Smart 32 Remote Control Panel User Guide
Publication 81-9059-0727-0, Rev. A
April 2014
Proprietary Information of
PESA
4-11
4.8
I
NTRODUCTION TO
PESA’
S
S
WITCHING
M
ETHODOLOGY
In order to get the greatest functionality from any PESA control panel, there are a few basics of the
router system architecture and control methods you need to be familiar with. For this discussion, assume
a router installation in a production facility with multiple signal sources of SDI video and analog stereo
audio which we need to route to multiple destinations. In our example facility we are using a PERC3000
system controller, a Cheetah router for video, a PESA DRS router for routing audio signals and a Smart
32 remote panel for system control.
Assume one of the program sources in our example facility is a network receiver, we’ll call it NET1,
which provides video and stereo audio signal outputs we need to switch through our router. NET1,
while being identified as a single entity, actually produces three totally independent source signals.
Similarly, if we have a recorder device we’ll identify as a single entity named VTR1 on which we wish
to record a program originating from NET1, we must provide all three of the signals from NET1 as
inputs to recorder VTR1.
It would be possible to individually switch the three signals from NET1 to VTR1 through our router as
single sources to single destinations. We would have to configure an individual source named, for
example, NET1VID for the video signal; another individual source named NET1LAUD for the left
audio channel, and yet another individual source named NET1RAUD for the right audio channel. Then
we would have to perform a switching function routing NET1VID to the video router output providing a
signal to the video input of VTR1, another switch to route the audio;…and you get the idea.
Fortunately, router control systems make it a lot easier to route multiple signals simultaneously. PESA
routers accomplish this by the use of switching levels, components, sources (source groups) and
destinations (destination groups), created and assigned through the controller configuration file.
Loosely defined, a switching level is a grouping of like-signals. Considering our example, we have three
groups of like-signals that we need to pass through our router system: video, left channel audio and right
channel audio; and each of these groups can be configured as a switching level of the router. When we
create the controller configuration file we would define these three switching levels, and for ease of
identification we could name them VID, AUDL and AUDR, respectively.
By defining the switching levels we’ve told the system controller it has three sets of signals to treat as
separate groups. Next, we have to tell the controller where the signals for each level physically enter and
exit the router hardware, i.e., which switching frame of the router system is carrying the signal, and
whether or not the switching level contains multiple component signals, such as an RGB video signal.
This is done by defining the components of the switching level in the controller configuration file.
PESA’s control system requires that every switching level be tied to at least one component.
When configuring the router system for our example facility we would create a component entry that
identifies, by IP address of the Matrix Frame Controller card, the Cheetah video frame as the physical
router device for signals assigned to the VID switching level. Likewise, we would create a unique
component entry for each audio switching level that identifies the DRS audio router, by IP address, as
the physical router for signals assigned to switching levels AUDL and AUDR.
Sources, or source groups, are created in the controller configuration file by associating signals from
one or more switching levels grouped under a common name and switched as a single entity. The source
group entry allows you to specify the physical input to the router that you wish to associate with each
switching level defined for the source. It is quite common for the same physical input to be used in
multiple source definitions.
Summary of Contents for Smart 32
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