The key components of a Pipeline System are the
Pipeline device hardware, Pipeline network, the Pipeline
host hardware, the Pipeline application software and
the Pipeline media disk storage systems. Each of these
components is described below.
Pipeline device hardware
Pipeline device hardware has up to four independent
channels with SDI I/O for capture and play out. The SDI
connectors take baseband SD/HD-SDI signals as input,
compress them into one of many supported formats
and stream the compress data (video, audio and control
data) out their respective Ethernet ports using Real
Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). Each Pipeline
channel’s RTSP stream contains video, audio and appli-
cation/control data in RTP transport packets. These
Pipeline channel streams are consumed by Pipeline
application software running on a Pipeline host
computer. The Pipeline application software will wrap
each RTSP stream into the appropriate file wrapper and
deliver these files to their respective media storage
locations.
Pipeline host and Pipeline application software
The Pipeline host computer is primarily responsible for
taking one or more Pipeline channel’s RTSP streams
via Ethernet, wrapping them in the appropriate format
and writing the resulting file to the selected media
destination. Pipeline host systems can be Mac OS X or
Microsoft Windows based.
Note:
Pipeline Control software captures data
coming from one or more Pipeline channels, and
writes this data to disk in real-time. To prevent
interference with Pipeline Control any process, such
as real-time anti-virus scanning, should be disabled
while Pipeline Control is in use. Other processes
that periodically run such as operating system
updates should also be disabled.
A Pipeline host computer can control multiple Pipeline
channels concurrently. Use this document to under-
stand how to configure a Pipeline System to meet your
particular needs.
Pipeline software applications perform many tasks.
These task range from scheduled capture and play out,
log/capture from tape sources, manual and automated
capture from live sources and print to tape/play out
functions.
There are five components to consider when choosing
the Pipeline host system.
•
CPU cores and speed
(see System Recommenda-
tion section)
•
Networks connection
(see Pipeline Network
section)
•
Disk storage systems
(see Pipeline Media Storage
section)
•
System RAM
(see System Recommendation
section)
•
System Video Card
Use the system descriptions, recommended systems
chart, network and storage sections to configure your
Pipeline host system.
Performance tuning of the Pipeline host systems
Perform the following adjustments on the Pipeline host
server to assure proper performance (consult with your
System Administrator or a Telestream Field Sales
Engineer)
Windows systems only:
•
From within Performance Options set Processor
scheduling to – Adjust for best performance of:
Programs
•
Disable Network throttling (see http://support.
microsoft.com/kb/948066)
•
Set value to: FFFFFFFF
•
Turn on Data Execution Prevention (DEP) for
essential Windows programs and services only.
•
Disable User Account Control (UAC).
•
Set the Pipeline host server’s Power Options to
High Performance with all critical functions to be
always on including the disabling of any disk sleep
modes.
•
Disable any real-time software applications and
processes that could adversely affect disk I/O
performance or use excessive CPU. In particular
real-time virus scanning of media files as they are
being captured, automatic software updates that
can preempt real-time services, and real-time file
indexing that could consume excessive CPU and
disk I/O.
•
Disable all unnecessary Windows services from
Administrative Tools->Services console (consult
your System Administrator)
•
Firewalls and packet filtering may result in unpre-
dictable performance and should be avoided
•
Use only Intel based enterprise-class Ethernet
Server Network Adapters with Advanced Network
Services (ANS) installed
2
Pipeline
System Setup
