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MAX Module Handling

Costas TheoharisCostas Theoharis Posts: 30
in MAX by AMX
Dear friends,
We have a project where we have 10 AVP's located in several rooms, where each room uses an NI-700 and a touch panel for the local control of the AV epuipment + the control of MAX. We also have a rack room with the MAX server and an NI3100 for controlling other AV equipment located there. Which is the right way to setup the MAX module?
1. Should we have each NI700 run the module in order to have more CPU power? In that case can MAX handle 10 module connections?
2. Should we have the NI3100 run the module along with 10 UI instances? In that case should each panel be connected with the local NI700 and through a M2M connection with the NI3100 or the panel should be directly connected with the NI3100 and through a M2M connection with the local NI700?
The point is to have less traffic on the network because as you can understand the MAX module is a quite heavy one.

Please advise.

Regards,
Costas

Comments

  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    The MAX A/V stream has to be on a separate network from your controls. They use their own subnet, but you really want a managed switch you can partition, or a completely separate network for the media stream or there will be display issues.

    That said, you install one comm module on the master connected to the MAX control network. You then install individual UI modules for each panel, and they can be on any master at all, as long as each has the comm module's virtual defined. I have an eight master system set up this way - the comm module's master has ten UI modules, and a half dozen of the other masters have 1-3 UI modules each. It works fine, all talk to the MAX without issues.
  • Jurgen SachsJurgen Sachs Posts: 33
    I would recommend the following:
    - Place one instance of the max comm module on the ni3100.
    Get the virtual device of the comm module to the ni700 using master to master.
    - Every ni700 runns the ui files needed for the local touchpanels connected to this ni700 using the deployed virtual device of the ni3100.

    I have running a site with 14 zones fairly well this way. Also I am told, that max could get slow in responce if to many comm modules are trying to connect at the same time.

    With this setup you will have one comm module and only a minimum of traffic between the masters.

    The only disadvantage is if the ni3100 dies, max would not work at all.

    Kind Regards
    Juergen Sachs
  • Costas TheoharisCostas Theoharis Posts: 30
    Dear Juergen,
    Thank you for your answer. We have set up the system as you recommended and we noticed that some covers don't appear. In fact from the 24 dvd covers we can only view from cover 9-24. We are not able to see the first 8. The same happens on the search by covers page where the first 8 are missing. I don't know why this is happening. It seems like there is traffic on the network.We use Module 1.65 with the latest UI.

    Any suggestions?

    Best Regards,
    Costas
  • Jurgen SachsJurgen Sachs Posts: 33
    I saw the same problem first.
    This mostly happens if you have to many covers on a page.
    In my case the covers apeared after a minute or so.
    If I remember correctly this was because of the many http requests the panel made to fetch the covers from the max.

    But I would recommend to first check the commands send to the panel. For each cover to display a command is send to the panel. Just enable notifications for your panel and select the page on your panel to display your covers. You should see a command for each cover you have. Are all commands there and look they similar ?

    Maybe not all commands are send to the panel ?

    Best Regards
    Juergen Sachs
  • adysadys Posts: 395
    I have the same prolems

    I moved the covers count to 8 in the code, still not working stable, better, but not as it should.

    The problem is much more hard in the search by covers.

    First it bring all the results like its should, and then some of them are gone - after it bring them!!!

    Any idea?

    I moved the search by covers to be only

    its brings them ok, them delete some of the to be empty (white)

    I really don't get it

    Looking at the notification got me this :


    Line 35 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 1,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%F30_l.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 36 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^TXT-370,1&2,] - 18:17:58
    Line 37 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 2,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%FCD_filler.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 38 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 3,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%FCD_filler.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 39 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 4,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%FCD_filler.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 40 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 5,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%FCD_filler.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 41 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 6,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%FCD_filler.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 42 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 7,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%FCD_filler.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 43 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RMF-Small Cover 8,%P0%H192.168.10.141%A/art/%FCD_filler.jpg] - 18:17:58
    Line 44 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RFR-Small Cover 1] - 18:18:00
    Line 45 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RFR-Small Cover 2] - 18:18:00
    Line 46 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RFR-Small Cover 3] - 18:18:01
    Line 47 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RFR-Small Cover 4] - 18:18:01
    Line 48 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RFR-Small Cover 5] - 18:18:01
    Line 49 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RFR-Small Cover 6] - 18:18:02
    Line 50 :: Command To [10007:40:6]-[^RFR-Small Cover 7] - 18:18:02

    only the first image appears.

    I can see that the refresh cause the disappearing, but when remarking it in the code, things are getting worse...
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    I believe the cover art issue varies with your network connection and quality. I have had it work flawlessly for days, then only populate half the screen the next. I don't think you can fix this in code. It seems to be caused by the panel itself losing the connection or dropping too many packets in the process of retrieving the image. This is well past the point of any of your commands to get it have gone out. It's the image transfer at issue, not the commands to initiate the transfer.
  • adysadys Posts: 395
    Dave I agree with you

    I tested it a lot, and I see that the command never lost.

    I removed the RFR command, and sometimes it working better, but sometimes worse...

    I thought about sperating the RMF cover commands with a wait, to give the pannel time to get them?

    this is very annoying, the client like to use covers and it looks so buggy....
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    I don't know the Max module at all but I the ^RFR command only works if the button with the image is in focus (currently being displayed) so maybe using the ^RFRP command might do the trick.
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    vining wrote:
    I don't know the Max module at all but I the ^RFR command only works if the button with the image is in focus (currently being displayed) so maybe using the ^RFRP command might do the trick.

    Good observation, but not the case. These are images in full view that just don't draw. You can have a page with a dozen cover art images on it, and numbers 1,2,3,6, and 12 will display, but not the others...
  • adysadys Posts: 395
    Its even worse.

    The panel displays all the images, and then upon RFR command some of them disappear...

    They actually on the panel, and them from some reason some of them are gone.

    Very strange...

    I checked the server side, there is no problems there. I reduced the weight of the images to 20-10K, not helping...
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