Note
The Statistics page gives you an opportunity to view the real-time data sent or received by a transmitter or receiver when connected to a channel. By default, the Statistics are disabled on each of the endpoints.
Enabling the Statistics
- Open the AIM's web interface.
- Click on the Statistics tab at the top.
- You will now see a list of Receivers and Transmitters that are connected to the AIM Manager. Depending on how many endpoints you have, you may need to setup through pages to find the Receiver or Transmitter that you wish to check.
- On the row containing the endpoint you wish to access, you need to enable the statistics by click on the graph icon. The icon should turn from having a black background to white.
- When the endpoints statistics are enabled, the name of the endpoint turns into a link. The link points you directly to the endpoints own web pages when clicked.
- For example, the screenshot below was taken from an ALIF2000R which had very little screen activity.
Understanding the Statistics
On the Statistics page, you will see a legend in the bottom left-hand corner. The colours and labels change depending on whether you are viewing a transmitter or receiver and how many video heads are available.
Frame Count
This is the video refresh rate shown in hertz, the graphs right-hand x-axis shows the scale. For a stable connection, the Frame Count should remain constant. If you have multiple video heads, then there are two Frame Counters, one for each video head.
Bandwidth (Mbit/s)
On the left x-axis of the graph, it shows the data in Megabits per second (Mbit/s). To accommodate those Infinity endpoints with Teaming Ports (SFP), the scale shows up to 2000 Mbit/s. If you are not teaming (using both the system and SFP ports) then 1000 Mbit/s is the maximum amount of bandwidth available. There is a 50 Mbit/s overhead for the USB, this means that in reality, the maximum video bandwidths are 950 Mbit/s and 1950 Mbit/s respectively.
RX & TX Bandwidth
The graph shown is dependant on whether you are accessing a Receiver or Transmitter.
- Receiver: When viewing a receiver, the RX graph will be predominately shown. The TX graph is usually flat but may change if you use a flash memory drive.
- Transmitter: The TX graph will be predominately shown. The RX graph again is usually flat but may change if a lot of USB data is being received from a Receiver.
Troubleshooting
- Make sure that either RX or TX graphs do not exceed the maximum bandwidth. For an endpoint with a single network connection, this limit is 950 Mbit/s, however for a teamed connection where both the SFP and Copper system ports are used, the maximum is 1950 Mbit/s. If the bandwidth limit is hit, you will typically notice that frame count will drop.
- Should you experience blinding/artifacts or intermittent loss of video, this is the result of packet loss. Causes of packet loss:-
- Insufficient network bandwidth. Ensure that you have provisioned the network bandwidth between switches.
- IGMP has not been configured or configured correctly.
Solutions
Video Dithering or Noise Reduction
When the video is output is idle, the video data sent and received should be neglectable. However, if you are finding that bandwidth is high then this can be the result of video dithering or video noise that can be introduced if you are doing any kind of video conversion. The second generation of Infinity (does not include the ALIF1000's) has a function called Magic Eye. With this enabled, it can help to reduce the bandwidth.
Changing the Compression
On the second generation of Infinity endpoints (not ALIF1000's), their codecs support compression. You can change the video compression from Pixel Perfect to Smoothest Video (not available on ALIF1000's) this further reduces the data bandwidth overhead.
Use Teaming
When using both the SFP and copper ports on the endpoints (both TX and RX) you double the amount of bandwidth available. This is sometimes necessary if you are using dual video outputs and there is a lot of activity on both video heads at the same time.