Add a recorder 270 Change the channels recorded by a recorder ...

Page 10: ...copy to USB drive 298 View the AFU log 305 Manage the AFU queue 305 Local FTP server 308 Configure the local FTP server 308 Using the local FTP server 309 PART 5 Maintenance 312 Power down and system restart 313 Restarting the device via the Admin panel 313 Shutting down the device via the Admin panel 313 Shutting down the device manually 314 Save and restore device configuration 315 Save device c...

Page 11: ...chedule disk check 330 Perform disk check 330 Rebuild or replace storage disks 331 Verify RAID storage 336 Read data from removed storage disks 337 Third party integration 340 Control with RS 232 serial port 341 Control with HTTP commands 347 Configuration keys for third party APIs 353 Troubleshooting 367 Limitations and known issues 370 Previous releases and features 373 Software and documentatio...

Page 12: ...d as a streamable recordable output from the Networked VGA Grid Following the quick start section a set of task based procedures help you to tweak the system exactly how you want These procedures are broken into five categories Setup Capture Stream Record and Maintenance About this Guide Warnings are depicted as follows This is a warning Tips and Notes are depicted as follows This is a tip Through...

Page 13: ...d captures video and audio through internal cards Depending on the model it has 4 or 6 DVI source ports 4 or 6 SDI source ports and 4 or 6 S Video source ports The latest hardware models with SDI capture also support HDMI and SDI audio capture Encoding and synchronization of the stream is done locally on the Standalone VGA Grid The Networked VGA Grid has no internal capture cards instead it uses V...

Page 14: ...4U rackmount server with dimensions 522 mm D 430 mm W 176 mm H 20 5 16 9 6 9 The following items are shipped with the system 1 3 feet 1 meter in length each 2 3 feet 1 meter in length 3 3 feet 1 meter in length 4 One Ethernet cable 5 Power cable The following table will help you identify the cables included with your Networked VGA Grid purchase Note these images are for identification purpose only...

Page 15: ...iption Power Button behind door Unlock the door to reveal the power button Press to turn on press and release to turn off the system Press and hold for 4 seconds for a forced system shutdown Reset behind door Unlock the door to reveal the reset button Cycles the power off then on like a computer reset button Power LED Indicates the system is powered on Hard Drive LED Blinks when the system is reco...

Page 16: ...k Connect unamplified microphone audio sources to the system VGA Grid HD Encoder overview VGA Grid HD Encoders are small portable units with a size of 202 mm 105 mm 35 mm 7 95 4 13 1 38 Each has one DVI single link one S Video and one audio input The following cables come with each VGA Grid HD Encoder you purchase 1 One VGA to DVI I cable 2 One DVI male to HDMI female adapter 3 One DVI I cable sin...

Page 17: ...posite to S Video cable Connects a composite output from an analog sources to the system s S Video port s RJ 45 Ethernet cable Connects the system to your network Power over Ethernet Injector Injects power over an ethernet cable Used to power the VGA Grid HD Encoders when the network connection is not powered Front Panel This section describes the front panel connectors and indicators Note not all...

Page 18: ...n the front panel indicate the following Networked VGA Grid status Solid blue LED indicates device is starting up Solid green LED indicates the device is ready to capture images Flashing blue LED indicates l a video signal test is in progress l system tuning or l Networked VGA Grid is recording received images If the periodic disk check function occurs during start up it may take up to 20 minutes ...

Page 19: ...cted content use the HDMI to DVI adapter included Audio In Connect to an audio input source Back panel This section describes the back panel connectors and indicators Table 6 VGA Grid HD Encoder Back Panel Descriptions Label Name Description Audio Out Connect to audio equipment such as headphones or speakers to confirm the audio stream is captured DVI Out Connect to video equipment such as a monit...

Page 20: ...hnical specifications for the latest hardware revision of Networked VGA Grid Go to the Professional Recording and Streaming Systems page of the Epiphan website to get the most recent product specifications and additional information about Networked VGA Grid Table 7 Specifications for Networked VGA Grid Feature Standalone Networked Style 4U Rackmount Server Dimensions 445 mm D 430 mm W 176 mm H 17 ...

Page 21: ...0 Hz 44100 Hz 22050 Hz Audio Bitrate 64 160 kb s Key Frames Intervals programable Video Format Options RGB plus HSync and VSync RGB plus CSync signal RGB with Sync on Green synchronization Update Rates Resolution fps 640 480 30 60 1280 1024 30 60 1920 1200 30 90 2048 2048 10 60 Resolution fps 640 480 30 1280 1024 30 1920 1200 25 2048 2048 21 ...

Page 22: ...tocol DHCP l a computer with a web browser connected to the same network this is referred to as the admin computer in the steps below l optionally an audio source such as a microphone or the headphone jack from a laptop note that the audio signal sent over HDMI cables is not supported These instructions include steps for setting up and configuring audio Skip these optional steps if you do not want...

Page 23: ...Attach the power cable to the system and plug it into a power source 8 Unlock the front panel and press the power button to turn on the system 9 Wait for the Networked VGA Grid to complete the power up sequence The power LED illuminates and the hard drive LED flashes during start up Step 2 Admin discovery and login The Networked VGA Grid is managed from an Admin panel This interface acts as a conf...

Page 24: ...distributions If necessary check with your administrator to ensure you have the Avahi package installed You are able to access the system Admin panel on the local network by specifying its serial number in a web browser on your admin computer 1 Find the system s serial number It is printed on a sticker on the back of the unit 2 Type the following string into the address bar of your web browser on ...

Page 25: ...in 3 Enter the user name and password then click OK The administrative user is admin Initially no password is set To set a password follow the procedure outlined in User administration 4 Navigate to the Network link under the Configuration heading the network configuration page appears 5 Select the radio button use static address if not already selected 6 Enter the desired IP Address and Network M...

Page 26: ...o the Channels section and click External encoder the external encoder selection page appears Your list should contain just the one VGA Grid HD Encoder set up in Step 1 but if it has several like the example below match the serial number with the serial number printed on the bottom of your encoder 3 Copy the IP address for your VGA Grid HD Encoder from the list and paste it in the Device URL field...

Page 27: ...d you use underscores to separate words c Press Enter on the keyboard The name is updated at the top of the screen and in the list of channels at the left side Step 5 Configure the channel Now that you have confirmed the system sees your source it is time to configure the channel To review and configure the channel 1 From the Admin panel scroll to the Channels section 2 Click the link for your cha...

Page 28: ...econd and most hand drawn animations show only 12 unique frames per second You can change this later and notice how it affects performance and quality d The bitrate is set to automatic and the system will determine the best value 5 Click Status for your channel 6 Notice the Stream Info section has an item named Video that reflects the four settings reviewed in prior steps the frame rate is specifi...

Page 29: ...el scroll to the Channels section 2 Click Recording for your channel the Recording page is displayed 3 Click the red Start button the text at the top of the screen changes to indicate the recording is starting then indicates the length of time since the recording started 4 Click the black Stop button the recorder stops 5 Refresh the page by clicking Recording again the page reloads and a file list...

Page 30: ...at s Next When you have completed system tuning make sure to back up the system configuration using the procedure described in l Create a configuration preset Refer to the table of contents for a complete list of the topics covered 30 ...

Page 31: ...for channels and recorders l live switching between sources and custom layouts while streaming and recording l video audio and system confidence monitoring Epiphan Live is supported on the following operating systems mobile devices and web browsers Operating system or mobile device Supported web browser s Windows l Google Chrome l Microsoft Edge Mac l Google Chrome l Safari Linux l Google Chrome A...

Page 32: ...han Live using your web browser 1 Enter the following information into the address bar of your web browser using the syntax below http IP address of your Networked VGA Grid admin m 2 Enter your administrator or operator credentials when prompted you are now connected to Epiphan Live Connecting to Epiphan Live directly using your mobile device You can connect to Epiphan Live directly using your And...

Page 33: ...entials when prompted to connect to the Admin panel 3 Click Epiphan Live in the upper right corner of the window the Epiphan Live dashboard opens in a new window or tab Connecting to the Admin panel from Epiphan Live You can also use Epiphan Live to connect to the Admin panel To connect to the Admin panel from Epiphan Live click the Menu icon in the upper right corner of the Dashboard or Switcher ...

Page 34: ... inputs audio inputs and system information Topics in this section include l Understanding the Dashboard interface l Configuring Dashboard panels for visual confidence monitoring l Monitoring video and audio sources l Controlling streaming and recording using Epiphan Live Understanding the Dashboard interface You are first presented with the Dashboard interface upon logging in to Epiphan Live The ...

Page 35: ... and monitoring using the Dashboard interface described in the Elements in the Dashboard interface table below The Dashboard view is responsive and automatically adjusts and repositions its elements to fit cleanly within any size web browser window 35 ...

Page 36: ...c system information Note that the Dashboard monitoring panels appears blank by default when logging in for the first time 3 Dashboard panel navigation icons Click to navigate between three different sets of Dashboard monitoring panels The illuminated icon represents your currently displayed panel set 4 Dashboard panel set quantity icons l 2x Changes the quanity of Dashboard panels per set to 2 as...

Page 37: ...s applies across all other open instances of Epiphan Live additional users may access Epiphan Live simultaneously from separate locations for example or an operator may accidentally open a duplicate Epiphan Live interface You can also display the following set of basic system information in your panels l CPU load l Quantity of streaming connections l The current streaming bandwidth bitrate l Autom...

Page 38: ...n changes are lost when you refresh or navigate away from the Dashboard You can navigate between 3 separate sets of Dashboard panels by clicking the circle icons above the first row of panels You can also configure each panel set to display either 2 or 4 panels by clicking the 2x 4x icons above the upper right Dashboard panel Monitoring video and audio sources In the Dashboard interface you can sp...

Page 39: ... Networked VGA Grid is not receiving a signal from your source l A triangular warning icon next to the input name means there is a source configuration issue that requires your attention Configure the video input list You can customize the video inputs displayed on the Dashboard interface by clicking the Video inputs header Click the checkbox next to the name of each source to show or hide sources...

Page 40: ...oard view lists all inputs configured on your Networked VGA Grid l A grayed out audio source name means that the audio source is not used in any channels l A triangular warning icon next to the input name means there is a source configuration issue that requires your attention Click the audio source name to display the corresponding warning message l A green circle icon next to the audio source na...

Page 41: ...sources in the Dashboard view the Dashboard audio input list is updated automatically Make sure to save your changes by clicking the Save icon in the upper right corner of your browser Controlling streaming and recording using Epiphan Live You can control the streaming and recording of channels and recorders directly from the Epiphan Live Dashboard interface Stream and record channels Streaming an...

Page 42: ...igure streaming in the Admin panel You can preview a channel by clicking its name to display a small dropdown thumbnail view To start streaming and recording a channel simply click the channel s streaming and or recording buttons When clicked the streaming button turns blue in color and the recording button turns red The timer contained within each respective button also begins to count upward Alt...

Page 43: ...r in the Epiphan Live Dashboard view using the button s located in the Recorders section Note that the Recorders section only appears if a recorder has been added via the Admin panel see Add a recorder for more information When a recorder is not being recorded the recording button is gray in color and its timers is set to 00 00 00 To start recording a recorder simply click the corresponding record...

Page 44: ...Performing live switching in one interface e g Epiphan Live does not dynamically update the visuals in the other interface e g the Admin panel The other interface must be manually refreshed to accurately reflect the current live switching layout information Topics in this section include l Understanding the Switcher interface l Switching while live streaming and recording Understanding the Switche...

Page 45: ...cription of each visual element in the Switcher interface Table 11 Elements in the Switcher view Number Title Description 1 Channel selector Select from a list of channels configured via the Admin panel to display custom layouts specific to your selected channel Note that when a channel is selected you can only switch between layouts within that channel 2 Menu icon Displays links to the Dashboard ...

Page 46: ...it to the Preview panel Note that the layout selected for the Preview panel has a green border and the layout in the Live view panel has a red border 6 Switch button When clicked the layout in the Preview panel replaces the layout in the Live view panel and is immediately reflected in your streaming and or recording Switching while live streaming and recording The Switcher interface lets you easil...

Page 47: ...witcher interface Note that in the channel dropdown list channels containing only a single layout are grayed out and are not selectable After selecting your channel from the dropdown the Switcher interface appears with all of your channel s layouts displayed along the bottom of the page The layout currently being streaming and or recorded is displayed in the Live view panel on the right side of th...

Page 48: ... VGA Grid User Guide Live switching using the Switcher interface 4 Click your desired layout at the bottom of the page to dock it in the Preview panel This is the layout that will be used next in your program 48 ...

Page 49: ...lick the Switch button in the center of the screen to apply your layout in the Preview panel into your live stream recording program From here you can prepare to apply another layout to your program by selecting a new layout from the list and docking it into the Preview panel 49 ...

Page 50: ...nel or configure more this part of the manual helps you to get your Networked VGA Grid properly configured for your network Topics covered l Connect to the Admin panel l User administration l View system information l Configure network settings l Configure encoder network settings l Configure date and time l Configuration presets l Restrict viewers by IP address ...

Page 51: ...based service discovery l Connect via the Epiphan discovery utility For networks without DHCP use the following procedure l Connect via persistent static IP address You can also connect to Epiphan Live a simple and easy to use web and tablet interface for confidence monitoring streaming recording control and live switching operation See Epiphan Live for more information Connect via DNS based servi...

Page 52: ...e Avahi package installed To access the Networked VGA Grid s Admin panel via DNS service discovery 1 Find the system s serial number It is printed on a sticker on the back of the system 2 Type the following string into the address bar of your web browser on your admin computer where serial is the serial number of your Networked VGA Grid http serial local admin For example http 95dd40d5 local admin...

Page 53: ... Click Search to find all the Epiphan systems on the network a list similar to the following appears 3 If more than one system appears select the one you wish to configure by matching the serial number listed with the serial number marked on the back of the system 4 Optionally note the IP Address shown in the stream properties Use this for quicker access to the system on future configuration sessi...

Page 54: ...ss 192 168 255 250 l Netmask 255 255 255 252 l Username admin l Password your admin password by default set to no password To access the Networked VGA Grid s Admin panel via the persistent static IP address 1 Establish an Ethernet connection between the Networked VGA Grid and the workstation by one of the following methods a Connect the system to a local Ethernet network shared with the workstatio...

Page 55: ...ation The Networked VGA Grid has three configured users l admin l operator l viewer Each VGA Grid HD Encoder has the same three users The user accounts are not connected and password changes must be made to each device in the system individually By default none of these users have passwords For security purposes you should add passwords to the admin and operator accounts This section describes the...

Page 56: ...op rename download and delete recordings switch layouts while live streaming or perform network diagnostics Viewer The viewer account is for all end users who are permitted to view the streamed channels By default when there is no password users are not prompted for a username and password when viewing a channel The viewer username and password prompt appears only when there is a viewer password s...

Page 57: ...ream ü Configure Branding for a Channel ü Switch Layouts while Streaming Recording ü ü Start the Stream Recorder ü ü Stop the Stream Recorder ü ü View Recorded Files List ü ü Rename Recorded Files ü ü Download Recorded Files ü ü Delete Recorded Files ü ü Source Operations View Source Configuration ü ü Rename Source ü Configure Source ü ü View Source Snapshot ü ü System Configuration Operations Vie...

Page 58: ...User Passwords ü Configure Serial Port Flow Control ü Upload Branding Images ü Upload Branding Templates ü Select Branding Template ü Enable Remote Support ü Backup Device Configuration ü Restore Device Configuration ü Restore Factory Configuration ü Reboot Device via Admin panel ü Shutdown Device via Admin panel ü Configure Time Until Next Disk Check ü Perform Disk Check ü View Disk Information ü...

Page 59: ...password causes the user to be logged out Be ready to log back in with the new admin password or have operators and viewers log in with the appropriate new password Viewers may need to refresh their browser window or press play in their media player If you lose the admin password refer to the section Overcome lost passwords Changing the admin password while live streaming disrupts the view of the ...

Page 60: ...rd will cause that user to be logged out Be ready to log back in with the new admin password If viewers are watching the broadcast when the viewer password is cleared they will be logged out Viewers may need to refresh their browser window or press play in their media player to trigger the login prompt To clear a user s password 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 ...

Page 61: ...word for the VGA Grid HD Encoder you will need to reset the system to factory defaults which resets to the default blank admin password See Perform factory reset Configure LDAP You can use the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol LDAP for authentication into the system Specify user roles by using group DNs for users who log in as the administrator operator or as a viewer The system has only one a...

Page 62: ...e Connection encryption drop down to specify the type of encryption if any used by your LDAP server Connection encryption Description Default port used No Encryption No encryption is used to connect to the LDAP server The default port is 389 SSL SSL encryption is used to connect to the LDAP server The default port is 636 TLS STARTTLS The connection is initially unencrypted then upgraded to TLS enc...

Page 63: ...e the member or unqueMember attribute for the specified group to be granted Viewer access If left blank LDAP is not supported for Viewers but can still be used for Administrators and Operators 13 Click Apply When a user of the LDAP server next visits the admin or viewer page for the system the system prompts for use the username and password For ActiveDirectory servers the user needs to enter his ...

Page 64: ...dresses You can do this at a global level for the system and can also override these settings on a per channel basis Both global and per channel configuration procedures are described below IP address restriction is valid for the viewer only and does not affect the Admin panel or the mobile configuration interface If your viewer account has a password your viewers must connect to the system from a...

Page 65: ...he stream from a disallowed IP address access is denied If connecting by internet browser the message IP address rejected is displayed The following table describes the applicable fields Table 14 IP Based Restriction Fields Label Description Options Allow IP s Enter individual IP Addresses or IP Address ranges separated by commas To specify a range use a hyphen Optional spaces improve readability ...

Page 66: ...0 and another range assigned to boardroom computers i e the range 192 168 1 200 to 192 168 1 250 If you only want the boardroom computers to connect to broadcasts from the system you can specify the range of boardroom IP addresses rather than needing to type in each individual address The allow list looks as follows Allow 192 168 1 200 192 168 1 250 Note that we could have specified two of the IP ...

Page 67: ...s 192 168 1 50 192 168 1 51 192 168 75 and all boardroom computers 192 168 1 200 192 168 1 250 to access the broadcast with the exception of the public boardroom computer 192 168 1 211 Use both allow and deny lists to create the rule as follows Allow 192 168 1 200 192 168 1 250 192 168 1 50 192 168 1 51 192 168 1 75 Deny 192 168 1 211 Both lists can have multiple ranges and multiple distinct IP ad...

Page 68: ...Networked VGA Grid User Guide User administration Deny 192 168 1 200 192 168 1 221 192 168 1 223 192 168 1 250 192 168 1 50 192 168 1 51 192 168 1 75 68 ...

Page 69: ... your current firmware level system hardware version if available and currently configured channels To view system information 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 From the Admin panel scroll to the Configuration menu option 3 Click Info the system information page opens 3 Use the information displayed to get an overview of your system troubleshoot problems or view ...

Page 70: ...Encoders on your network Encoders are associated to the VGA Grid by their IP addresses Using static IP addresses ensures that the encoders can still be located after a system relocation power failure or other event that may change a dynamically allocated IP address for the encoder This section covers the following network configuration changes for the VGA Grid HD Encoder l Verify IP address and MA...

Page 71: ...ue is read only and cannot be changed You may need to share this value with your system administrator Current IP Address Reflects the current internet protocol address IP address of the system This value is either obtained from the DHCP server if using DHCP or is the configured static IP address The VGA Grid HD Encoder supports IPv4 addresses It does not support IPv6 addresses Set a static IP addr...

Page 72: ...gateway cannot be left blank If no default gateway is specified unexpected behavior occurs 8 Enter the DNS Server address If you do not have a DNS server enter the new static IP address of the system The DNS Server address cannot be left blank If no DNS Server is specified unexpected behavior occurs 9 Click Apply to save the changes the changes are saved and a message appears asking you to reboot ...

Page 73: ... server DNS server translates human readable hostnames into corresponding IP addresses Specify the VGA Grid HD Encoder or VGA Grid s IP address if you don t have a DNS server on your network MTU Size The maximum transmission unit MTU specifies the maximum packet size for transfer on the network The default value is 1500 which is the largest value allowed by Ethernet at the network layer It s best ...

Page 74: ...CHP Select this radio button to dynamically obtain an IP address at boot up Use static address Use static address Select this radio button to use the configured static IP address MTU Size The maximum transmission unit MTU specifies the maximum packet size for transfer on the network The default value is 1500 which is the largest value allowed by Ethernet at the network layer It s best if all nodes...

Page 75: ...a new network your Networked VGA Grid must switch from static IP address allocation to dynamic allocation via DHCP You can accomplish this in four ways l Restore factory settings clearing all your custom settings See Perform factory reset l Load a configuration preset file that uses DHCP networking See Apply a configuration preset l Change the network settings See the procedure below To configure ...

Page 76: ...radio button to dynamically obtain an IP address at boot up Use static address Select this radio button to use the configured static IP address MTU Size The maximum transmission unit MTU specifies the maximum packet size for transfer on the network The default value is 1500 which is the largest value allowed by Ethernet at the network layer It s best if all nodes in your network use the same value...

Page 77: ...t gateway cannot be left blank If no default gateway is specified unexpected behavior occurs 6 Enter the DNS Server address If you do not have a DNS server enter the new static IP address of the system 7 Change the MTU Size value only if needed See the table below for information on maximum transmission unit MTU values 8 Click Apply to save the changes the changes are saved and a message appears a...

Page 78: ...uter on the same subnet or calculated using an online subnet calculator Default Gateway The network node that serves as an access point to the rest of the network This value cannot be blank unless you are using DCHP Specify the system s IP address if you don t have a default gateway on your network DNS Server The domain name system server DNS server translates human readable hostnames into corresp...

Page 79: ...on page opens 5 Click the drop down box next to Use phone tablet connection in the USB phone tablet section the following choices appear Table 21 Mobile Tethering Options Label Description Options Disabled Specifies that no USB tethering is permitted No tethering Specifies that USB tethering is available for connecting a mobile device as a configuration utility i e using the web browser but no mob...

Page 80: ...ver if enabled See Configure synchronized time NTP PTP v1 and RDATE 443 TCP HTTPS for the Admin panel HLS streaming if enabled 554 to 554 x 1 TCP For RTSP TCP and RTSP HTTP streaming on your network where x is the number of channels configured The number of ports used depends on how many channels you have with RTSP streaming enabled See Stream content using HTTP or RTSP Note that client video play...

Page 81: ...CP Operator interface In addition to the ports listed above there are also outgoing connections as follows l for publishing Stream to a server actual ports used is dependant on the server and protocol l for File and recording transfer actual ports used is dependant on your configuration l remote support when in use port 30 see Configure remote support l firmware update checks and downloads port 80...

Page 82: ...IP address into the Address field 4 Click ping or traceroute an animation appears to the left of the address to indicate processing is underway 5 Upon completion of the command read the results from the console like display is shown below the Network Diagnostics setting 82 ...

Page 83: ...tion preset l Apply a configuration preset l Apply the Factory default configuration preset l Update a configuration preset l Delete a configuration preset There are also some very important configuration preset considerations to review l Configuration preset considerations Configuration presets overview Configuration presets make it easy to manage a group of Networked VGA Grid systems or to use y...

Page 84: ... s an example of how configuration presets can make it easy to manage a fleet of systems Imagine a company is hired to do the following tasks at a big conference l Stream and record each conference session with a picture in picture layout that includes identifying information about the presenter in the metadata and the background image for the stream l Stream and record the keynote with pre show c...

Page 85: ...rate network and AFU that uses ftp to upload to a local ftp server The internal network preset is comprised of the internal network settings and ftp settings on the internal network Conference network and AFU preset The company applies this preset to the Networked VGA Grid systems when they arrive at the conference It changes only the network and AFU settings using a conference specific IP address...

Page 86: ...and their configuration This preset includes a channel the background file and has metadata specifying the speaker s name Session 1 preset has the presenter data and background image for session 1 Session 2 preset has the presenter data and background image for session 2 Note that after applying a preset files from the previous session remain present on the system and continue to upload via sftp i...

Page 87: ...c file upload type and parameters including SCP SFTP identity stored in an encrypted form EDID EDID settings for sources Applying configuration presets with this group automatically applies the included EDIDs This process can take a while Note that SFTP SCP private keys are included in encrypted format in the automatic file upload preset Create a configuration preset You can create as many configu...

Page 88: ...r preset in the Name field 5 Ensure only the desired configuration groups are selected from the Sections group For full system backup select all groups 6 Click Save your configuration preset appears in the list If you try to save a configuration preset but one or more of the related image files is missing you ll see an error You ll be unable to save the preset until the missing files are restored ...

Page 89: ... group a reboot is required If you apply a preset that has the EDID configuration group the system may appear unresponsive for a short time while it applies these EDIDs to the video grabbers You can verify which configuration groups are included in a preset by looking at the list to the right of the configuration preset name The term all means all groups are included Otherwise groups are listed in...

Page 90: ...e system asks for confirmation before proceeding If the configuration preset includes the network or system configuration groups a reboot is necessary 6 Click OK to apply the configuration preset the configuration preset is applied 7 The system reboots if needed 90 ...

Page 91: ...reset This table describes the exact differences Table 23 Factory default configuration preset vs Factory reset Factory default configuration preset Factory reset function Deletes all created channels ü ü Deletes all recorded files in channels ü Deletes all created recorders ü ü Deletes all recorded files in recorders ü Resets network configuration ü ü Resets user passwords ü ü Deletes all created...

Page 92: ...n preset 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the Maintenance link in the Configuration menu the maintenance page opens 3 Scroll to the Configuration presets section 4 Find the preset you wish to change from the presets list 5 Copy the name of the preset into the Name field 6 Selected the desired configuration group s from the Sections group 7 Click Save a co...

Page 93: ...that are needed for your ongoing needs You can delete all configuration presets at once by doing a factory reset or you can delete individual configuration presets from the Maintenance page To delete a configuration preset 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the Maintenance link in the Configuration menu the maintenance page opens 3 Scroll to the Configurati...

Page 94: ...onfirmation message appears 5 Click OK to confirm you want to delete the preset the preset is deleted Configuration preset considerations Configuration presets are groups of settings applied to the system leaving other settings intact The following considerations will help you get the most from your configuration presets 94 ...

Page 95: ...e preset is applied because the preset only has 4 channels There are three areas where channel and recorder index numbers affect what happens when applying configuration presets Read Recording and streaming statesRecorded files in channels and recorders and Deleting channels for more information Recording and streaming states The Configuration groups section of this chapter shows that each channel...

Page 96: ...ritten channel files are still available To access and download delete these recorded files enter the following into the address bar http deviceIP admin channelN archive or http deviceIP admin recorderN archive where N is the index of the removed channel recorder For example if a Channel with index 3 is no longer present its corresponding files can be accessed by entering the following into the ad...

Page 97: ...n the system when creating a preset that includes the Channels group otherwise a failure is reported Configuration presets are not user profiles Configuration presets should not be confused with the concept of user profiles Specifically the following issues arise from trying to use configuration presets as user profiles l recorded files are not removed between application of configuration presets ...

Page 98: ... configured on the system the default no signal image is used for that source To learn how to create a customized no signal image see Add a No Signal image to a source 2 If a configuration preset creates a source that is a local channel but the channel is not presently configured and was not part of the configuration preset the source has no signal 3 If a configuration preset creates a channel con...

Page 99: ...configuration changes to a VGA Grid HD Encoder Epiphan recommends enabling the local NTP server on the VGA Grid and using this as the time synchronization point for each encoder Synchronize date and time for HD Encoders and VGA GridGrid Date and time are used to synchronize streams coming into the Networked VGA Grid Therefore it s important to ensure that the VGA Grid and all associated VGA Grid H...

Page 100: ...zed time protocol settings are shown when the Date and Time configuration page is loaded in the Networked VGA Grid Admin panel To view settings on the date and time configuration page 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the Date and Time link in the Configuration menu the date and time configuration page opens and the following information is displayed The d...

Page 101: ...anually is not selected Configure synchronized time NTP PTP v1 and RDATE By default the Networked VGA Grid uses the network time protocol server NTP server protocol and a time server from National Research Council Canada You can continue to use this time server or configure a new server that is more appropriate for your network and location Your system administrator can provide the correct time sy...

Page 102: ...P is selected a Enter the IP address or server name for the NTP server in the Server IP Address field NTP uses UDP packets and port 123 If the system is behind a firewall and accessing an external NTP server UDP packets must be permitted on port 123 7 If RDATE is selected a Enter the IP address or server name for the RDATE server in the Server IP Address field b Select an update interval from the ...

Page 103: ...e set Configuration of the time zone is necessary to ensure synchronized time servers provide the correct time to the system To select another time zone 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the Date and Time link in the Configuration menu the date and time configuration page opens 3 Select the new time zone from the Time Zone drop down box 4 Click Apply Confi...

Page 104: ... Grid User Guide Configure a local NTP server If your network has access to an external time server set the VGA Grid to point to the external server and keep all encoders pointing to the Grid s local NTP server 104 ...

Page 105: ...ck to all the default capture and encoding settings or you tweak them to set the up exactly as you like You can capture a single source at once capture multiple sources in a custom channel or even switch between sources or groups of sources layouts while streaming and recording Techniques for creating channels to capture stream and record a single source to create custom channels with multiple sou...

Page 106: ... same source in all three of these situations concurrently as the only source in Channel 1 at 1080p 30fps 10 000 kbps decoded and re encoded as the only source in Channel 2 at 720p 15 fps 2 000 kbps decoded and re encoded in Channel 3 as part of a multi source layout with picture in picture All channels can be streamed and recorded simultaneously Following the example above you could record any co...

Page 107: ...configuration and fine tuning you can maximize your stream quality minimize your processing requirements and bandwidth You can also specify how the video is presented and streamed to sharing destinations and viewers Topics in this section include l Create an HD Encoder channel l Configure encoding HD Encoder channels l Configure encoding custom local channels l Create a custom channel l Custom cha...

Page 108: ...ked VGA Grid If you have not already done so it is suggested you set static IP addresses for your encoders See Set a static IP address for the encoder To create an HD Encoder channel complete these steps in the VGA Grid s Admin panel 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 Ensure a DVI or S Video input source is connected to the VGA Grid HD Encoder 4 From the Admin pan...

Page 109: ...he Device admin password field The value entered is masked with dots 9 Click Apply the changes are applied but the page doesn t change 10 Click the already highlighted Sources link from the channel menu the page is refreshed with the channel name reflecting the IP address of the VGA Grid HD Encoder Your encoder is added to the VGA Grid You can now configure it to show DVI DVI channel S Video video...

Page 110: ...es for the channel you wish to configure the sources configuration page opens 4 Click the Force time synchronization checkbox 5 Click Apply Check VGA Grid HD Encoder status In addition to the details provided in the list of available HD encoders on the sources page you can also request a check for a particular HD Encoder 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 Click So...

Page 111: ...t again Encoder is not available No device is avialable at the specified IP address Configure encoding HD Encoder channels You can modify the encoding settings for each HD Encoder channel you create These settings let you perfect your stream by selecting the right frame size bit rate audio video codecs and more The VGA Grid Concentrator is used to configure the encoding settings for each HD Encode...

Page 112: ... Admin panel 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Click the Encoding link for your HD Encoder channel the stream configuration page opens 3 Scroll to the Video settings section 4 Click the Codec drop down menu to change the size and speed of the compression and decompression and the quality of the image Choose one of the following options from the Codec drop down me...

Page 113: ... and audio stream are not supported by the viewer s equipment When this feature is enabled each frame is sub divided into one or more slices Each slice is self contained all information for decoding is available within the slice This is valuable when packet size exceeds the maximum allowable amount Therefore losing a slice will not impact the entire frame Packet slicing adds to overhead and impact...

Page 114: ... checkbox the DVI settings section expands 5 Set the Frame size values to reflect the dimensions required for your stream Some suggested values cover popular resolutions of cameras and display devices such as monitors but you may also specify something custom a Type a frame size in the field or b Select an option from the sizes shown the dimensions will appear in the frame size field Scaling occur...

Page 115: ...ize complete these steps in the VGA Grid s Admin panel 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Click the Encoding link for your HD Encoder channel the stream configuration page opens 3 Scroll to the Video Channel section 4 Select the Enable video channel check box if not already selected 8 Specify the type of video signal coming from the S Video source The options are ...

Page 116: ... the video If the frame size aspect ratio is taller than the source bars will appear at the top and bottom of the output See Remove black bars matte from the video 11 If all your changes are complete scroll to the bottom of the page and click Apply Configure picture in picture If you have both a DVI and an S Video source attached to your VGA Grid HD Encoder you can create a picture in picture layo...

Page 117: ...een the DVI VGA and S Video streams or that the S Video stream is not perfectly right aligned when superimposed over the DVI VGA stream 7 Adjust the Video channel and DVI Channel frame sizes as needed to acheive the desired stream 8 Click Apply Note that the maximum frame size supported by VGA Grid HD Encoders is 1920 1200 If the DVI source frame size is already 1900 1200 the S Video source cannot...

Page 118: ...lthough in most cases auto is the best value Video with a high level of motion and high resolution such as a sporting event requires a high bitrate 7 If all your changes are complete scroll to the bottom of the page and click Apply Table 26 Stream settings guidance Key frame interval The key frame interval feature specifies how often a key frame a frame that contains all the pixels is sent when st...

Page 119: ...6 fps 13 fps Video Encoding preset Speed 27 28 fps 17 18 fps Bitrate In general higher bitrate mean higher image quality in the stream at the cost of higher bandwidth needed to transmit it For comparison against something you are likely familiar with an HD Blu ray video is typically in the range of 20 mbps standard definition DVD is usually 6 mbps If you don t know what value to use a good place t...

Page 120: ...his codec is comparable to MP3 and may have better sound quality with a similar bit rate Supported values are 16 22 44 and 48K kHz Most digital signals HDMI or SDI sources use 48 kHz audio Matching the encoded level with the source level provides the best sound quality by avoiding audio resampling For analog signals 44 kHz provides higher sampling The maximum bitrate for mono encoding of a 44 kHz ...

Page 121: ...arily in North America for streaming and recording voice This codec uses only 64 kbps of bandwidth G 711 8KHz µ Law Used in counties outside North America Codec and file format compatibility Not all streaming and recording prootocols support all combinations of video and audio codecs Use the tables below to determine what settings work for your streaming and recording needs The following table dis...

Page 122: ... the background color for your HD Encoder channel When you choose picture in picture layout with the video channel outside the DVI VGA channel you can select the background color to fill the unused space For example you can add a color from your corporate color scheme To add a background color 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click the Encod...

Page 123: ... the encoder combine it with other streams then re encode To accomplish this all encoders used in a custom channel need to be added as a local source You only need to do this once per VGA Grid HD Encoder The same local source can be used in multiple channels Before performing this task the encoder must already be added as a HD Encoder channel The incoming stream should also already be configured S...

Page 124: ...id User Guide Add an HD Encoder as a source custom channel 3 Click the checkbox next to the selected encoder 4 Click Add selected devices the encoder is added as a source and the source configuration page is opened 124 ...

Page 125: ...u want to change the way things appear in your stream while streaming aka video switching or video mixing you ll need to create one layout for each of the views you want for your stream Later while you are streaming you can switch live between the layouts using the Admin panel If you re planning to do live switching with your channel we recommend you set the frame size to a fixed size instead of u...

Page 126: ...esources So it s a good idea to make sure you delete any layouts you re not using Custom channel layout editor The visual channel layout editor gives you full control on size and position of the pictures sources and text overlays you add to your local custom channel You can edit existing channel layouts or you can create a new channel or a new layout within a channel to work with To add a new layo...

Page 127: ...out editor is broken into a few pieces Layout selector First there is the layout selector From here you can pick which layout to preview edit create a new layout delete a layout or select which layout is active Visual channel layout editor Next is the channel layout editor where you can add pictures sources and text overlays to your layout You can also choose the background matte 127 ...

Page 128: ...ed by px e g 16px You can resize items by clicking and dragging the red and white circles at the corners of the items or by using the manual positioning values For example entering 0 in all four of the outside boxes will stretch the item to the full size of the layout area You can modify the settings for each item by clicking the row The item s settings box appears See Add an image custom channel ...

Page 129: ...our own Try these topics l Create a local custom channel or layout l Add a video source custom channel l Add an audio source custom channel l Add an image custom channel l Add a text overlay custom channel l Delete or move a layout custom channel l Set the background color custom channel l Rename a layout custom channel Custom channel examples Here are a few examples of what you can do with just t...

Page 130: ...ne source a slideshow presentation in this case with a green background matte To get this look Select a background color Add a source to the layout and size appropriately leaving the background matte visible One source with a logo png with transparency in the bottom left corner To get this look Upload an image with transparency through the Branding Content page Follow the steps from the first exam...

Page 131: ...t in the settings box and place it where desired One source with a background image To get this look Upload your backround image must have the right aspect ratio through the Branding Content page When creating the layout first add the picture and stretch it to the full screen Next follow the steps from the first example to add the source Two sources with a background image To get this look Follow ...

Page 132: ...p A few more examples this time including a 4x3 source Layout example Description One source at the full size of the channel To get this look Add one source to the layout select keep aspect ratio and stretch to fit the full layout size Note the channel broadcasts in 4x3 if you have Use current signal resolution as frame size selected on the encoding page One 4x3 source in a 16x9 frame with a green...

Page 133: ...s you add to your channel Custom local channels use HD Encoders that have been added as sources see Add an HD Encoder as a source custom channel Each HD Encoder used adds overhead to the VGA Grid Concentrator Ensure you monitor CPU usage when using multiple HD Encoders Use this procedure to help you create a new channel or layout then use the related procedures to add elements to your layout If yo...

Page 134: ...ghlighted green 5 If this is a new channel or layout you are presented with an empty layout area with a black background matte Now that you ve created your layout you can start adding items to it See these topics l Add a video source custom channel l Add an audio source custom channel l Add an image custom channel l Add a text overlay custom channel l Delete or move a layout custom channel l Set t...

Page 135: ...gly recommend you rename the channel to a custom name Rename a channel This will ensure no automatic channel name changes Add a video source custom channel A source needs to be added to a channel before the channel is ready to stream In the case of custom channels with layouts you can add one or more sources to the layout area When adding more than one source to a custom channel we recommend confi...

Page 136: ...l layout editor click Add item a drop down box appears If you have any other items already in your layout the new item appears at the top of the list 4 Select Video Source from the drop down the new item is added to the layout and the Source settings box appears on the right side of the page 5 Click the Source drop down and select your source your source appears in the visual layout editor above 1...

Page 137: ...ource you d like to have in the layout your cropped selection changes in the layout area 8 Moving back to the layout area use the mouse the keyboard or the manual position value fields to position and resize your source You can click and drag stretch using the handles in the layout area or type values into the fields See the note below for more information 9 If needed re order the items in your la...

Page 138: ...3 using the manual positioning values with percents 4 using the manual positioning values with pixels To use the mouse Click and drag to move the item Click and drag the red and white circles to resize the item as you wish Using this method you can make quick changes that are in increments of approximately 5 of the width or height of your layout area For more refined movements hold the down the Ct...

Page 139: ...n use the same audio for each layout or if you desire you can have different layouts use different audio If you re not sure how to create a channel or a layout start by reviewing the first few steps in the topic Custom channel layout editor To add an audio source to your layout 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Follow the steps in Custom channel layout editor or ...

Page 140: ...ckground images should match the frame size of your channel frame size is set in the Encoding configuration page There are two ways to upload branding images You can upload images to the branding page as described in this procedure or you can drag and drop images using the procedure described in Add an image custom channel Note that using the procedure below is the only way to see whether or not y...

Page 141: ...the File template to upload field 8 Click Upload the file is uploaded and displayed in the Other files section See the following topics to learn how to apply the logo background overlay text or other images to a channel l Add an image custom channel l Add a text overlay custom channel Add an image custom channel You can use images in your custom channel layouts to create a background for your sour...

Page 142: ...an create a new channel If you re not sure how to create a channel or a layout start by reviewing the first few steps in the topic Custom channel layout editor To add a picture to your layout 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Follow the steps in To upload an image or Create a local custom channel or layout to upload your image if not already uploaded If you like ...

Page 143: ...dy uploaded the image click the Use image drop down to select an image you have uploaded to the system 8 Your picture appears in the Picture settings preview and is added to the layout area It is selected for sizing and positioning If your uploaded image does not appear in the list ensure it doesn t exceed the maximum resolution size of 3840 2160 9 For best results keep the Keep aspect ratio when ...

Page 144: ...dding a video source the background image conceals the video source To fix it drag the video source item above the background image item in the list or vice versa 12 When your layout is complete scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save to save your work Other things you may want to add to your layout l Add a video source custom channel l Add an audio source custom channel l Add a text overl...

Page 145: ...l and Shift for fine grained size control Using percents Specify a whole number followed by a percent sign e g 4 in any of the manual positioning fields See Resize and position layout items using percents or pixels custom channel for more information Using pixels If you need to specify an exact amount in pixels rather than percent you can type a pixel value in any of the positioning value squares ...

Page 146: ...ext to your layout 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Follow the steps in Custom channel layout editor or Create a local custom channel or layout to get to the channel layout editor 3 From the channel layout editor click Add item a drop down box appears If you have any other items already in your layout the new item appears at the top of the list 4 Use the item ty...

Page 147: ...nnel Auto A 6 Use the font drop down to select the size of your text 7 For best results select the Keep aspect ratio when scaling checkbox from the Text settings box This is selected by default 8 In the layout area use the mouse or the manual position value fields to position and resize your text overlay You may first need to change the height of the text box handles before you can proceed with re...

Page 148: ...ary B January day of the month d 26 weekday Thu a Thu weekday Thursday A Thursday time T 08 40 45 hour k 08 minute M 40 second S 45 millisecond m 378 channel name c Camera Feed 1 Custom overlay text dynamic If you intend your overlay text to change throughout the course of your streaming and or recording program you can use Networked VGA Grid s HTTP API to insert and update system wide variables i...

Page 149: ... in the layout below gpsvar1 variable name contains the text N103 68201 W765 29712 Inserting the variable name in the text overlay field displays the variable s value in the custom layout To insert the gpsvar1 variable into your custom layout simple type gpsvar1 into the Text field under the Text settings header The font size of a system variable may change within a text label depending on each va...

Page 150: ...e the item up down left or right in the layout Changes are in increments of approximately 5 of the height or width of the layout area Make more refined movements by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard while pressing the up down left or right keys You can also hold the Shift key while using the arrow keys to control the size of the item on the layout Hold both Ctrl and Shift for fine grained...

Page 151: ... background color the color picker opens 4 Pick a new color or type in an RGB value in the field the color is updated in the layout area 5 Click anywhere off the color picker to close the picker 6 When your layout is complete scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save to save your work Resize and position layout items using percents or pixels custom channel You can position and resize layout ...

Page 152: ...layout item s total pixel dimensions are a reflection of your channel s frame size as configured in your encoding settings see Configure encoding custom local channels Unchecked boxes are greyed out in color and are not directly editable but dynamically change their values to reflect a 100 total of either the horizontal or vertical axis depending on values entered in adjacent adjustment boxes See ...

Page 153: ...he item is displaced 20 or 200px to the right 3 If using percents this value is the item s percentage of total width on the layout s horizontal axis I e the item takes up 60 of the layout s width represented by a thin red bar above the percent box If using pixels this value is the item s width in pixels with a maximum pixel width i e frame size identified in your channel s encoding settings Config...

Page 154: ...pixels with a maximum pixel width i e frame size identified in your channel s encoding settings Configure encoding custom local channels 7 The percentage of blank space or number of pixels from the top downward on the layout s vertical axis I e the item is displaced 10 or 200px from the top down Resize layout items The easiest way to resize a layout item is to use the center adjustment boxes annot...

Page 155: ...ght percents at 25 each remember percents are used by default in the layout editor even if pixels are used in adjacent boxes Combined with the 50 960px width of the image these two 25 480px values total 100 1920px of the layout s horizontal axis If you instead decide to enable the left and right percent boxes and change their values to 30 each instead of the current 25 then the image s width shrin...

Page 156: ...o position your item along the horizontal axis first resize your items if desired as described in Resize layout items then enter a percent or pixel value into either the left or the right adjustment box to shift your layout item For example using percents to move a layout item with a 60 width as far to the right of the layout area as possible you would need to enter 40 into the left percent box to...

Page 157: ...ackground say 25px you could either enter 25px into the top percent box to specify the small margin from the top down or enter 27 into the bottom percent box to specify a 27 margin from the bottom up added to the item s 70 height this leaves a 3 margin above your layout item As mentioned above there is no one particular way to use the adjustment boxes for resizing and positioning of your layout it...

Page 158: ...he first one is Default You can keep these names or you can edit them to something more descriptive You can rename any layout even the currently active layout To rename a layout 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Follow the steps in Custom channel layout editor or Create a local custom channel or layout to get to the channel layout editor 3 From the layout picker ...

Page 159: ...nect to the Admin panel 2 Follow the steps in Custom channel layout editor or Create a local custom channel or layout to get to the channel layout editor 3 Using the rows in the layout selector click and drag to rearrange the order of your layouts Delete layouts You can delete any layout except the currently active layout If you re planning to use live switching we strongly recommend you rename th...

Page 160: ... 192 168 114 117 When you add a second layout to a channel the channel name changes to a generic name Channel X where X is the channel index number Normally this wouldn t pose any problem but the changing name does have some side effects the stream is stopped and restarted and the channel s recorder if recording is stopped and a new file is started Furthermore when you delete layouts in a channel ...

Page 161: ...e is removed from the configuration page Configure encoding custom local channels You can modify the encoding settings for each custom local channel you create These settings let you perfect your stream by selecting the right frame size bit rate audio video codecs and more These instructions are for custom local channels only for HD Encoder channels see Configure encoding HD Encoder channels This ...

Page 162: ...ine how the video stream is encoded Choose one of the following Value Description Hardware Accelerated This is the default H 264 encoding preset Choose this setting for best performance Software This matches the default from previous generations of Epiphan products Choose this only if you need software encoding or X 264 encoding to match results created with previous generations of Epiphan product...

Page 163: ...m to downscale the image and use less bandwidth to transmit Or if you have a widescreen HD format source but need a 4 3 output frame size you can add black bars to the top and bottom of the frame The system is designed to provide scaling however for the best overall system performance particualrly when reaching maximum system capacity configure your source to provide the correct frame size and avo...

Page 164: ...me size in the field or c Select an option from the sizes shown the dimensions will appear in the frame size field Scaling occurs automatically no extra configuration needed when you make the dimensions larger smaller or a different aspect ratio than the source If your channel has a layout with only one source and your source and stream aspect ratios differ when viewing that layout your source is ...

Page 165: ... need to test different values to balance video smoothness and processing power 6 If using H 264 of MPEG4 video codecs you can increase or decrease image quality by increasing or decreasing the target Bitrate value Video with a high level of motion and high resolution such as a sporting event requires a high bitrate 7 If all your changes are complete scroll to the bottom of the page and click Appl...

Page 166: ...ge quality in the stream at the cost of higher bandwidth needed to transmit it For comparison against something you are likely familiar with an HD Blu ray video is typically in the range of 20 mbps standard definition DVD is usually 6 mbps If you don t know what value to use a good place to start is 5000 kbps slightly less than a typical DVD Test to see how this works for your viewers and adjust C...

Page 167: ... channels drop down menu to choose mono 1 channel or stereo 2 channels If desired you can choose Mono to have left and right stereo channels combined and streamed together i e when listening to the streamed audio the same blended sound will come through both the left and right channels 7 Select an Audio bitrate from the drop down menu The table at the end of this procedure gives some guidance on a...

Page 168: ... 22 kHz 44 kHz and 48 kHz Most digital signals HDMI or SDI sources use 48 kHz audio Matching the encoded level with the source level provides the best sound quality by avoiding audio resampling For analog signals 44 kHz provides higher sampling Flash FLV doesn t support 48 kHz MP3 audio When selecting this value you ll need to use a media player or install ASF browser plugins to preview your chann...

Page 169: ...supported for streaming Video Codec selec ted Audio Codec selected RTSP FLV ASF MPEG TS MJPEG H 264 No audio codec ü ü ü ü H 264 PCM ü ü ü H 264 MP3 ü ü ü ü H 264 AAC ü ü ü ü MPEG 4 No audio codec ü MPEG 4 PCM ü MPEG 4 MP3 ü MPEG 4 AAC ü MJPEG No audio codec ü The following table displays the compatibility between the video audio codecs and formats supported for recording Video Codec selected Audi...

Page 170: ...a per source basis instead and are available for local custom channels only See Add a No Signal image to a source Add channel metadata Using the Branding feature you can apply a logo to your channel and specify the following meta data that the media player displays for your viewers l title of the presentation l company website l presenter s name l copyright date or other labels such as proprietary...

Page 171: ...Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel select a channel the menu expands 4 Click the Branding menu option the Branding configuration page opens 5 Scroll to the Content metadata section 6 Click the Author Copyright or Comments field 7 Highlight the text and press delete on the keyboard The field is empty 8 Click Apply Preview a channel While configuring a channel...

Page 172: ...min See Connect to the Admin panel 2 From the Admin panel click Info from the Configuration menu option the system information window opens 3 Scroll to the channel you want to preview 4 Click View the corresponding channel is displayed in the window Preview a channel from the Status page The channel s status page gives a wealth of information about the channel including bit rate frame size a snaps...

Page 173: ...ng web page can be very large You may wish to be aware of your web browser s zoom hot keys Many browsers will zoom out with Ctrl control minus and zoom in with Ctrl control equals To preview all channels at the same time 1 Open a new browser window 2 Type the following string into the address bar of your web browser on your admin computer ipaddress is the IP address of your Networked VGA Grid http...

Page 174: ...a distinct name for the channel to reflect the source s it contains To rename a channel 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel scroll to the Channels menu option 4 Click on the channel you want to rename the menu expands 5 Click any link for the channel the corresponding channel status or configuration page opens You can change a channel s name fr...

Page 175: ...leting a channel deletes any recorded files for the channel To delete a channel follow the steps below 1 From the Admin panel scroll to the Channels menu option 2 Click the channel you want to delete the menu expands 3 Click Status the Status page opens displaying the service state and stream info for the channel 4 Click Delete this channel a confirmation dialog box appears to remind you that all ...

Page 176: ...m channel with layouts created See Create a local custom channel or layout Now on to the fun part There are two ways to perform live switching You can use either the Admin panel or the Epiphan Live control interface Performing live switching in one interface e g Epiphan Live does not dynamically update the visuals in the other interface e g the Admin panel The other interface must be manually refr...

Page 177: ...iphan Live is a simple and easy to use interface which is used for confidence monitoring streaming recording control and live switching See Epiphan Live for more information Within Epiphan Live the Switcher view allows you to seamlessly switch between a channel s custom layouts while live streaming and or recording To switch a layout while live streaming and or recording using Epiphan Live 1 Log i...

Page 178: ...nterface Note that in the channel dropdown list channels containing only a single layout are grayed out and are not selectable After selecting your channel from the dropdown the Switcher interface appears with all of your channel s layouts displayed along the bottom of the page The layout currently being streaming and or recorded is displayed in the Live view panel on the right side of the interfa...

Page 179: ...GA Grid User Guide Live video mixing switching 4 Click on your desired layout at the bottom of the page to dock it in the Preview panel This is the layout that will be switched into your live stream recording 179 ...

Page 180: ...Networked VGA Grid User Guide Live video mixing switching 5 Click the Switch button in the center of the screen to switch your layout in the Preview panel into your live stream recording 180 ...

Page 181: ...duce the best quality captured image given the source equipment used Generally no further configuration is needed however fine tuning is available through the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel VGA Grid HD Encoders can also be used as sources for your Networked VGA Grid Concentrator To accomplish this you must first add your HD Encoder s to a channel and then add the channel as a source See Add an ...

Page 182: ...e Input port VGA HDMI or DVl DVI port on a VGA Grid HD Encoder composite or S video source S Video port audio Audio input port Networked VGA Grid only supports video and audio capture from HDMI content that is not HDCP protected Preview a source You can preview the images captured from your sources in the Admin panel You can also preview your sources using the Epiphan Live control interface See Mo...

Page 183: ...tion changes To configure a source complete these steps in the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel The following adjustments cannot be made for S Video sources 1 Login to the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 Ensure a source is connected to the input port see Connect a source 4 From the Admin panel click Frame Grabber from the Configuration menu the Frame Gr...

Page 184: ...ber of seconds between update enter a value or 0 to disable the feature otherwise the default of 60 seconds is set Rotate This feature is useful when a source captures video that is rotated 90 or is displayed upside down Choose one of the following values to change the video orientation while streaming l No rotation l 90 clockwise l 90 counter clockwise l 180 Enable deinterlacing Enable this featu...

Page 185: ... moves the image to the left to 999 moves the image to the right Phase Specifies phase adjustments for VGA signals Generally not used unless value is provided by Epiphan support Configurable for VGA sources only PLL adjustment Changing the value adjusts the horizontal resolution of the image Adjust the value using small increments until the image is sharper The value ranges from 0 999 to 999 Confi...

Page 186: ...ckground with the text No Signal when there is no video signal coming in to a source You can customize this image to display a different message to your viewers For example if a viewer logs in early or if you are experiencing delays you could indicate the start time or expected resolution time using the no signal image Branding images are only supported on local custom channels For details on crea...

Page 187: ...k Apply 8 Test that the No Signal image is correctly applied by disconnecting your source and previewing the channel s containing said source See Preview a channel for more information Rename a source For local custom channels source names are used when adding sources to channels therefore it is important that you know the name of the source you wish to use If a channel has only one source the cha...

Page 188: ... HD Encoder s Admin panel note this is done on the encoder and not the VGA Grid 1 Ensure an audio input source is connected to an analog audio input port 2 Connect to the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel using your preferred connection method See Connect to the Admin panel and log in as admin 3 From the Admin panel scroll to the Configuration section 4 Click Audio the following window opens 5 Cho...

Page 189: ...ay experience volume quality issues You can adjust the output volume on the audio source and or adjust the capture volume see Confirm audio levels To view audio signal strength when an audio source is connected to the system 1 Login to the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 From the Admin panel click the Info link the info page opens 3 Scroll to the Input s...

Page 190: ...e output video l Video not centered VGA sources only l Remove the combing effect on images l Video looks squished VGA sources only l Video too bright too dark or washed out VGA sources only Remove black bars matte from the video By default for channels with only one layout and only one source the Networked VGA Grid makes sure that the aspect ratio of input signals is preserved when the output is s...

Page 191: ...e added to the left and right of the image to preserve the narrower ratio of the input The left and right side border are not guaranteed to be of equal width If you are seeing bars on your image but would rather have the image fill the whole screen you have to options 1 Change the output frame size to match the aspect ratio of the input 2 Stretch the image to fit the output frame size aspect ratio...

Page 192: ...ze on custom local channels to match the aspect ratio of the source 1 Make note of the resolution of the inputs attached to the VGA Grid HD Encoder 2 Connect to the VGA Grid s Admin panel using your preferred connection mechanism See Connect to the Admin panel 3 Login as admin 4 Select a channel the menu expands 5 Click Sources the Sources page opens 6 Find the name of the media source used for th...

Page 193: ...to use a specific EDID Extended display identification data EDID is data provided by a video display device usually a monitor to describe its capabilities to a video source usually a graphics or video output card in a PC or another device The video source uses the EDID to determine the capabilities of the monitor to determine the resolution color depth and other settings that the monitor can suppo...

Page 194: ...e to restore the facotry EDID for a given source Not even a system level factory reset removes the configured EDIDs 1 To download a new EDID file go to the Epiphan support web page The support page opens 2 Select the support page for Networked VGA Grid 3 Scroll to the EDID section 4 Click on an EDID from the list The file is saved to your downloads folder on your hard drive 5 Connect to the Admin ...

Page 195: ...served when the output is streamed If this default was overridden or if the channel was created in a version of the software earlier than 3 11 0 the image is stretched to match the output frame size The effect may be subtle and may not be problematic for you but if you want to resolve this it is very simple to do To preserve the source aspect ratio 1 Connect to the VGA Grid s Admin panel using you...

Page 196: ...ly The image from the source is displayed too high or low or too far to the left or right 1 Login to the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the HD Encoder Admin panel click Frame Grabber from the Configuration menu the Frame Grabber Adjustments page opens 4 To move the video horizontally to the left or right scroll to Horizontal shift 5 Enter increment...

Page 197: ...rt an interlaced source signal to a non interlaced signal 1 Login to the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the HD Encoder Admin panel click Frame Grabber from the Configuration menu the Frame Grabber Adjustments page opens 4 Enable the Enable deinterlace setting 5 Click Apply To view the output add the source to a channel and click the View link from ...

Page 198: ...om the source See Configure encoding custom local channels 6 If the video is still squeezed horizontally on the screen follow the steps below 7 From the HD Encoder Admin panel click Frame Grabber from the Configuration menu the Frame Grabber Adjustments page opens 8 Scroll to the Aspect ratio setting 9 Select Wide mode from the drop down menu when the source is wider than what is being displayed i...

Page 199: ... change to the other Setting both offset and gain to high values can result in poor video quality 1 Login to the VGA Grid HD Encoder s Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click Frame Grabber from the Configuration menu the Frame Grabber Adjustments page opens 4 Scroll to Gain 5 Enter a small value for example 1 to 25 in the field to brighten the image 6 Scrol...

Page 200: ... devices such as web browsers media players set top boxes Smart TVs and Content Distribution Networks The system is flexible and supports standard codecs used by most sharing destinations and media players This section discusses the following topics related to publishing your content l What is streaming l Stream to viewers l Stream to a server l Stream to a media player l Samples of stream setting...

Page 201: ...on and procedures to stream your content using each option o Choose a streaming option o Supported streaming formats Streams for viewers o Stream to viewers o Disable and enable streams for viewers o Restrict access to streams for viewers o Stream content using HTTP or RTSP o Configure HTTP and RTSP streaming ports o Stream content using HLS HTTP Live Streaming o Stream content using UPnP Stream t...

Page 202: ...hrough HTTP HTTP Live Streaming UPnP and RTSP and can also simultaneously stream to a server such as a multicast server or CDN Supported streaming formats When you set up your channel the system generates and displays a list of available video formats and standards specific to the selected audio and video codecs used by your channel To view the video formats and standards specific to your selected...

Page 203: ...tent using HTTP or RTSP RTSP Quickly stream content to viewers No set up is required Networked VGA Grid is ready to stream content as soon as it has power and a configured channel No other settings are required Your audience need only copy and paste the URL of the stream into a media player For more information about using a RTSP and HTTP streaming refer to Stream content using HTTP or RTSP HTTP L...

Page 204: ...l discovery http serial local preview cgi channel channel number rtsp serial local port stream sdp Where serial is the serial number of the system and channel number is the provided from the GUI see below IP address http IP Address of Networked VGA Grid preview cgi channel 2 rtsp IP Address of Networked VGA Grid port stream sdp Where the IP address is the IP address of the system and the port and ...

Page 205: ...dress See Connect to the Admin panel Configure HTTP and RTSP streaming ports For RTSP streaming directly to users on your LAN the only information required to view the broadcast is the URL and the port number used to stream the broadcast Port numbers are also used for HTTP streaming methods such as FLV ASF and MPEG TS By default each channel has a unique HTTP and RTSP port number If needed you can...

Page 206: ...along with the URL is used by viewers to access the broadcast The default for channel one is 554 6 Click Apply Stream content using HLS HTTP Live Streaming Stream live over the standard HTTP port 80 making it possible to cross firewalls and proxies that are normally accessible to other HTTP traffic HLS is supported with the H 264 codec and MP3 or AAC audio encoding When streaming using HLS there i...

Page 207: ...at you send depends on the device the participant uses to view the stream You can provide separate URLs for the stream coming from each channel or one URL that includes all the streams for the channel 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click the channel that you want to view the menu expands 4 Click Status the Status page opens displaying the ...

Page 208: ...g with a web browser and Viewing with a media player RTSP View the Flash stream There are two methods to view the retrieve the flash stream URL l Live broadcast link on the channel s status page l Info page from the configuration menu View your broadcast using the View link on the Info menu 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin or operator See Connect to the Admin panel 208 ...

Page 209: ...ge opens displaying the live broadcast and broadcast URL 5 Copy the URL and provide to viewers View your broadcast using the Live broadcast link on the Status page 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin or operator See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click the channel that you want to view the menu expands 4 Click Status the status page opens displaying the live broadcast and stream...

Page 210: ...hen HLS is enabled and with no viewer password set viewers can access the stream using a tablet or smart phone device If the viewer passwords is set HLS connections are not possible 6 Click on the Live broadcast or HTTP Live Stream link if it configured The window opens displaying the live broadcast and broadcast URL Previewing the broadcast with FLV player results in moderate buffering delay 15 3...

Page 211: ...browser viewing may not work In this case we recommend you view the channel with a media player instead See below 1 Open a web browser 2 Enter the IP address of the broadcast stream refer to the example below To locate the IP address for the broadcast refer to Send stream URLs to viewers If the IP address of the broadcast is 172 20 1 33 then browse to http 172 20 1 33 preview cgi channel channel n...

Page 212: ...IP address or the URL to be copied to the media player For example purposes the following procedure describes the steps using a VLC media player 1 Launch a media player 2 Click the Media tab a drop down menu opens 3 Choose Open Network Stream a dialog box opens 4 Enter the stream URL using either the IP address or the network discovery serial number method rtsp 49E7B8E4 local 554 stream sdp 212 ...

Page 213: ...wing by stream viewers who have the stream URL You can choose to disable streaming to viewers through the channel s streaming configuration Disabling streams for viewers disables all viewer formats including HTTP RTSP HLS and UPnP To disable or enable streams for viewers 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click Streaming for the desired channe...

Page 214: ...trict viewers by IP address If LDAP is configured for viewer authentication the viewer must pass global autentication using LADAP credentials or the viewer global password if there is one and must meet the local channel settings come from an allowed IP address See Configure LDAP for more information on LDAP configuration To restrict viewers for a channel 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Con...

Page 215: ...strict viewers by IP address for more information about allow and deny lists 8 Click Apply at the bottom of the page To return a channel to the default global access control settings 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click Streaming for the desired channel the streaming page opens 4 Scroll to the Stream access control section of the page 5 Se...

Page 216: ...e Access passwords link in the Configuration menu the password configuration page opens 3 Type allowed IP addresses or address ranges in the Allow IP s field Separate addresses with a comma 4 Type denied IP addresses or address ranges in the Deny IP s field Separate addresses with a comma 5 Click Apply To restrict viewers of a specific channel by IP address 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See ...

Page 217: ...s list If a specific IP address is in both lists access to the stream is denied You can use the Deny list by itself or in conjunction with the Allow IP s list as an exception to a rule in the allow list IP restriction examples Allow list with distinct IP addresses The simplest allow deny list is to use the list of known IP addresses to craft a list of allowed IP addresses All other addresses are d...

Page 218: ...addresses are consecutive so they can be added as a second range Add these IP addresses to the list as follows Allow 192 168 1 200 192 168 1 250 192 168 1 50 192 168 1 51 192 168 1 75 Your list can have multiple ranges and multiple distinct IP addresses provided they are separated by commas Deny list with distinct IP addresses Another simple allow deny list is to use the list of known IP addresses...

Page 219: ...sses provided they are separated by commas Deny list with a range of IP addresses Converse to the previous examples consider the situation where you want every computer on the network to access the broadcast with the exception of the CEO s desktop laptop and tablet computers Additionally boardroom computers should not be permitted with the exception of the cafeteria computer IP address 192 168 1 2...

Page 220: ... audience and because CDNs perform format conversion the stream is platform independent You can control when streaming to a CDN is enabled by using the Admin panel See Start and stop streaming to a CDN For more information about streaming to a CDN see Stream to a CDN Multicast Streaming Stream content to a multicast IP address where it can be shared with multiple viewers within the same LAN All vi...

Page 221: ...any CDN provider that supports incoming streams sent via RTSP announce or RTMP push Both RTSP and RTMP can be used for live streaming however not all CDNs or media servers support both formats Choose the streaming format that your CDN or media server supports Epiphan has tested with the CDN providers listed here http www epiphan com partners cdn partners Contact your CDN for a list of supported au...

Page 222: ...Test using Epiphan TV CDN Start and stop streaming to a CDN Once you have your CDN streaming configured for RTMP RTSP Wowza Streaming Cloud Original Livestream or Epiphan tv you can control when streaming is enabled and disabled through the Admin panel or Epiphan Live Start and stop streaming To start enable or stop disable streaming using the Admin panel 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Co...

Page 223: ...tion about logging in to Epiphan Live Streaming and recording control buttons are located under the Channels heading For each channel the stream control is the left most button containing the signal icon and the recording control is the right most button containing the circle icon When a channel is not being streamed or recorded the streaming and recording buttons are gray in color and their respe...

Page 224: ...not able to publish the streaming button flashes blue and displays ERROR In this case check the streaming configuration settings for your channel in the Admin panel See Stream to viewers To learn more about the Epiphan Live control interface see Epiphan Live To stream content to a CDN using RTSP announce 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 From the Admin panel clic...

Page 225: ...s 11 Enter a user name and password 12 The CDN provider assigns a user name and password to authenticate the publisher Contact the CDN provider for your log in credentials 13 Click Apply 14 When ready to begin streaming click Start See See Controlling streaming and recording using Epiphan Live for instructions on streaming control using the Epiphan Live control interface To stream content to a CDN...

Page 226: ...e you configured with the CDN 10 Enter the CDN user name and password The CDN provider assigns a user name and password to authenticate the publisher Contact the CDN provider for your log in credentials 11 Click Apply 12 When ready to begin streaming click Start See See Controlling streaming and recording using Epiphan Live for instructions on streaming control using the Epiphan Live control inter...

Page 227: ...control using the Epiphan Live control interface Stream to Wowza Streaming Cloud To set up streaming via Wowza Cloud you first need to sign in to the Wowza Streaming Cloud web site and create a new Live Stream when asked to select a camera or encoder type select Epiphan Once the stream is created you ll see a Connection Code on the stream s Overview page this code is required to complete the strea...

Page 228: ...s accordingly ensuring the Codec selected is H 264 Configuring audio is optional Supported formats are limited to MP3 and AAC Due to RTMP restrictions MP3 48 kHz is not supported 6 Click Apply 7 Under the selected channel click Streaming the channel s Streaming page opens 228 ...

Page 229: ...proceeding If streaming is enabled started click the Stop streaming button next top the Publish Status label streaming is disabled 12 Enter the connection code obtained from the Wowza Streaming Cloud set up into the Connection code field 13 Click Set to pair the channel on Epiphan s encoder with the live stream on Wowza Cloud an icon appears to show you the connection is validating Once validated ...

Page 230: ... you ll see the stream is started but there is no video detected You can also start the transcoder through the Wowza Cloud interface by clicking Start Stream This action commences your session charges with Wowza Cloud b To start sending video to the Wowza Cloud click the Start Publish status button See See Controlling streaming and recording using Epiphan Live for instructions on streaming control...

Page 231: ... streaming page and pressing the Stop Transcoder button or by logging into the Wowza Cloud and stopping the stream Charges from Wowza continue until the the Wowza Cloud stream is stopped in one of these two ways Stopping the stream publish through the Stop or Epiphan Live Publish button does not stop the charges applied by Wowza Stream to Original Livestream To set up streaming via the Original Li...

Page 232: ...el s Encoding page opens 5 Configure Encoding settings accordingly ensuring the Codec selected is H 264 Configuring audio is optional Supported formats are limited to MP3 and AAC Due to RTMP restrictions MP3 48 kHz is not supported 6 Click Apply 7 Under the selected channel click Streaming the channel s Streaming page opens 232 ...

Page 233: ... Publish Status label streaming is disabled 12 Enter the channel name in the Short channel name field 13 Enter your Original Livestream Username and Password in the next two fields 14 Click Apply 15 When ready to begin streaming click Start See See Controlling streaming and recording using Epiphan Live for instructions on streaming control using the Epiphan Live control interface When the connecti...

Page 234: ...n TV ensure audio is set to MP3 in Encoding configuration 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click a Channel the menu expands 4 Click Streaming the channel s Streaming page opens 5 Scroll to the Stream to a server section of the page 6 Click the Publish drop down menu 7 Choose to serial Epiphan tv Where serial is the serial number of the syste...

Page 235: ... browser l a current flash player l select the H 264 codec from the channel s Encoding page and l set the stream bitrate lower than 500 kbits s in the channel s Encoding setup To view content 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click a Channel the menu expands 4 Click Streaming the channel s Streaming page opens 3 Click the link to view the bro...

Page 236: ...ug in from the list the stream is displayed using the selected multimedia player Add a link to your website to stream your Epiphan TV broadcast Follow the steps below to embed code for the broadcast in a web page 1 Go to the Epiphan TV portal 2 Click Embed on the bottom of the screen a dialog box opens displaying the code 3 Highlight and right click on the code in the dialog box A drop down menu a...

Page 237: ... via a multicast capable network Networked VGA Grid supports multicast streaming content to an IP TV or a set top box playlist when the stream format is MPEG TS The following procedures outline the steps to distribute your content using multicast streaming l MPEG TS streams using RTP UDP push l MPEG TS streams using UDP push l Multicast streaming using RTP UDP MPEG TS streams using RTP UDP push Be...

Page 238: ...AP announcement IP field If your media player is configured to receive multicast streams from an IP address that is different from the default address 224 2 127 254 you may need to contact your system administrator for a specific multicast IP address 12 Enter a channel number in the Channel number field to identify your stream in the media player By default the Channel number is the channel identi...

Page 239: ...red l Video H 264 l Audio MP3 or AAC if audio is configured To configure MPEG TS with UDP push 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click a Channel the menu expands 4 Click Streaming the channel s Streaming page opens 5 Click the Publish drop down menu 6 Choose using MPEG TS UDP push 7 Enter the destination multicast IP address where the broadca...

Page 240: ...ter a channel number in the Channel number field to identify your stream in the media player By default the Channel number is the channel identifier When a channel number value is not specified viewers cannot select a channel from the set top box or Smart TV 13 Enter a name for a group of streams in the text box next to Group name Since media players simply present a list of available streams you ...

Page 241: ...will stream 7 Enter the port number through which the video will stream Audio and video use nearby port numbers port number and port number 2 The minimum distance between audio and video ports must be 2 8 Click Apply an SDP file is generated and available from the channel s status Status page 9 Click the SDP file to download it If asked specify a name and location for the SDP file 10 Share the fil...

Page 242: ...ectly To stream video outside of your LAN use a CDN or configure port forwarding on your router Refer to your Network Administrator network configuration is beyond the scope of this guide Stream content using multicast A multicast stream consists of one stream distributed to many viewers via a multicast capable network Networked VGA Grid supports multicast streaming content to an IP TV or a set to...

Page 243: ... multicast IP address is configured your stream is displayed in the playlist of local media player 11 Enter a multicast IP address in the SAP announcement IP field If your media player is configured to receive multicast streams from an IP address that is different from the default address 224 2 127 254 you may need to contact your system administrator for a specific multicast IP address 12 Enter a...

Page 244: ...G TS streams using UDP push Before configuring your channel for the MPEG TS streaming ensure the following codecs are configured l Video H 264 l Audio MP3 or AAC if audio is configured To configure MPEG TS with UDP push 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 3 From the Admin panel click a Channel the menu expands 4 Click Streaming the channel s Streaming page opens 5 Cl...

Page 245: ...rom the default address 224 2 127 254 you may need to contact your system administrator for a specific multicast IP address 12 Enter a channel number in the Channel number field to identify your stream in the media player By default the Channel number is the channel identifier When a channel number value is not specified viewers cannot select a channel from the set top box or Smart TV 13 Enter a n...

Page 246: ...ports must be 2 8 Click Apply an SDP file is generated and available from the channel s status Status page 9 Click the SDP file to download it If asked specify a name and location for the SDP file 10 Share the file with viewers Viewing with Session Announcement Protocol SAP When SAP Announce is configured for a stream that uses UDP streaming the stream is advertised over the local network Local vi...

Page 247: ...ticast IP address 3 Some media players for example Exterity receivers listen for SAP announcements on a specific multicast address 239 255 255 255 If your audience is using Exterity to view your stream you must change the SAP announcement IP address to 239 255 255 255 4 Launch a media player The following steps are based on a VLC media player and may be different for other media players 5 Click Vi...

Page 248: ...nP l Play directly to a media player l Auto restart playback to a UPnP device l Change UPnP device name Some players will not be able to access the stream or saved recordings if a viewer password is set If needed see User administration to clear the viewer password The topics in this chapter include how to enable and disable UPnP and how to control media players from the Networked VGA Grid To choo...

Page 249: ...ration page opens 4 Enter a name in the Server name field If no name is provided the server name will be the system s serial number 5 Select whether you want to share live video and recorded files 6 Click Apply 7 If no live stream is available that meets the criteria for UPnP a message is displayed in the Play on service start section of the page 8 Otherwise the Play on service start section shows...

Page 250: ...channel the Streaming page opens a Click the Share via UPnP check box if not checked b Note if you have not already enabled UPnP at the server level see above you are prompted with a message UPnP live video sharing is not enabled with this device to fix it click here Once you click the text to fix it click here the text changes to will be fixed The UPnP service will be started when you click Apply...

Page 251: ...e sharing is not enabled with this device to fix it click here Once you click the text to fix it click here the text changes to will be fixed The UPnP service will be started when you click Apply e Click Apply 3 For recorders a Click the link for the recorder from the Recorders menu the recorder s configuration page opens b Click the word change next to the list of what is being recorded the recor...

Page 252: ... click Apply e Click Apply You can now browse for your server from your digital media player Disable UPnP By default UPnP sharing is disable for the device and for each channels and recorder If you enabled UPnP sharing it for a particular broadcast you may want to disable UPnP sharing after the broadcast is complete You can choose to disable access to live streams recorded files or to the whole sy...

Page 253: ...t to the Admin panel 3 Click the UPnP link in the Configuration section the UPnP configuration page opens 4 Deselect Share live video through UPnP to stop sharing live video 5 Deselect Share recorded files through UPnP to stop sharing recorded files 6 Click Apply UPnP sharing is disabled Viewing with UPnP Using a software or hardware media player you can browse for files or streams with Universal ...

Page 254: ... Grid Live streams When you open the device from Windows Media Player you ll see a list of the available channels you can stream under the Videos tab The channel names are the same as they are in the Admin panel From other digital media players the channel list can be under a Live Streams folder With Windows Media Player double click to open any channel and press Play to start the stream Using you...

Page 255: ... Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Ensure Share recorded files through UPnP is enabled on your Networked VGA Grid and for the channel or recorder you wish to share See Enable UPnP 3 Go to the recorded files list for the desired channel or recorder See View list of recorded files 4 From the list of files select the file you want to play and click on the Play To icon...

Page 256: ...er combination can be configured for auto play The channel s UPnP configuration must be enabled for it to appear Change UPnP device name You can configure the UPnP server name that appears for your Networked VGA Grid By default if you left the server name field blank when enabling UPnP the server name is the system s serial number To change the UPnP server name 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin ...

Page 257: ...ce the following tables list the recommended settings when streaming video and slide content from a PC Mac or tablet Streaming video content The table below provides suggested settings to maximize your video quality while minimizing system resource usage when streaming video content from a PC Mac or tablet Setting PC and Mac Tablet Codec H 264 Motion JPEG Video encoding preset Hardware accelerated...

Page 258: ... a PC Mac or tablet Setting PC and Mac Tablet Codec H 264 Motion JPEG Video encoding preset High Quality Video encoding profile High Enhanced compatibility mode h 264 slicing for RTP Disable for PC Enable for Mac Key frame interval 2 sec Limit frame rate 15 15 Bitrate 500 Kbits for SD 1000 Kbits for HD 2000 Kbits for Full HD 3000 kbits for HD 4000 kbits for Full HD auto Rate control mode Balanced ...

Page 259: ...ach input at full frame size and with a high bitrate so you have the best possible digital media for future re use or post processing If you choose to record your channels Networked VGA Grid stores the recorded files on the system s amply sized hard drive and provides you a variety of automatic or manual mechanisms to download the files This section discusses the following topics related to record...

Page 260: ...be set up for third party tools using our APIs See Control with HTTP commands and Control with RS 232 serial port for information on controlling recordings with third party tools See Recorded files to learn how to download the recorded files Recording can also be controlled via the Epiphan Live control interface See Controlling streaming and recording using Epiphan Live for more information Record...

Page 261: ...streams less than 1080p l VLC 1 0 0 for all streams Windows l QuickTime 7 6 6 l VLC 2 1 5 l Windows Media player 12 except MOV files Linux l MPlayer l VLC 2 0 8 Android l DICE 2 0 21 l VLC 0 9 9 works only with MOV files that have no audio HTML 5 Browsers Windows l Google Chrome 37 works with MOV and MP4 files using H 264 codec Record a channel via the Admin panel Each channel has a configuration ...

Page 262: ...recording starts and a timer indicates how long it has been recording If the Start button is not active there are no active sources for this channel or recorder Check your inputs to ensure signals are working as expected b You may browse away from the page without affecting the recording When the page refreshes the channel number is displayed in red to indicate recording is underway 262 ...

Page 263: ...Stop button on the given channel s Recording page The channel number changes to black next time the Admin panel is refreshed by clicking a link or refreshing the page Record a channel via Epiphan Live You can control the recording of channels and recorders directly from the Epiphan Live Dashboard interface See Accessing Epiphan Live for information about logging in to Epiphan Live Streaming and re...

Page 264: ...own thumbnail view To start recording and streaming a channel simply click the channel s recording and or streaming buttons When clicked the streaming button turns blue in color and the recording button turns red The timer contained within each respective button also begins to count upward Alternatively you can also control streaming and recording of a channel via the Dashboard s monitoring panels...

Page 265: ...ate and time of the recording and you can exclude a channel or recorder s recordings from automatic upload For MP4 recordings select MP4 for best compatibility with video players and editors Select MP4 Fragmented for the same file format as releases 3 15 x Note There is no way to tell the difference between the two types of MP4 files once a recording files is saved Both use the mp4 extension To ch...

Page 266: ...hat is far larger than you saw in your tests 7 Select a file type from the File type drop down Recordings in AVI format are limited to 100 concurrent streams in a multi track file Each connected VGA Grid HD Encoder sends one stream for its audio and one for its video so if you have 50 HD Encoders with both audio and video you re sending 100 streams to the VGA Grid Concentrator If you re recording ...

Page 267: ...m waits before the recording file is saved and a new one is started assuming the size limit has not yet been reached Values range from 5 minutes to six hours Size limit Specifies the maximum file size a recording can reach before it is saved and a new recording is started assuming the time limit has not yet been reached Values range from 50 MB to 64 GB File type Specifies the recording file type S...

Page 268: ...is channel or recorder to be available via UPnP If global UPnP is not enabled when you select this checkbox a link appears to let you to fix it Click the link and click Apply to make the global UPnP change save your recording configuration changes If you ve chosen MP4 as your file type the file is initially saved as MP4 Fragmented and at the end of the recording is converted to regular MP4 also kn...

Page 269: ...d restart a new one to facilitate file downloads The system supports this through the recording reset option which closes the current recording file and opens a new one without missing any frames To close the current recording and start a new file 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 For a channel recording a Click the desired channel the channel menu expands b Clic...

Page 270: ...llowing topics for creating and managing multi channel recorders l Add a recorder l Change the channels recorded by a recorder l Record with a recorder l Record a recorder using Epiphan Live l Rename a recorder l Delete a recorder See What is a recording to learn how to create recordings and configure recording file sizes If you upgraded from a previous firmware release that included an all in one...

Page 271: ...te a new recorder it records all the channels configured on the system If new channels are added they are automatically added to the recorder If you wish to record a subset of channels to a single multi track file you can edit the channels recorded by a recorder To change the channels recorded by a recorder 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the desired rec...

Page 272: ...annels in your channel selections for the recorder 6 Click Apply the changes are reflected in the recorder configuration page Record with a recorder Recorders are stopped and started via their configuration page Multiple recorders and channel recordings can occur concurrently The number of channels being recorded is displayed below the recording stop start buttons To configure the channels being r...

Page 273: ...en recording b You may browse away from the page without affecting the recording When the page refreshes the recorder number is displayed in red to indicate recording is underway c The system continues to record this recorder and any concurrent recordings until it is stopped If the system runs out of storage space the oldest recorded file is deleted to make room for the new recording The recording...

Page 274: ...tion only appears if a recorder has been added via the Admin panel see Add a recorder for more information When a recorder is not being recorded the recording button is gray in color and its timers is set to 00 00 00 To start recording a recorder simply click the corresponding recording button When clicked the recording button turns red The timer contained within the button also begins to count up...

Page 275: ...nter to save the change the new name is reflected in the Admin panel You must press Enter to save the recorder name change Delete a recorder When you no longer need a recorder you can delete it Deleting a recorder deletes all the recorded files for the recorder Be sure you have a copy of any important recorded files To delete a recorder 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin ...

Page 276: ...this recorder button at the top of the page a confirmation dialog reminds you that deleting the recorder will delete all recorded files 4 Click OK on the confirmation dialog the recorder is removed from the list and all its related files are deleted from the system 276 ...

Page 277: ...ownload recorded files manually l Extract tracks from a recording l Rename recorded files l Delete recorded files manually For information on automatic file transfers see File and recording transfer View list of recorded files Recordings for Networked VGA Grid are stored for each channel and each recorder separately To view all the recordings stored follow the procedures below for all channels and...

Page 278: ...cording Download recorded files manually Recordings can be manually downloaded from the Admin panel You should consider deleting them from internal storage after you complete the download See Delete recorded files manually below This procedure explains how to download files to your admin computer See File and recording transfer for information on transferring files to a USB drive connected to the ...

Page 279: ...mbine multiple channels and audio sources together in a single multi track file If desired you can create a copy of a recording with only select tracks This feature is supported for AVI MP4 and MOV recordings only MPEG TS does not support track extraction Specific track versions of recorded files are not included in any automatic file transfers and need to be downloaded manually by clicking the ex...

Page 280: ...ile you want to duplicate and click the up arrow icon next to it a list of tracks appears 4 Select the track s you want to extract Tip To deselect all tracks click the check box for the top track then hold SHIFT and click the check box for the bottom track 5 Click Extract tracks a duplicate of the recording is made with only the selected tracks 280 ...

Page 281: ... on the filename prefix specified during configuration If needed you can rename them to something more descriptive You can also change the default naming mechanism See Configure recording file size and type for more details about setting filename prefixes To rename recordings 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Find the recordings by channel or by recorder See View...

Page 282: ...ed via the Admin panel You can delete one file at a time select multiple files for a given recorder or channel and delete those or you can delete all recordings for a channel or recorder If you want to delete all the files on the system follow this procedure for each channel and recorder listed in the Admin panel To delete recordings 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin or operator See Connect to t...

Page 283: ...his channel or recorder b Click Delete Selected a confirmation dialog appears c Click OK on the confirmation dialog The list may not update immediately You can refresh the list by reloading the Recording page for channels or the recorder settings page for recorders 5 To delete all files for the current channel or recorder a Click Delete All a confirmation dialog appears b Click OK on the confirmat...

Page 284: ...l Enable and set timing for AFU And the following specific configurations based on the location of upload l AFU to an FTP server l AFU using RSync l AFU using CIFS l AFU to a secure FTP server l AFU using SCP l AFU or copy to USB drive l Automatic l As a one time copy l Manually Lastly this section describes how to view file upload logs and manage the AFU queue l View the AFU log l Manage the AFU ...

Page 285: ...igured to support automatic file upload for their recorded files You must enable this feature for each channel or recorder you wish to include in your automatic file transfers If recorded files are selected for upload while the AFU is at maximum upload capacity or when the AFU is unavailable they are added to an upload queue Files and their relevant information are displayed in a list format and e...

Page 286: ...cording a Click the desired channel the channel menu expands b Select the Recording link for the channel the Recording page opens 3 For a recorder a Click the desired recorder link from the Recorders section the recorder configuration page opens 4 Select the change link under Recorder Setup the recorder setup section expands The setup page looks slightly different for Recorders but the options are...

Page 287: ...ing page is refreshed and the new settings are reflected Now that AFU is enabled for your desired set of files enable AFU and configure your desired mechanism Enable and set timing for AFU After configuring the channels and recorders to include in your AFU schedule you must enable AFU and configure the frequency of transfers 287 ...

Page 288: ... configuration page opens If your screen does not indicate that AFU is enabled for at least one channel or recorder return to Choose files to include in AFUEnable and set timing for AFU 3 Select the Enable Automatic File Upload checkbox 4 Specify how often automatic updates should happen The first transfer occurs after the specified amount of time expires or after the current file completes record...

Page 289: ...n the remote server or USB drive the file transfer fails 6 If desired check Remove after upload to have the files deleted from local storage when upload completes 7 If desired check Mark file as downloaded to have the color of the file link in the recording list change to show the files are downloaded This only applies if the files are not deleted after upload is complete 8 Select the protocol or ...

Page 290: ...sumes you have completed the steps in Enable and set timing for AFU and wish to continue with configuration of upload to an FTP Server To configure upload to an FTP server 1 Select FTP Client from the protocol drop down list in the Automatic File Upload configuration page the lower half of the page reflects the selection 2 Specify the target Server address If your system is configured with DHCP or...

Page 291: ...on Options Name Description Options Server address The IP address or fully qualified domain name of the FTP server Server port The port used by the target FTP server Standard port is 21 Login Username for the FTP server Password Password for the FTP user Use temp file Causes files to be named with part extension on the server during active upload When the upload completes the file is renamed to th...

Page 292: ...the Checksum check box to add a checksum validation to the transfer between the system and the recipient server 7 Click Apply if there are any problems the system notifies you with a message One or more parameter values are not valid and those were not applied The following table describes the options applicable to configuring upload to an RSync server Table 40 RSync Automatic File Upload Configur...

Page 293: ...ame instead of the IP address 3 Enter the target Server port if you have configured the server to use something non standard Leave this value blank to use the default port 4 Specify the Server share This is the CIFS share name or the name of the shared folder on the server If needed request this value from the network administrator 5 If the system is in a different domain than the server or if it ...

Page 294: ...d folder on the CIFS server Domain The CIFS server s Windows domain or Work Group name Needed if the server is part of Active Directory or a Domain Controller Login Username for the CIFS server Password Password for the CIFS user Use temp file Causes files to be named with part extension on the server during active upload When the upload completes the file is renamed to the appropriate extension m...

Page 295: ... for authentication 6 Select Use temp file to name files with a temporary filename extension part on the server until upload is complete For secure file transfer you can upload an SSH identity for your Networked VGA Grid This key must be trusted by the destination server Details for generating the key and setting up this trust are beyond the scope of this document 7 If desired scroll down to the s...

Page 296: ...fully qualified domain name of the SFTP server Server port The port used by the target SFTP server Standard port is 22 Login Username for the SFTP server Password Password for the SFTP user Use temp file Causes files to be named with part extension on the server during active upload When the upload completes the file is renamed to the appropriate extension mov mp4 or avi AFU using SCP This procedu...

Page 297: ...uthentication For secure copy you can upload an SSH identity for your Networked VGA Grid This key must be trusted by the destination server Details for generating the key and setting up this trust are beyond the scope of this document 6 If desired scroll down to the section labelled SSH identity for SCP and SFTP clients 1 If no identity is uploaded or to upload a new identity overwrites the old id...

Page 298: ...m is equipped with USB ports that can be used to copy files from internal storage to external USB flash drives or hard drives An example use of this feature is to provide speakers with a copy of their presentation before they leave the presentation venue The external drive must be formatted with one of the following file systems l FAT16 l FAT32 l XFS l EXT2 l EXT3 l EXT4 l NTFS Only the first atta...

Page 299: ... steps in Enable and set timing for AFU and wish to continue with configuration of upload to a USB drive To configure automatic upload to a USB drive 1 Insert the properly formatted USB drive into one of the system s USB ports 2 Select External USB Drive from the protocol drop down list in the Automatic File Upload configuration page the lower half of the page reflects the selection 3 If your Auto...

Page 300: ...les to an inserted USB drive starting with the newest recording Files will continue to copy until all are copied the specified maximum number of files is copied or the target drive runs out of storage space The file currently being recorded if any cannot be transferred until recording is completed This procedure is separate from automatic file upload and does not need any pre configuration in the ...

Page 301: ...ecked the transfer process creates a sub folder for each channel and recorder within the subfolder for the serial number if that option is also selected Files are copied to their respective folders remove after copying If checked the file s are removed after being copied to the USB drive Checking this box makes the transfer a move instead of a copy mark file as downloaded If checked the files that...

Page 302: ...ive You can manually copy recorder files to a USB drive connected to the Networked VGA Grid This procedure is separate from automatic file upload and does not need any pre configuration in the automatic file upload page To manually copy recorded files to a USB drive 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the External USB Drive link in the Configuration section ...

Page 303: ...B drive a Click Copy Selected to external drive 10 To move the files to the USB drive i e erase the files after the copy a Click Move Selected to external drive 11 Repeat the steps to select a channel or recorder and copy or move files to the external drive until you have copied all the files you wish 12 Follow the steps to Safely eject the USB drive View available USB storage space When you inser...

Page 304: ...o the bottom of the Admin panel page external USB storage is displayed under internal storage space Safely eject the USB drive When you have completed work with the USB drive you can safely eject it by using the link at the bottom of the Admin panel page To safely eject the USB drive 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Scroll to the bottom of the Admin panel page c...

Page 305: ...File Upload configuration page opens 3 Click the Show log of automatic file upload link the log page opens Note the page is blank if there are no logs present 4 Click the browser s back button when you are done Manage the AFU queue The AFU queue displays a list of recording files waiting to be uploaded Individual file details can be viewed using the Admin panel Access the AFU queue Accessing the A...

Page 306: ...l buttons in the Admin panel that allow you the ability to control how you see your queued content To control how you view content in the AFU queue 1 Navigate to the bottom of the upload queue list and manipulate the list view using the Newer 5 and Top of the List buttons The upload queue can display only 15 files at one time Additional content is still stored and is viewed in increments of five f...

Page 307: ...ve content from the upload queue 1 Navigate to the bottom of the upload queue and click Empty Queue to delete the entire upload queue or click the red X icon at the end of each row to remove files individually Note that there is no confirmation prompt after pressing Empty Queue Once pressed the queue is immediately deleted with no way to restore the queued files 307 ...

Page 308: ...erver topics l Configure the local FTP server l Using the local FTP server Configure the local FTP server To configure your sysetem s local FTP server 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the FTP Server link in the Configuration menu the FTP Server configuration page opens 3 To enable the FTP server a Select the Enable FTP access check box b Select a user fro...

Page 309: ...hey log out and log in again The following table summarizes the options for configuring the local FTP server Table 45 FTP Server Configuration Options Name Description Options Enable FTP access The check box controls whether or not the system acts as an FTP server By default this is disabled FTP user name Select one of the system users admin operator or viewer The ftp password will be the access p...

Page 310: ...P user See Configure the local FTP server In the example below the IP address of the Networked VGA Grid is 192 168 1 210 the username is admin there is no password and the Windows command line ftp utility is used To connect to the FTP server 1 Open a command window on Windows alternatively open a terminal window on Linux Mac or open your FTP utility of choice 2 Establish an ftp connection using th...

Page 311: ... 8 If enabled in the FTP configuration page delete the file after downloading it by issuing the delete command or using your tool s delete mechanism If the delete command is not enabled attempting to delete a file will result in an Unknown Command error 311 ...

Page 312: ...othly It also covers the Epiphan Live interface and ways to configure and operate your system using third party tools via HTTP or RS 232 Specific topics covered are l Power down and system restart l Perform factory reset l Firmware upgrade l Support l Storage disk maintenance l Third party integration ...

Page 313: ...evice via the Admin panel Networked VGA Grid s Admin panel allows you to reboot the system To restart the system 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the Maintenance link in the Configuration menu the maintenance page opens 3 Click the Reboot Now button a confirmation dialog appears 4 Click OK Shutting down the device via the Admin panel The Networked VGA Gri...

Page 314: ...nfirmation dialog appears 4 Click OK Shutting down the device manually You can manually shut down the Networked VGA Grid via the button physically located on the system To shut down the system manually 1 Unlock the front panel 2 Press and release the power button the system power button to initiate a safe power down the system shuts down If the system is unresponsive press and hold the power butto...

Page 315: ... panel allows you to save the current system configuration to your admin computer s hard drive It s good practice to do this before making any major changes to a working configuration and before doing a firmware update The resulting backup file includes all non default configuration settings for the system except the user passwords which are reset when a configuration is restored Configuration bac...

Page 316: ... cfg You may have more than one configuration file saved from the system Select the correct configuration file and know where it is accessible from your local computer before starting this procedure Backup files include all non default configuration settings for the system except the user passwords All passwords are reset to blank after the configuration is loaded To load a saved system configurat...

Page 317: ...tored and a new page appears asking you to reboot the system 6 Reboot the system by clicking the link in the message on the web page or by using the power button on the system when the system comes back up the restoration is complete 7 Login as admin with no password 8 Reset your user passwords See User administration 317 ...

Page 318: ...y settings erases everything on the system This includes all your source settings channels configuration presets network settings and all saved files Consider using the factory default configuration preset if you want to preserve files See Configuration presets EDIDs are not restored to factory settings with the factory resets Re apply factory EDIDs manually using the Source s configuration page O...

Page 319: ...Encoder can be reset to factory state restoring all settings to original values Restoring the factory settings erases all configuration items on the system This includes all your source settings channels and network settings Only proceed if you know this is what you want to do The VGA Grid HD Encoder has a factory reset button located on the front of the device Refer to the image below for the loc...

Page 320: ...he system 3 Press and hold the Factory Reset button on the front of the system while you restore power to the system the blue LED illuminates 4 Continue to hold the reset button until the blue light is extinguished and the green LED illuminates 5 Release the reset button 6 Wait for the system to reboot and begin re configuration 320 ...

Page 321: ...icable to the Networked VGA Grid If your Networked VGA Grid has internet access you can check for updates directly by following the procedure below The system will also automatically check for firmware updates if the Maintenance page option Enable connection to maintenance server is checked This is the preferred method of checking for firmware updates The built in firmware update mechanism checks ...

Page 322: ... takes a few minutes Broadcasting and recording is not available until the upgrade is complete Install firmware directly from the Admin panel If your Networked VGA Grid has internet access the easiest method of installing new firmware is to use the download link provided when you check for new firmware To download new firmware directly 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin p...

Page 323: ...unexpected it is possible the firmware update fails In this case collect system information such as device serial number and if known the previous firmware version along with the new firmware version and contact info epiphan com Install firmware from a file Before getting started ensure you have the firmware file accessible from your admin computer To install new firmware from a file 1 Login to th...

Page 324: ... using your preferred connection mechanism See Connect to the Admin panel 10 Login as admin 11 Select the Firmware Upgrade link in the Configuration menu the firmware upgrade page opens 12 Verify that the firmware version is the expected new version Although unexpected it is possible the firmware update fails In this case collect system information such as device serial number and if known the pre...

Page 325: ...VGA Grid also supports remote troubleshooting by Epiphan s support team This service is only available to systems covered by SupportPlan Remote support allows Epiphan to assist in troubleshooting issues you experience with the system and can also assist with resetting lost admin passwords No private information is sent to the Epiphan maintenance server By default all systems are setup with remote ...

Page 326: ...on menu the maintenance page opens 3 Select the Permanent Logs check box 4 Click Apply the page updates to let you know the changes were applied 5 Select the Maintenance link again the maintenance page opens 6 Click Download permanent logs a zip file containing system logs begins to download 7 From your browser run the allinfo script a file is saved to your computer 326 ...

Page 327: ...s protected from the Internet by a firewall speak to your network administrator to configure the firewall appropriately Remote support is available from Epiphan only if your device is covered by SupportPlan To configure remote support 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the Maintenance link in the Configuration menu the maintenance page opens 3 Click Enable ...

Page 328: ... you have one has port 30 open for the system 11 Confirm with Epiphan support that they are able to access your Networked VGA Grid for remote troubleshooting Disable remote support By default remote support is on If you want to turn it off you may use the following procedure Disabling remote support for the Networked VGA Grid removes the ability for Epiphan to reset a lost admin password If you fo...

Page 329: ...have 3 TB of storage This storage space holds a lot of recordings but it can get full It s a good idea to monitor your current disk usage If available storage is low consider removing some unneeded recordings or setting up an automatic file transfer with deletion after transfer See Recorded files and File and recording transfer Disk space can also be checked via the Epiphan Live control interface ...

Page 330: ...edule 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Select the Disk Check link in the Configuration menu the disk maintenance page opens 3 Set the number of restarts to occur before the next check Set to 0 if you don t want to force a disk check after a specific number of restarts 4 Set the number of months to pass before the next check Set to 0 if you don t want to force a ...

Page 331: ...summary is shown 5 If any unrecoverable errors are detected contact Epiphan support Rebuild or replace storage disks The rackmount Networked VGA Grid can be optionally configured with storage configured in a RAID array Periodically you may wish to clean the RAID array to start from scratch or you may want to introduce new disks in place of the old ones When working with RAID arrays it is important...

Page 332: ...ft moving to the right Do not remove the left most drive This is the system drive and is not swappable 4 Seat the replacement drive set into the drive bays 5 Power on the system 6 Follow the steps below to rebuild the storage disks See Read data from removed storage disks for information on reading data from the removed drives Rebuilding the storage disk set is a destructive process that erases ev...

Page 333: ...Networked VGA Grid User Guide Rebuild or replace storage disks b If two or more drives are detected you are prompted to select a type of RAID array 333 ...

Page 334: ...k This configuration provides fault tolerance data is available from one drive when the other drive fails but has normal read write speeds There is less total storage space since two complete copies of the data is stored This configuration supports systems that have two disks RAID 1 0 RAID 10 Mirroring and striping configuration creates a striped set in a mirrored set This option uses four disks t...

Page 335: ...able during rebuild You are unable to save any recordings The rebuild takes less than 5 minutes the page automatically refreshes to provide the current status 4 When the rebuild is complete the message box indicates whether or not it was successful 5 In the unlikely event that the rebuild was not successful you may try it again and if still not successful contact Epiphan support 335 ...

Page 336: ...maintenance page opens 3 Scroll to the Disk information section of the page 4 If RAID is configured the disk information contains a line item for dev md0 The RAID configuration level is shown next in the dev md0 statistics To check RAID integrity 1 Login to the Admin panel as admin See Connect to the Admin panel 2 Scroll to the Internal Storage section at the bottom of the menus on the left side o...

Page 337: ...displayed Consider replacing the disk pair at your earliest convince 6 If using RAID 1 and a disk has recently been replaced the system lets you know it is synchronizing data to the new disk Read data from removed storage disks Networked VGA Grid storage drives use an ext4 file system and can only be read with a computer running Linux 337 ...

Page 338: ...Ubuntu or Debian are recommended RedHat CentOS Fedora are also supported 2 Confirm mdadm tool is installed if not install it For Ubuntu Debian use apt get for RH CentOS use yum 3 Turn off the workstation and connect the storage drives if using RAID 1 you can attach just one drive 4 Start the workstation 5 If only one drive of a RAID 1 set is connected a Open a terminal window and enter the followi...

Page 339: ...2121f Events 19 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 49 0 active sync dev sdd1 1 0 0 1 removed 8 The new drive is generally automatically mounted If the drive does not auto mount enter the following in the command line substituting the name of your device instead of dev md0 if needed sudo mkdir mnt raid sudo mount dev md0 mnt raid 9 If using a graphical interface in Linux browse to the location...

Page 340: ...ither the HTTP or RS 232 commands to configure your system exactly how you need it For example you can start and stop recordings you can configure meta data on a channel or even change a channel s frame size and encoding settings The following topics are covered in this section l Control with RS 232 serial port l Control with HTTP commands l Configuration keys for third party APIs 340 ...

Page 341: ...onnect the null modem cable to the serial port on the back of the system The only configuration available for the serial port is flow control Flow control changes the rate of data transfer over the cable Some communication settings are static and cannot be changed The static settings are l Baud rate set at 19200 l Parity set to none l Stop bits set to one To configure serial port flow control 1 Lo...

Page 342: ...software may need to be configured to add the line feed to each command Some commands require a channel or recorder name as an argument In those commands the channel or recorder name is separated from the command name by a period as shown in the table The channel name value can be either the name or the index of the recorder or channel Use of the index is recommended A channel s index is found by ...

Page 343: ...ere is no RS 232 command to restart recording If recording is already active when the start command is issued the recording continues STOP channel START recorder Stops recording for the provided channel or recorder This can alternatively be accomplished with the following set commands SET channel rec_enabled SAVECFG STOP Stops recording for all channels and recorders SNAPSHOT channel Takes a snaps...

Page 344: ...atus of the specified channel or recorder Status is one of l RUNNING l STOPPED l UNINITIALIZED STATUS Reports the recording status of each channel and recorder Status is one of l RUNNING l STOPPED l UNINITIALIZED FREESPACE Reports the free storage space in bytes RECTIME channel RECTIME recorder Reports the elapsed recording time for the current file on the specified channel or recorder RECTIME Rep...

Page 345: ...etworked VGA Grid via RS 232 must be terminated with a line feed LF character ASCII code 10 Your software may need to be configured to add the line feed to each command For values with spaces enclose the value in quotation marks For empty values use empty quotation marks with nothing between You must always follow a SET command in RS 232 with the SAVECFG command Otherwise the new configuration set...

Page 346: ... set the frame size resolution on channel 2 enclose the parameter in quotes to preserve the spaces SET 2 framesize 640 x 480 SAVECFG 6 To enable broadcasting audio on channel 2 SET 2 audio on SAVECFG 7 To disable broadcasting audio on channel 2 SET 2 audio SAVECFG 346 ...

Page 347: ...g commands to one of two URLs and specifying the target configuration item Syntax for the get and set commands follows Many commands require a channel or recorder index as an argument A channel s index is found by looking at the Channels list in the Admin panel In the screen capture below the channel with index 1 is currently recording it s index number is red To address this channel via http comm...

Page 348: ...ple requests at once You can include multiple key value pairs in a single command by separating the statements with For example the key for product name is product_name and the key for firmware version is firmware_ version To send a request for both the product name and the firmware version use the following command http address admin channel1 get_params cgi product_name firmware_version Or to tur...

Page 349: ...with spaces encode space as 20 i e set_params cgi framesize 640 20x 20480 The examples assume a system IP address of 192 30 23 45 and admin password pass123 1 To get the type of stream being published and frame size for channel 1 wget http user admin http passwd pass123 http 192 30 23 45 admin channel1 get_ params cgi publish_type framesize 2 To set the publish stream type to RTMP Push 6 and at th...

Page 350: ...g an empty string to a variable will clear the variable value l There is a limit of 12 total unique system variables per Networked VGA Grid system l System variables can be used in text labels across any number of channels l System variable commands can be issued at a frequency of 5 per second and up to 6 variables may be set in a single command for example variables gpsvar1 gpsvar2 and gpsvar3 ca...

Page 351: ...0 gpsvar3 to N123 46891 W345 65431 gpsvar4 to S767 33410 E770 04513 Get variables syntax and example A get command returns the value of a variable called name in the syntax You can return multiple variables at the same time by separating each variable with an as shown within the square brackets in the syntax below To get a variable or a list of specified variables use the following syntax http add...

Page 352: ...Control with HTTP commands gpsvar2 S490 18731 E756 19890 gpsvar3 N123 46891 W345 65431 gpsvar4 S767 33410 E770 04513 To learn how to use global variables as text overlays in custom channels see Add a text overlay custom channel 352 ...

Page 353: ...or RS 232 Enclose in quotes SET 2 framesize 640 x 480 For HTTP Encode each space as 20 set_params cgi framesize 640 20x 20480 The following sections describe the API keys supported by the system in each of these categories l System level settings keys read only l System level settings keys read write l System level custom layout keys read write l Recording configuration keys l HTTP server configur...

Page 354: ... The channel number can be omitted from the command when requesting the value for these keys Table 50 Supported Read Only System level Settings configuration keys Key Values Description firmware_version String including the text FIRMWARE_ VERSION The system s firmware version The value is read only mac_address String The system s mac address Useful for debugging The value is read only product_name...

Page 355: ...em level custom layout keys Key Values Description name Any combination of letters digits and underscore characters A Za z_0 9 0 32 to a limit of 32 total characters Each unique name key contains a variable value Used for dynamic overlay text in custom layouts see Control with HTTP commands and Add a text overlay custom channel Recording configuration keys The following recording settings are supp...

Page 356: ... the HTTP server SSL port HTTPS port http_usessl on empty string Enables or disables HTTPS SSL Server To enable SSL set to on To disable SSL set to an empty string IP based access control configuration keys The following settings are supported for configuring allowed and denied IP addresses for the system ONLY not for individual channels See Restrict viewers by IP address for more information on A...

Page 357: ...r UPnP set to on To disable stream sharing over UPnP set to an empty string server_name string Specifies the UPnP server name To use the system name set to an empty string Frame grabber configuration keys These configuration keys are not supported for use with Networked VGA Grid Please perform tweaks to the frame grabber using the Admin panel See Configure a source The following configuration sett...

Page 358: ...pported including stream access control settings Table 58 Supported Broadcast configuration keys Key Values Description bcast_disabled on empty string Enables or disables the broadcast To disable broadcast set to on To enable broadcast set to empty string rtsp_port 1000 65535 but not 5557 Specifies the port for RTSP streaming Note port 5557 is used for network discovery and cannot be used for stre...

Page 359: ...se current signal s frame size set to on To specify frame size directly set to empty string codec h 264 mpeg4 mjpeg Specifies the stream codec fpslimit 1 60 Specifies the frame per second limit Set to your desired limit framesize wxh for example 640x480 720x400 1024x768 1920x1080 Specifies the frame width by height size in pixels Set to desired size Choose from the list in the UI or set a custom v...

Page 360: ...For software set to 0 For hardware acceleration recommended set to 5 vkeyframeinterval integer Interval time in seconds between key frames in the encoded stream vprofile 66 77 100 Specifies the h 264 video profiles For Baseline profile select 66 For Main profile select 77 For High profile select 100 qvalue 0 100 Specifies quality for M JPEG videos Channel layout configuration keys The following se...

Page 361: ...e channel type timelabel string Formats timestamps displayed in streams See Configure date and time for details on the values used for date time setting bgcolor string format RRGGBB Specifies the background color for video outside the picture in picture modes keep_aspect_ ratio on empty string Preserves the aspect ratio for a VGADVI input source To keep aspect ratio set to on To disable aspect rat...

Page 362: ... set to on To disable audio set to an empty string audiobitrate 32 64 96 112 128 160 192 Specifies the audio bitrate for the stream Not applicable for PCM audio codecs audiochannels 1 mono 2 stereo Specifies the number of audio channels For mono set to 1 For stereo set to 2 audiopreset CODECS pcm_s161e PCM libmp3lame MP3 libfacc AAC RATES 16000 AAC only 22050 44100 48000 Specifies an audio code pr...

Page 363: ...P UDP 6 RTMP push 7 Wowza Streaming Cloud 8 Original Livestream Specifies the type of stream publishing if any RTSP Announce configuration keys Publish type 2 The following settings are supported when the publish type is set to RTSP Announce For more information on RTSP and these settings seeTo stream content to a CDN using RTSP announceWhat is streaming Table 64 Supported RTSP Annouce configurati...

Page 364: ...ed for streaming MPEG TS configuration keys Publish types 4 and 5 The following settings are supported when the publish type is set to MPEG TS and for associated SAP distribution For more information on MPEG TS and these settings see What is streaming Viewing with Session Announcement Protocol SAP Table 66 Supported MPEG TS and SAP configuration keys Key Values Description unicast_address string I...

Page 365: ...upported when the publish type is set to Original Livestream For more information on these settings see Stream to Original Livestream What is streaming Table 68 Supported Livestream configuration Keys Key Values Description livestream_channel string The channel name configured at the Livestream server rtmp_username string Specifies the username for the Livestream server rtmp_password string Specif...

Page 366: ... the streaming recording Refer to description above on handling white space spaces in the string title string Specifies the title for the stream recording Refer to description above on handling white space spaces in the string This string can be displayed by certain viewing applications by looking at the stream s metadata information 366 ...

Page 367: ...e audio sample rate is set to 48 kHz Lower sample rates i e 32 kHz and 44 kHz can sometimes cause audio distortion Timestamps between Networked VGA Grid and an RTSP source are not synchronized Reconnect your RTSP source to reset desynchronized timestamps Verify that you are using a local NTP server on your Networked VGA Grid as a time synchronization server for your RTSP source See Configure synch...

Page 368: ...yer used and that you have the correct url or SDP file for the player See Stream content using HTTP or RTSP and Stream to a media player If you still cannot see the stream try disabling your local computer firewall If the issue is still not resolved contact Epiphan Support at support epiphan com The stream interrupts or the image breaks up The following tips can help diagnose image problems 1 Ensu...

Page 369: ... Grid User Guide Troubleshooting Problem Action s to Resolve space and Recorded files Firmware upgrade fails Reboot the system and try again If the problem persists contact Epiphan support at support epiphan com 369 ...

Page 370: ... bitrate to improve picture quality l Video bitrate for MJPEG streams is larger than the configured value Workaround Verify the actual bitrate on the channel s channel status page when there are connected viewers If lower bitrates are important select another codec l For VGA sources only some wide mode resolutions are not correctly identified and result in a slightly squished image e g for a 1360x...

Page 371: ...l files are transfered even though they are not listed Workaround Wait for the queue to have fewer files in the list l Saving layout changes in a channel s layout editor and then immediately navigating to a different layout occasionally causes the second layout to temporarily malfunction Workaround Wait 1 2 seconds after pressing Save in the custom layout editor before performing further actions o...

Page 372: ...y that they were executed Workaround For best results add 1 second sleep or delay between HTTP commands l On Windows 10 the Movies TV app fails to playback AVI files using AAC or MP3 audio and fails to playback MP4 files with PCM or MP3 audio Workaround If possible use another video playback application If you require playback by the Movies TV app set your recording settings to use PCM audio if cr...

Page 373: ...mprovements l New multi source layout designer l Configuration improvements Release 3 14 4 features l Live Streaming via Wowza Cloud Release 3 14 3 features l Configuration presets l Stereo audio encoding l Support for 256 kbps and 320 kbps audio sampling l LDAP support l SCP and SFTP file transfer Release 3 14 1 features l 48 kHz audio support l Simplified H 264 video encoding presets l MP4 suppo...

Page 374: ...cision time protocol PTP synchronization l Custom recording file names l AAC audio codec l MPEG TS streaming for IPTV l Universal plug and play UPnP support for streaming media players l Visual stream feedback and simplified picture in picture layout l Preservation of source aspect ratio l Customizable stream background color matte l Personalized stream metadata l Introducing the mobile tablet ope...

Page 375: ...WER CORPORATE OR OTHERWISE TO ENTER INTO THIS AGREEMENT AND PERFORM ITS OBLIGATIONS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT 1 Definitions In this Agreement Agreement means this Epiphan Systems Inc Software License API means an application programming interface Documentation means the technical publications delivered to You with the Software relating to the installation and operation of the Software and or Hardware s...

Page 376: ...r which it was issued and You shall not use that copy of the Licensing String with any other copies of the Software that You may have or make All copies of the Software made by You shall include all trademarks copyright notices restricted rights legends proprietary markings and the like exactly as they appear on the copy of the Software originally provided to You No other rights in the Software or...

Page 377: ...ed service offering You shall not disclose any performance benchmarking or feature related information about the Software You further agree not to disclose transfer or otherwise provide to any third party any portion of the Software except as expressly permitted herein Some Epiphan Hardware Products and Software embed third party APIs that integrate with third party party services Third Party Serv...

Page 378: ...F DATA REPLACEMENT OR RECOVERY COSTS OR OTHER COMMERCIAL OR ECONOMIC LOSS WHETHER ARISING FROM CONTRACT EQUITY TORT INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR STRICT LIABILITY OR ANY OTHER THEORY OF LIABILITY EVEN IF LICENSOR INCLUDING ITS AFFILIATES AND ITS AND THEIR LICENSORS SUPPLIERS SUBCONTRACTORS RESELLERS AND OR DISTRIBUTORS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES OR THEY ARE FORESEEABLE THE LIMI...

Page 379: ... any technical support You may procure from Licensor or one of Licensor s resellers or distributors shall be governed by the terms and conditions of this Agreement Licensor reserves the right at any time not to release or to discontinue the release of any Software and to alter prices features specifications capabilities functions licensing terms release dates general availability or other characte...

Page 380: ...or one of Licensor s resellers or distributors shall be governed by the terms and conditions of this Agreement Licensor reserves the right at any time not to release or to discontinue the release of any Software and to alter prices features specifications capabilities functions licensing terms release dates general availability or other characteristics of the Software 9 Title All right title and i...

Page 381: ...th in DFARS 227 7202 Use of the Epiphan Hardware Products Software and Documentation is further restricted by the terms and conditions of this Agreement and the applicable commercial purchase agreement for the Epiphan Hardware Products For the purposes of any applicable government use the Epiphan Hardware Products Software and Documentation were developed exclusively at private expense and are tra...

Page 382: ... term If any provision of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable or illegal such decision shall not affect the validity or enforceability of such provisions under other circumstances or the remaining provisions of this Agreement and such remaining provisions shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make them enforceable under such circumstances This Agreement shall be governed by the ...

Page 383: ... to disassemble Return the device for service CAUTION RISK OFELECTRICSHOCK This device may have multiple ACpower cords installed All power sources shall be disconnected before servicing to avoid shock hazard ATTENTION Cet appareil ne contient aucun composant pouvant être entretenu ou réparé par l utilisateur En cas de panne retourner l appareil pour réparation ATTENTION RISQUEDECHOCÉLECTRIQUE Cet ...

Page 384: ... that Epiphan endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content or use of such a web site In no event shall any reference to any third party or third party product or service be construed as an approval or endorsement by Epiphan of that third party or of any product or service provided by a third party Miscellaneous It is the user s responsibility to ascertain whether any information download...

Page 385: ...t will be deemed severable and will not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions Epiphan may at its sole discretion and without notice revise these terms at any time by updating this posting Copyright 2016 Epiphan Systems Inc All Rights Reserved ...

Page 386: ......

Page 387: ... and 2016 Epiphan Systems Inc ...

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