User`s manual

LOLA: Low Latency Audio Visual Streaming System
– 1Gbit LAN port (LOLA supports only 1 LAN port at present, but it will support more LAN
ports in the future versions for higher video resolution and multiple node support). See section
2.8 for important information regarding NIC performance.
– Integrated graphic adapter should be enough, however a PCI-Express Video Adapter (e.g.,
Nvidia GeForce cards) is strongly recommended, specially for color video processing and for
incoming gpu-accelerated features.
– Enough PCIe free slots to host the Audio card, the Graphic adapter and the BitFlow grabber
(Note: the BitFlow card requires a x4 PCIe slot at least. Using a lower bandwidth PCIe slot,
sometimes located besides the PCIe x4 and PCIe x16 ones, will result in bad video grabbing
performances).
– Mid/Full tower case with quiet design, a good air flow circulation and fans, and at least four
full height expansion slots.
– It's strongly suggested to use a really good and stable PSU (Corsair AX series, Seasonic or
Antec).
2.5. Network requirements
LOLA requires at least 100Mbps in minimal uncompressed configuration (640x480, b/w, 30
frames per second) up to 500Mbps in full uncompressed configuration (640x480, color, 60 frames
per second), and generates a very high Packet Per Second (PPS) rate, as it uses 1K data packets, e.g.
from 100 up to 500 KPPS. Thus the minimal end-to-end connectivity must be at least 1Gbps. This
requires 1Gbps compliant cabling (Cat6 or optical), and adequate networking hardware. You should
pay special attention to LAN switches performances when using LOLA, because of the high PPS
rate, in particular when other data flow compete on the same switch; in general the ideal situation is
when the LOLA workstation is directly connected to the Wide Area Network device (router or
switch) at 1Gbps with no other network devices in between, or at least there is no competing
network traffic on the LAN devices being used by LOLA data traffic.
Starting from this version, Lola supports m-jpeg video compression; using compressed
video the minimum required bandwidth is reduced to about 20Mbps (640x480, b/w or color, 30
fps). Please note that using compression the PC processing power will be affected heavily, and the
overall latency will also increase about 3 or 4 millisecons, depending on CPU type.
The following table gives an approximate estimate of LOLA bandwidth traffic:
Uncompressed
• 640x480, b/w, 30 fps: ~ 95 Mbps;
• 640x480, b/w, 60 fps: ~ 180 Mbps;
• 640x480, color, 30 fps: ~ 260 Mbps;
• 640x480, color, 60 fps: ~ 490 Mbps.
Compressed (jpeg quality = 60)
• 640x480, b/w, color, 30 fps: ~ 20 Mbps;
• 640x480, b/w, color, 60 fps: ~ 40 Mbps.