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| Section 7
At the bottom of this screen are quality and buffer indicators. The Rcv meters indicate the fullness of the received
audio buffer and the quality of the connection. Quality is measured using a combination of packet loss, latency, and
jitter (time between packets) measurements.
The Far Buffer meter shows the fullness of the received audio buffer of the Z/IP ONE on the far end of the connec-
tion, and Xmt quality shows that unit’s measurement of the stability of the connection. These two meters are not
calculated by this Z/IP ONE, but are included in the information sent back from the remote unit. As such, they
will only be present when the other end of the connection is a Z/IP ONE, and a connection method is used that
supports the sending of additional information. When remote status information is unavailable, these meters will
be shown in a darker, ‘grayed out’ color.
7.2 Call GPIO
The second status page has information most useful during the production of a show. The same level meters
and input source icon are shown on the top of the page for confidence monitoring. The middle section now has
information on the connection progress (if any). The Peer line lists the current or last connection, and its type.
The Status line has the current call status, and a timestamp of when the status last changed. In this case, the unit has
been idle since the 9
th
of the month at about 17:17. This is the time that the call with ZephyrIP10@public ended.
The last two rows are GPIO information. They work with indicator ‘lights’ as on the first status screen. The
meaning of each of the in and out bits is configurable on the Setup->Parallel Port Configuration page. The indicators
are active (filled, or ‘lit’) when the associated GPIO bit is also active – ‘asserted’ or logically true. See Chapter 12,
Ancillary Data
for more information on GPIO operation.
7.3 Call Codec
The information on this screen again relates mostly to a call in progress. The peer and status lines at the top have
the same information as those fields on the page before. Following those, the Xmt and Rcv fields show the codec
used and the current bit rate. For the Xmt field, the bit rate shown is nominal. For the Rcv field, the bit rate is
actual – the Agile Connection Technology, if applicable for the current codec, will change the bit rate up and down
to manage the buffer level.
The AESin field shows the sample rate of the AES input. The AES stream format has a field that can be used to
indicate what the sample rate is. The Z/IP ONE measures the actual sample rate of the audio portion of the AES
stream, and always displays that number. If the indicated sample rate does not match the actual sample rate, a
question mark (?) is shown after the detected actual sample rate.
The NAT field will have some information on the type of Network Address Translation used by the router or
routers between the Z/IP ONE and the ZIP Server or remote Z/IP ONE. What is most important about these types
is that if both Z/IP ONEs report Symmetric, they will not be able to contact each other directly with a TSCP call.
Instead, their audio will each be relayed over the ZIP Server to the other unit. This adds network hops, latency, and
jitter, and should only be used as a last resort. However, if only one side has a symmetric NAT, the call can proceed
as normal in most cases.
