sACN network bandwidth

Hi,

Would (3) EOS-based consoles in client mode make any difference in bandwidth load verses having them act as (3) primary consoles that are talking to certain gateways on the same network? (each board only speaking to certain gateways by universe).


Basically, does client-mode reduce the sACN load on a network?   What tools do you like run to see how much network bandwidth is being used?

Thanks.

  • In a multiconsole system (primary/backup/clients), only the master ever outputs. This could be the primary or the backup, depending on the current state.

    If bandwidth becomes a concern (or overloading some devices that may not like having so much sACN thrown at them), configuring IGMP on the switches may be a better option rather than dividing control between consoles. IGMP will start to only send the sACN universes to those nodes that need it (as each sACN universe uses a different multicast address).

    I generally would use Wireshark or built in tools in the switch (via web interface) to look at port utilization statistics.
  • To add to Hans comments, sACN is extremely efficient in terms of bandwidth. It's highly unlikely you would ever run into problems unless you're controlling an enormous rig. 

    As Eos has an output limit of 32k outputs you would have to spread this across a significant number of universes before you ran into problems.

    Each sACN packet is only 638 bytes, so 29 kilobytes/s at full rate. That's around 34 universes comfortably on a 10Mbps link.

    Cheers

    Dan

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