Hardware

The boxtream software can be used without most of the hardware below, anyway here's what we are using here :

• A 22U mobile rack Flightcase.
• An 8 ports Hewlett-Packard J4898A 2708 Gigabit Ethernet switch.
• Box configured as an autonomous DNS and DHCP server with router functionnality (IP masquerading) on secondary Ethernet interface, plugged into the Ethernet Switch above : allows you to plug up to seven additional computers (or more with additional switches) to the same box, giving full network access to a complete team of audiovisual technicians.
• Box configured for Plug&Play network autodetection through a DHCP client on primary Ethernet interface, directly plugged to the local network.
• An Extron VSC700 Scan Converter, to convert the slides or any other *VGA-compatible computer display into video components.
• An Extron SW6V 6x1 video switcher, to allow a choice of 1 in 6 composite video inputs : cameras, videotape, DVD player, etc... Four of the video switcher inputs are stabilized through a DataVideo TBC4000 Time Base Corrector, so in fact the two other inputs of the SW6V won't be used.
• A Canopus ADVC700 Analog-to-DV and DV-to-Analog converter, to convert the video components' output of the scan converter into an easily manageable DV stream.
• A Canopus ADVC55 Analog-to-DV and DV-to-Analog converter, to convert the output of the video switcher into an easily manageable DV stream. Ideally and additional ADVC700 should be used instead, but the ADVC700 costs ten times more than the ADVC55 and we did it the "cheap" way.
• A Kramer 482 audio transcoder. This allows us to accept balanced audio as input through an easily accessible patch panel, directly feed the Canopus ADVC700 with it, and produce unbalanced audio to feed the Canopus ADVC55. This way both DV streams, even if only one is used, contain synchronized audio.
• An Intel S5000VSA server motherboard with 2 dual-core Xeon CPU, 4 Gb of RAM, 1.2 Tb of SATA harddisks in a 5+1 software RAID5 array, inside an Intel SC5295-E DP rackmounted entry server chassis and of course Debian GNU/Linux Sid.
• A Viewcast Osprey 440 4-channels analog video frame grabber. It is used to monitor the 4 inputs we use on the video switcher.
• A CreativeLabs SoundBlaster Audigy sound card. It is only used to control the final output or when using the box as a visioconferencing endpoint, but is not used for audio capture in the default scenarios.
• A Yamaha MS101 II amplified monitor speaker. Used either to control the final output or when using the box as a visioconferencing endpoint.
• A Cherry ML4400 rackable PS/2 keyboard with integrated trackball.
• A Dell Ultrasharp 19" flat panel LCD monitor. We used this one because the panel can easily be separated from its foot and mounted in the rack (with some pieces of wood BTW).

Video Switchers

Our code should currently support all of Extron x-to-1 video switchers. It also supports a subset of the functionnalities of Panasonic WJ-MX50 professional digital audio and video mixing desks, recognizing them as 5-to-2 video switchers. A subset of the functionnalities of Kramer Electronics audio and video switchers which support Kramer's Protocol2000 is also supported.

Audio

You have probably noticed that Boxtream hardware currently doesn't include any advanced audio input capability, like audio switcher or mixer. This is a deliberate choice both to reduce overall cost and to provide maximum flexibility : we can easily plug an existing audio infrastructure, like an amphitheater which already contains audio mixing equipment, into our box, which already features both balanced and unbalanced audio inputs and outputs through the DV converters. If there's no pre-existing audio infrastructure, we bring some audio mixing desk with us, as an external add-on to the box.