Author Topic: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?  (Read 6786 times)

Offline comporder1

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Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« on: December 04, 2011, »
I am trying to think ahead. I need a way to get DMX to my neighbors house across and down the street. Wired is not an option and wireless doesn't seem to capable of the distance of transmission. I am wondering if I can transmit to his house via internet. Things I am not sure about: 1) I am pretty sure my IP does allow multicast so I would need software and hardware to communicate via unicast. 2) amount of bandwidth required per universe/packet/etc.  I have a 3Mb uplink and my neighbor has 6Mb down.

I understand the routing/port configuration requirements of this setup. I can make that happen no problem.

Has anyone tried this type of setup? I have read through most of the threads and there isn't much official documentation that I could find.

Thanks for the discussion.
Carey
« Last Edit: December 04, 2011, by comporder1 »

Offline RJ

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #1 on: December 05, 2011, »
No the etherdongle follows the E1.31 spec so it is multicast. There is language in he spec for the use of unicast as more a side note but e1.31 is multicast in normal form. How far can the other house be if you can see it from your house as part of the show. Are you sure a slave unit wirelessly will not occomplish this same thing?

RJ
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Offline comporder1

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Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2011, »
It would be about a 150 yard shot for the wireless.

Is unicast something that could maybe be worked into the firmware? It looks as though xlights is already capable of sending unicast.

Thanks for the reply RJ
Carey


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Offline comporder1

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Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #3 on: December 05, 2011, »
I guess we could answer the bandwidth question first. 3Mb sufficient for one universe?


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Offline rrowan

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2011, »
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I guess we could answer the bandwidth question first. 3Mb sufficient for one universe?


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I think you are missing the point. You won't be sending 3mb wireless between the EtherDongle and the slave unit. Only a 8 byte timing mark. The slave has the full show loaded on it.

Rick R.
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Offline comporder1

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2011, »
Ahhh, I forgot about the new Conductor/Slave setup. That might be a possiblity, but I would prefer to run the show from a computer because I tweak my show almost daily throughout the season. It would be a pain to have to update the conductor/slave units all the time.

But Rick, you missed my point. I am not trying to send 3Mb wirelessly. I want to send e1.31 via internet to my neighbors house. My uplink is 3Mb, which would be the bottleneck.

Carey

Offline mykroft

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2011, »
maybe thru a VPN connection?  Dont think most routers will send out the multicast part and it is designed to be a local lan type setup, same thing with the 3 reserved class c ip address ranged, 192.X., 10.X and i forget the 3rd one.  Routers will not send out traffic on the internet for those class C addresses.....

The free Hamachi VPN might be your best bet.....

Myk


Offline comporder1

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Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2011, »
I figure VPN would be an option, but most of the cheaper VPN hardware devices that I have used do not support multicast. The easiest/cheapest option would be a e1.31 device that accepts unicast. Even still I have to figure out bandwidth requirements.

Carey


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Offline comporder1

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #8 on: December 08, 2011, »
I've done a little more investigating into the bandwidth requirements for e1.31. To produce the DMX output, an e1.31 device needs about 20-50, 500-700 byte UDP packets per second.

So, put a little math to the high end of those numbers
 
700 byte packet
x  8 bits/byte
5600 bits/packet
x 50 packets/second
280,000 bits/second  or 280 kbps

So my 3Mbps inet connection should (in theory) be able to handle this throughput fine. I found an application that will test UDP throughput that I plan to test this weekend.

I'll update with my findings.
Carey

Offline pokey

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2011, »

May be academic, but I played with a multicast to unicast relay last spring.  It worked great for high def video, so it would probably work for your application.   It's a software solution...you need to config a relay on your network to accept the multicast stream, it then sends via Unicast to the destination which can then spit it back out as multicast.

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Offline comporder1

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Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2011, »
Definitely looks like an option. My other option is the j1sys ECG-DR4 which supports unicast. I have a friend that has one that we are going to test after the season. I'm still looking at options.


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Offline tpctech

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2011, »
How about a WIFI like from your house.  Ubiquiti makes a good wireless bridge called a nano station which basically emulates a wire line.  2 of these would make a complete like and should have no problem going 150 yards.

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Offline comporder1

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Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2011, »
Any idea if it supports multicast?


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Offline comporder1

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2011, »
Quoted from a "Senior Member" on the Ubiquiti forum:

"NS2 and other ubnt devices support multicast routing, but if you gonna use multicast for IPTV or something like that, you will need to manage how to somehow "tunnel" multicast traffic into unicast, because large multicast traffic is pain for the wireless, due it's nature."

So I guess this would be an option. Then my neighbor and I could share inet too! JK 8)

Offline mmciver

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Re: Does the etherdongle support unicast e1.31?
« Reply #14 on: December 12, 2011, »
Maybe I am missing the point here or stating the obvious, but keep in mind that Multicast is designed to utilize bandwidth more efficiently than unicast!

The concept is that if I have an endpoint like a switch that has multiple endpoints that are subscribed to the multicast stream, multicast enables the switch to received one stream from the originator, whether wireless/wan/etc., and replicate packets locally to the different subscribed endpoints.

I am not sure why you would want to switch to unicast......

Just my .02

Mike.
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