
39
1.877.877.2269
BLACKBOX.COM
NEED HELP?
LEAVE THE TECH TO US
LIVE 24/7
TECHNICAL
SUPPORT
1.877.877.2269
APPENDIX A: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
A.1 NETWORK
Question
: In a point-to-point environment, how should the encoder be configured?
Answer
: First, on the networking front, be sure that both the encoder and the third-party decoder are set for static IP with addresses
on the same subnet. Black Box recommends RTP for P2P installations. RTP has more timing and synchronization information built
into the protocol.
Question
: In a network environment, how best should the encoder be configured?
Answer
: In a network environment, the encoder should be configured for UDP/RTP and multicast.
Question
: How does channel beaconing work?
Answer
: The channel beacon uses the 239.13.1.19 multicast address. The encoder uses this address to publish its channels across
the network. In a single layer 2 network, this should always work. In a routed layer 3 network, this multicast address needs to be
added to the router’s forwarding table explicitly. By default, routers will not forward this address. The actual command to do this
varies by router.
Question
: What is included in the beacon signal?
Answer
: The beacon includes the multicast group, port, and source IP address.
Question
: What other network protocols are required to support the encoder/third-party decoder?
Answer
: For an installation of more than a couple of encoder sources, the layer 2 Ethernet switch needs to be a smart switch that
supports IGMP and multicast traffic management and varies by vendor.
Question
: Should every encoder stream in the system be configured with a different multicast address? (UDP and RTP streaming)
Answer
: Each encoder stream needs to be configured for a different multicast address for proper stream bandwidth management.
Network switches filter based on the IP multicast address only. If multiple encoder streams are configured with the same multicast
address with different ports, all the packets with that multicast address will be forwarded to any decoders tuned to any one of
those channels. This will overwhelm the Ethernet processing on the decoder and cause video artefacts.
Question
: What is the range of multicast addresses that can be used by the encoder?
Answer
: The full range of multicast addresses is from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255
Question
: What is the maximum router hop limit or TTL of a multicast stream?
Answer
: The maximum hop limit is 9. Therefore, the TTL = 10.