User guide

Digital Video Hardware User Guide
revision 38 — 35
Chapter 5: LDVR-SP Network Recommendations
and Requirements
If your digital video system is intended for a distributed network environment,
proper network operation and configuration are critical. Although this topic is far
too broad to be described in detail and falls beyond the scope of this guide, the
following recommendations should help network administrators build a fast and
reliable network with minimal investments in time and resources.
• Make sure that all stations are properly wired to the network and can
communicate using TCP/IP protocol. Use the PING command in the
Windows DOS command prompt or the Network Neighborhood browser to
verify this.
• For medium- and large-scale networks (5 or more stations), it is highly
recommended to have a Windows 2000 Server as a part of the network or its
segment. The Windows 2000 Server with DHCP and WINS services enabled
and properly configured allows all other stations to automatically obtain
proper IP addresses and other parameters as soon as they join the network.
Use the command IPCONFIG/ALL in the Windows DOS command prompt
to display the complete configuration information for your TCP/IP network
connection.
• If the DHCP server in the network or its segment is not available, a static IP
address, subnet mask, and optional gateway address must be assigned
manually for each computer in the network.
The range of IP addresses is usually defined by local Network Information
Center (NIC) authorities, Internet Service Provider (ISP), or similar
organizations. Even if you plan to have an isolated network segment (not
physically connected to the world-wide network), it is a good idea to use
either very low or very high addresses with subnet masks defining a minimal
possible network segment in order to avoid conflicts with addresses in use
elsewhere.
Sometimes, it is impossible to shut down the services on an LDVR-SP recorder.
The most likely reason for this is that the Communication Server continually tries
to start the recording services if they are not running. So the process of shutting
them down will not work because the Communication Server simply starts them
back up.
The Communication Server can be set up so that it does not try to restart the
video server services in 1 of 2 ways:
1. The user who is logged into the Communication Server computer or the user
who starts the Communication Server should NOT be an administrator on
the video recorder. If the user is an ADMINISTRATOR, he will have remote
access to start the services. If he is simply a USER, he will not be able to
restart the services and proper shut down will occur.
2. Assuming that the Communication Server user is an ADMINISTRATOR on
the LDVR-SP recorder, the only way to shut down the services is to mark the
recorder offline in System Administration. By marking the LDVR-SP
offline, it effectively tells the Communication Server to not connect to it.