USB over TCP/IP a mile down road

[robm]

Has anyone used the USB to TCP/IP converters to "transport" the USB interface long distance? We are looking at building a show that would also be broadcast on our commerical radio station... I need the controlling computer here at the station due to needing good air audio feed and control of show, then I need to send the USB to the event location miles away.

Thinking of the USB to TCP/IP, install dsl at event location, create a VPN and send the USB thru the VPN tunnel....

Any thoughts?

Rob

[Don]

One small problem.

It's not TCP/IP, it is RS485. Two different protocols.

[LOR Staff]

Rather than use USB to to TCP/IP software, an easier solution would be to use E1.31. E1.31 is DMX over ethernet.

HOWEVER

As soon as you start talking about moving stuff across a public network (IE DSL, cable modems, whatever) you run into latency. And that latency is going to put your show completely out-of-sync. Since latency across networks is typically variable, you can't compensate for it.

[edvas69]

With E1.31 there is basically no error checking, so when you take into account the network traffic and latency then you will most probably see missing commands, commands being recieved out of order and lights stuck on or not coming on.

But no harm in doing a bit of testing and seeing if it works to an acceptable level.

[ScottyMo]

As stated above, even if you could get that scenario to work, the sync would be out due to latency.

Just thinking out loud here...

Don't know what kind of equipment you have at your disposal, but could you do the reverse with a mobile van feed?

Meaning...

Often, radio stations have a mobile van providing live, on-location, feeds for things like news, events, functions etc. If you had access to something like this, you could feed the audio to your mobile van from your show computer which could then broadcast the audio live from location?

Not sure what your audio signal degradation would be, or if latency would still play a role.

[Max-Paul]

Time out.. RS-485 is supposed to be good for 4000' And a mile is 5280'. Now you can get repeaters to extend that 4000 to 8000'. I am not sure if there is a limit to how many repeaters you can use. I am sure each one add a little delay. I would think you could get at least 2 repeaters maybe more before problems. So, the only issue will be having a power source available at each repeater site.

[ScottyMo]

Time out.. RS-485 is supposed to be good for 4000' And a mile is 5280'. Now you can get repeaters to extend that 4000 to 8000'. I am not sure if there is a limit to how many repeaters you can use. I am sure each one add a little delay. I would think you could get at least 2 repeaters maybe more before problems. So, the only issue will be having a power source available at each repeater site.

Granted. But his post refers to it being several miles away and sending the signal over the internet, through a VPN to a DSL connection at the site. Not by running a CAT5 cable along the side of the road from the radio station to the show location :-)

[khawes]

How about:

http://www.eltima.co...-over-ethernet/

or

http://www.usb-over-ethernet.com/

or

http://www.usb-over-network.com/

or

http://usbip.sourceforge.net/

there are more, a CTO I once worked for used to say, "it's software anything is possible"

Edited August 23, 2012 by khawes

[edvas69]

It can be done and has been done on a large scale in Hong Kong

But i have no idea what they are using to communicate between the buildings and controllers and looks like the sequencing isnt too fast and furious

[robm]

well I will continue to play with it and see what I can come up with. we do have remote trucks that we can use but this would be a month long event and I hate to tie up one if the trucks for that long... I do have some Cisco point to point bridges I could try to use to keep the network internal.. I do agree public Internet can be very tricky at times. any more ideas keep them coming I will continue to play with it

[LOR Staff]

It can be done and has been done on a large scale in Hong Kong

But i have no idea what they are using to communicate between the buildings and controllers and looks like the sequencing isnt too fast and furious

Yes, it certainly can be done. The question is, can it be done for a reasonable cost?

While I don't know exactly how HK does it, I imagine that the network that controls everything is private, & hard wired.

Time out.. RS-485 is supposed to be good for 4000' And a mile is 5280'. Now you can get repeaters to extend that 4000 to 8000'. I am not sure if there is a limit to how many repeaters you can use. I am sure each one add a little delay. I would think you could get at least 2 repeaters maybe more before problems. So, the only issue will be having a power source available at each repeater site.

Granted. But his post refers to it being several miles away and sending the signal over the internet, through a VPN to a DSL connection at the site. Not by running a CAT5 cable along the side of the road from the radio station to the show location :-)

Even if he does run a cable down the road, you are forgetting one thing: As distance increases, the bitrate per second of an RS485 link must decrease. If I remember correctly, the distance in m times the bit/s shouldn't exceed 10^8, even with repeaters.

How about:

http://www.eltima.co...-over-ethernet/

or

http://www.usb-over-ethernet.com/

or

http://www.usb-over-network.com/

or

http://usbip.sourceforge.net/

there are more, a CTO I once worked for used to say, "it's software anything is possible"

Yes, that software exists -- but the problem is how do you transfer those IP packets without the resulting LATENCY?

----

I think you'll need to go outside the box on this one. The remote van is a good idea. You could also 'animate' while not being strictly 'synced' to music.

[heystew]

Is there any chance you have line of site from the radio station to the show location. If you have a tower at the station that could help. I've used point to point wireless bridge solutions in the 5GHz range for other projects (not related to lights) that were miles away and the throughput and latency were both predictable and very good. A quick search of ebay found this: http://www.ebay.com/...b#ht_500wt_1156

but there are many other systems available. Some will need licenses... many will not (didn't check to see if the link above requires a license or not).

That would give you a low latency ethernet connection to the show site.

one thought.. will keep thinking about it more though..

dave

EDIT: located another set that seems to be a better deal: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trango-Broadband-Point-to-Point-PTP-P5010M-EXT-Wireless-Bridge-Atlas5010-EXT-/110938732176?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d476b690#ht_500wt_1414

manual available at : http://www.trangobroadband.com/infobase/pdfs/M_Atlas5010.pdf

Edited August 24, 2012 by heystew

[Max-Paul]

Granted. But his post refers to it being several miles away and sending the signal over the internet, through a VPN to a DSL connection at the site. Not by running a CAT5 cable along the side of the road from the radio station to the show location :-)

Granted, but yet ye forget that it has been already addressed that the use of switches and other network devices induces a delay. So, your music will be ahead of the command to flash the lights. Now if that delay was a consistent value. You could skew the commands in relation to the music. But according to an earlier post, the delay will vary in time.

[robm]

Is there any chance you have line of site from the radio station to the show location. If you have a tower at the station that could help. I've used point to point wireless bridge solutions in the 5GHz range for other projects (not related to lights) that were miles away and the throughput and latency were both predictable and very good. A quick search of ebay found this: http://www.ebay.com/...b#ht_500wt_1156

but there are many other systems available. Some will need licenses... many will not (didn't check to see if the link above requires a license or not).

That would give you a low latency ethernet connection to the show site.

Yes we do and yes. We use many of the Cisco 2Ghz bridges now for other projects and as I posted above, was thinking the same thing. I would much rather keep the CPU at the station just because of audio quality and I have GPI interfaces I need to interface with on the automation system... If the latency is consistent on the private side, I can delay the show that much to compensate for it. The private side should be very close assuming my signal levels are good.

Using one of our live trucks create a whole different set of issues.. In our business analog audio was great, basically real-time, now with our our equipment digital the delays are everywhere and it is a real nightmare for live events. We also just put HD Radio on the air and those channels are even worse with delay, sub channels run 10 - 15 delayed!

I will continue to test and update all....

HeyStew - just realized who you were.. You the Grand Champ video on the site?? Sweet and Nice Job! My managment team and I were looking at all the videos and then we hit yours...My staff all said "We want to do that!"....LOL I said maybe year two.... We are newbies but I have 30 years of broadcast and theater production experience so we are pumped to do something really cool with this and broadcast radio and tv...

How long has that taken you? How long each year to setup?

Edited August 24, 2012 by robm

[LOR Staff]

If you stay off the public network, wireless is the way to go with those 2Ghz bridges. As you said, latency is manageable when you control it end-to-end.

If you go with those wireless bridges, use E1.31. That way you won't have to deal with any conversions on the computer side: You'll send your lighting data out the computer's NIC card, onto the wireless bridge, and then to a E131 to DMX adapter. From there you'll run cables to your lighting controllers on site.

[chris waller]

Check this stuff out we have wireless internet set up across town like 8 miles 150mbps works great might work for this http://www.ubnt.com/airmax

[chris waller]

What about a remote computer running logmein pro

[TJ Hvasta]

I would either go with ELL's, with a yagi pointed at the receiver, or the best idea is to set up a remote computer running the show at the show site, and just link the audio back to the station.

Stew, what part of Vienna? Anywhere near EEB? My folks moved from Arlington to Oakton off Hunter Mill, in the late 70's.. sold the 6000+' house late 80's..

Edited August 26, 2012 by TJ Hvasta

[heystew]

TJ, i know the oakton/huntermill area very well. I'm on the opposite side of vienna however..

sorry had to look up EEB as I moved to the area in 96.. looks like they closed down shortly after that... found this info about their current whereabouts..

http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=rfrobins

[Shubb]

I'm having a hard time understanding why the computer needs to be miles away from the show.

To me, it would make more sense to have the show computer on the show site and control it remotely.

Then use the everyday software and hardware like it was intended.

I have a free app on my phone that allows me to control my computer from around the planet, so I'm sure more advanced software is available.

Scott