One of the interesting things about AV over IP is that it offers a unique way to accomplish AV communication goals. The rules change when your sources and end points are routed over a network; and this offers a great deal of flexibility. An integrator recently presented some design requirements that allow an advantage with this flexibility.
The system called for 16 IP cameras on a network that needed to be routed to and controlled from a separate network without any Ethernet connection between the two networks.
The 16 cameras are connected to a layer-3 switch. The IP addresses of each of those cameras are entered as a proxy on the decoder which has an RTSP license for hosting 3rd-party streams. Each IP camera can provide different resolutions; and by using lower-resolution streams, the decoder does not to scale the video. With the decoder hosting these RTSP Streams, the decoder now becomes the source into the encoder. Usually we think of the decoder as the end point, but not in this scenario. The connection between the two is an HDMI cable. This addresses one of the primary requirements of the system which is security. The customer does not want the IP cameras accessible from the network on which they are being viewed.
The encoder that is connected to the switch has an RTSP license that allows it to send RTSP streams to 3rd-party devices. Viewers with access to the “viewing” network can use a soft decoder like VLC to pick up the stream via a URL. The viewer sees whatever is on that URL which could be any of the 16 camera feeds or a combination of multiple cameras in a layout created in the VIEW® Pro Panorama Software. The switching between these sources and layouts is accomplished using our VIEW Virtual Matrix software (see links to sample videos below) or our free Virtual Control software. This GUI can even be accessed via a mobile device. For more extensive control we offer free modules for all of the popular control systems.
From the ClearOne side, all this requires is a single Encoder with and RTSP License and a Single Decoder with both and RTSP and a Composition license. While it’s not something you run into every day, it is a unique way to solve a problem. The end result is a very flexible, scalable and certainly a very cost effective solution.
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