Allonis's Video Over IP Transceivers can be programmed using the AVOIP900 driver to be either Transmitter or Receiver. This is handy to have a few on hand for future expansion and to service the system later.
The 925 models support 4K/30 and the 935 model supports 4K/60 video resolution. Sports Bars typically use the 925. Higher end residential or entertainment areas use the higher video quality of the 935s.
The 925 IPX version supports a Fiber connection and screen rotation (for inexpensive video walls). IPM versions rely on Category 6/7 cable only. The IPX and IPM can be mixed and matched on same system. If using rotation for video walls, all video wall TVs must be IPX and not mixed with IPM on same video wall.
They support Video Walls, Previewing, MultiView (multiple video sources displayed on one TV), Serial and IR data pass through, and many additional features.
The myServer AVOIP900 driver enables all of these features.
All the devices ship defaulted as encoders (transmitters) with identical IP addresses and device ids. The driver will discover all of them but then there is absolutely no way to tell what their individual roles in life will be.
If they are all set up on a bench before being deployed, the myServer driver can bulk change them and change their name and model to a friendly name that makes sense for it's purpose.
Additionally, you can in the driver toggle the IP and MAC address of the receiver to display on the TV it is connected. This significantly makes it easier to configure an in place system. Display All or select or one at a time are options.
How to bulk configure a system:
Best practices
1.) Do not mount devices until configured.
2.) Establish work bench and bulk configure devices per high-level process outlined below.
We recommend that you take all of the transceivers out of their box, and plug each into the special POE video ethernet network switch on a work table. Plug the video ethernet network switch into the control network's ethernet switch that myServer is also connected. Power all up. All POE switches (and myServer) should be powered by a properly scaled Uninteruptable Power Supply to help protect the expensive devices.
Next, bulk IP address all of the transceivers using an available unused range of IP addresses that you allocated on the ethernet network DHCP server.
One by one, in the driver, configure the transceiver as a Receiver, give it a name (like "TV 1") and hit save. Watch the displays on all of the transceivers. The one that goes Black (it's rebooting), is the hardware you just configured. Put the TV 1 name on a blue masking tape and apply that to the transceiver to identify it for job site installation ease.
Set the new Receiver aside on the "right" side of the table as Done.
After you are done with all "50" receivers, the transceivers that are on the left side of your table will be your Transmitters. Name each transmitter in the driver respectively ("Cable 1" or "Roku 2" etc). Saving the changes will reboot the transmitter. Label the rebooting transmitter with it's video source name ("Cable 1"). Screw each Transmitter in order (left to right) into the rack cage (optional but recommended - available from Allonis).
After the above, all transceivers should be configured and labeled for installation at the job site to their respective devices.
Receivers install behind each TV connected to the TVs "HDMI1" input). Many integrators use tie straps to secure the receiver to the TV mount. Use the POE network switch to power up the transmitters and receivers. Recommended is to not use the included wall power supplies. Put those into a storage box. Certainly the wall power supplies will be used if Fiber is used for the data communications to that end point.
Networking
Video consumes huge amounts of network bandwidth. Transmitters are what puts the video data on the network. Receivers just "listen" for those network streams so Receivers don't contribute much to the bandwidth needed. It is recommended to use the special Video POE ethernet network switches from Allonis that are optimized for handling video signals. If there are more than a few Transmitters on the system, consider isolating the Video Network from all other Networks (ie: don't share the ethernet switch with other devices like printers, laptops, etc) using VLANs or multiple physical switches.
If you have a large network, and the transceivers are located long distances from each other, consider leveraging the optical fiber connections of the transceivers (if equipped) to a fiber video network switch (contact Allonis for technical details and products available). Most all homes, and most sports bar / restaurants don't require this. If Receivers are in a group across distance from another group, you can use a network switch for each group. Connect the switches together using Fiber for best performance between the groups of transceivers.
All of the Video Transmitters and Receivers should be on their own VLAN that is configured on the Managed Switch. myServer also needs to be on same VLAN for control.
Note that you can put both Transmitters or Receivers in any area of the facility and share that audio / video to all Receivers.
Installation
Power
Each transceiver can be powered either with the included wall power supply (DC 12volts) or use the LAN Power over Ethernet (POE) port. Don't use both at same time. We recommend you use the POE port with Allonis's video optimzed POE ethernet switches for most projects. You can then power up the switch (and the expensive video transceivers) from a high capacity Uninterupptable Power Supply (UPS) so all video devices are protected from brownouts and power outages. myServer monitored UPSs are available from Allonis for this purpose which are monitored by myServer and can then gracefully power down the system to avoid data corruption issues.
Signal
Ensure that all devices (video source, video transmitter / receivers / all HDMI cables / TVs) are all capable of the same HDMI standard (like 1.2 vs 2.1). If they are not, then you may need Allonis's Video Emulators to "convince" the video source that all are compatible. Best example of this mismatch is a DirecTV K model ("Ultra HD") receiver and the 924 4K30 transceivers...these require the emulator to be installed inbetween the Sat box HDMI and the Transceiver HDMI Input.
Comcast XG1v4 boxes have same issue. They are 4K capable boxes. They were all defaulting to 1920x1080 60hz . Set them all to 720p just like DTV. Set the Allonis emulator to "0111" DIP switch setting.
Driver installation
Install the AVOIP900 driver from myServer's Software Updater when myServer is connected to the Internet. Licensing: Each video Output requires a myServer device unit license. If the system is configured with more devices than the system is licensed for, myServer won't function on restart.
Run AV|1~SetMulticastInterface~Ethernet if installing the driver on myServer running on Windows.
Driver Configuration
Click on the Discovery button (bottom left). This in time should populate the driver with all transceivers on the network. All Discovered devices should be Enabled by default.
Click on Configure in the Drivers list.
First step is Disable any transceiver that you don't want to interact with. You can do this in Bulk Edit too.
The model’s name does show on the first line small display on the front of each device. The integrator could then see what we think each device should be.
The configuration utilities for the tranceivers is into the 900 driver. No need to use a Windows laptop with custom application. You’ll notice a new button on the driver labeled Bulk Edit.
Clicking this exposes a set of additional functions that will allow for batch updates of all the devices. Naming, IPing, etc.
This should now allow us to fully configure a system without having to use a Windows PC which most systems require.
Everything in Bulk Edit is meant to act upon multiple devices at one. In the normal command builder you will see the same commands that will work on individual devices.
You steer the devices by Enabling and Disabling them in the driver. Only Enabled devices are affected by these commands. Clicking save typically will reboot that device, which once restarted, will be operating with your configured choices. The user interface will go "black" during the reboot that is helpful to indentify it.
Firmware updates
You may need to update firmware on the devices. If so, the Windows AVOIP management application must be installed on a laptop. The laptop's ethernet connection must be on same physical network as the Transceivers to update. That ethernet NIC must be on same subnet as the Transceivers as well. Update firmware on one transceiver at a time, even thought the software suggests it supports batch. Allonis has run into trouble doing updates in batch, so recommended is to not try it. Put same laptop on the Wifi network as well that has Internet access so Allonis can TeamViewer in to the laptop (TeamViewer Host software).
Audio Streams
The ISX925 and 935 hardware supports myServer capturing the audio stream. This is very useful for Allonis's "Customer Listening" Sports Bar feature where we multicast that audio to bar customer's smartphones - with no "App" to be installed on the phone!
Our initial testing of the ISM925 (with slightly older firmware) we could not detect the audio stream. Newer firmware has not been tested.
There are three streams:
ch0/0 is high resolution stream (this is what the Video receivers listen to)
ch0/1 is the 720p substream
ch0/2 is the 480p substream (perfect for preview and audio)
The URL: rtsp://192.168.5.62:8554/ch0/2
