Sorry for the delayed response, it¡¯s been a busy week.? Here are the answers to your follow-up questions:
Does the current VLAN switching software allow for control of multiple switches or just a "switch stack" or "virtual switch"?
You can do VLAN switching either way.? Some installers like the STACK approach when using multiple switches, but it is not mandatory.? This has been true since we launched HDMI over IP in 2008.? The turnkey drivers we came out with in 2010 were based on a STACK implementation, but it has always possible for a knowledgeable control system programmer to manage the switching on independent switches.
I'm curious how switching via VLANs is faster than multicast switching for the same product? When we switch streams to a decoder, the majority of latency to "picture" is the decoder processing time for the new stream...shouldn't make a difference if it's a new stream due to switching VLANs or switching routing. In both cases it's a new stream being directed to the encoder. This is borne out by the fact that if we have an incorrectly assigned VLAN for a decoder (i.e. on our control VLAN vice the streaming video VLAN), when we correct the VLAN assignment the decoder still takes the same amount of time to process the new incoming signal to show on the display. I could see mulit-milli-second delay differences in VLAN vs multicast routing, but multi-second has more to do with the decoder than VLAN vs Multicast switching.
In a nutshell, using the VLAN approach we have eliminated the TCP handshake that happens when a multicast device switches to a new stream.? The result is instant seamless switching vs the pause or blank screen associated with multicast switching.
