Third Party Encoders (multicast):

Multicast is needed when you have a lot of displays (usually more than 8) that will display the same source at once.

Multicast requires support and configuration of IGMP snoop and query on your network switches.  Not not use multicast unless this setup is complete (it will crash your network).

Multicast is enabled for the primary video stream (Step 2).  The virtual matrix source setup is also different (Step 5).

Step 2

Next you will configure the primary (high resolution) network stream.  Find the corresponding page.

Most settings are the same as with RTSP mode.  The differences are marked with the "<==" indicator.  You should find corresponding settings and set them to match as shown above. 

• Multicast mode should be enabled, all other modes disabled
• Multicast IP should be set to 233.252.131.X    with X being the source number (5 in this case)
• Multicast Port should be set to 5052

Step 5

Last step is to configure the SOURCE in virtual matrix source setup.  Navigate to the "source setup" page on your virtual matrix.

Your settings should match the picture above.

• Profile can be set to ON if your encoder outputs a fixed resolution (most can do this)
• URL for Stream 1 will be of the form:     udp://@multicast_ip_address:5052/8?overrun_nonfatal=1
• URL for Stream 2 will be of the form:     rtsp://static_ip_of_encoder:544/url_extension_secondary_stream
• The encoder status pages/documentation should tell you what to use for the url_extensions

If you find that AV sync tends to get off for this source when viewing for extended periods, add --drift to the Custom Args field.