That's why our company moved to their switches only. Can rely on the good support for when it happens.



(Not directly to you) Notice i said" when"? Because it will happen!! Dealing with other support is either painful or non-existent.

The dedication to a specific brand switch has been a barrier for some dealers to use the Just Add Power solution.  Asking a dealer who is passionate (dare I say religious) about brand X switches to use a Cisco or Luxul switch is treated like heresy.  That coupled with some commercial accounts that have an IT department that does not feel comfortable with VLAN switching drove us to the decision to release the new firmware.

[Link: support.justaddpower.com]

This firmware still supports instant seamless VLAN switching, and now we have added support for multicast channel switching on a single VLAN.  VLAN Switching is the most powerful implementation method that sets Just Add Power apart from all other manufactures of Video-over-IP products. VLAN Switching is our unique, out-of-the-box approach of using port-based VLANs to dynamically manage traffic flow on a network. By using a unique VLAN to keep each video stream isolated on a network, the heavy lifting of sifting through packets and managing IGMP membership is removed from the equation, and the switch is able to perform its most basic function: forwarding packets. JADConfig programs a switch for VLAN Switching.

In some installations, creating a parallel or dedicated network to take full advantage of VLAN Switching - such as integrating on top of an existing data network at an educational institution - is not a realistic or desirable approach. It makes more sense to have all Just Add Power devices in a single dedicated VLAN to keep them from interfering with the rest of the data network. With all devices in a single VLAN, switching sources involves modifying the Multicast IP of the Receiver rather than actively manipulating the VLAN configuration of the managed switch.

Multicast Switching describes a system where all Just Add Power devices are in a single VLAN and switching is performed by modifying the Multicast IP of individual units. Each Transmitter is given a unique Multicast IP - referred to as a Channel -  and a Receiver is assigned the Channel of the Transmitter it is meant to watch. The Channel is assigned to the Transmitter and Receiver via a TELNET command. When using Multicast Switching, switching speeds will not be instant and seamless like they are with VLAN Switching (expect a 1 to 2 second pause when switching), but the results should be satisfactory given the more strict requirements of the specific project.

Limitations

- Relies on switch CPU resources
- Manual configuration of switch is required, but is fairly simple to do.  We will provide phone and email support to help dealers learn how to configure their switch of choice.
- If you can't wait for the next release of JADConfig, you will have to manually configure the Just Add Power devices (i.e. set IP and multicast address).  The next release of JADConfig will perform this task on any switch you desire.

Benefits

+ Maximum of 10000 sources
+ No access to switch CLI required
+ Can be implemented on almost any managed network
+ Supports independent switching of audio/video/USB/rs232 (i.e. you can watch one show and listen to another source on the LAN)
+ Syntax for writing a custom TCP/Telnet driver is simple

Requirements

• Layer-3 Managed Network
  • One Dedicated VLAN for ALL Just Add Power devices
    • No other network appliances in the Just Add Power VLAN
    • Not the same as an existing "Multicast VLAN"
  • Unique subnet
    • No other network appliances in the Just Add Power subnet
    • IP Address of the dedicated VLAN will be set as the default gateway of all Just Add Power devices
• 500Mbps dedicated/guaranteed bandwidth per Transmitter
• IGMP Snooping Support
• justOS B1.0.0 firmware or later

Well thats pretty cool Ed!! Nice work!

Will this update require new drivers for our control systems?

I'd probably guess that, yes, to use this new firmware would require new drivers.

I need it for a pretty large Elan system around next may. Can you go ahead and get someone on that driver? 😁

Put me in touch with who ever at Elan and I will make one.

If you switch to IGMP switching instead of VLAN switching then you are using a module to control the J+P receivers to switch to different video streams instead of the network switch. Yes you would need a new driver/module.

In most cases, no you won't require a new driver. The existing end point drivers for the Receivers typically have a command line option that you can easily use to select the multi-cast channel of the desired transmitter. Control systems with a decent TELNET client can do this too.

Guess again please!

We are sending Kevin the information he needs to do this.

To follow up on my own post. New driver/module means you are using the Receiver Comms driver that already exists and you wouldn't be using the switch driver.

Well then, if you are changing the control method from using switch commands to using J+P telnet commands directly on the receiver, sounds to me that no matter what, commands need to be changed.

If the module/driver doesn't need to change, then great. But still sounds like the commands will need to be changed and/or how the method of the commands are to be sent.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you haven't really given any details one way or the other.

The existing drivers for the Transmitters/Receivers work with the new "channel" command.

Implementing VLAN switching required a driver for the specific make/model switch. Multicast switching uses the end point driver to issue the "channel x" command, where x is any whole number from 0-9999. On the transmitter you issue the command "channel 1" to identify the first transmitter, "channel 2" to identify the second transmitter, and so on...

On the Receiver you issue the "channel x" command to identify which Transmitter you want to watch.

Bottom line is that new drivers did not need to be written to support this alternate way of switching. You simply use the existing drivers in a different way. Different commands, same drivers.

Does that make more sense to you now?

You can keep using Just Add Power exactly as you do now. Same switches and modules. Nothing has changed. It works the same as it ever as and will continue to.

The new firmware is allowing you to ALSO be able to use any switch you want and use the multicast method. You would not be using the vlan switching module that you have used in the past instead you would use the end point control driver that already exists for the receivers (this is how you send video wall, rs232, cec commands etc) That driver/module is now used to send a command to the receiver to switch to different multicast channels. Again this is 100% optional. You can choose to use VLAN switching or use this new method with any network switch you want.