User`s manual

LOLA: Low Latency Audio Visual Streaming System
LOLA should not run behind a Firewall, and should run with a public IPv4 address (no
NAT). IPv6 addresses are currently not yet supported. Traffic Shapers and other devices which
inspect/act deeply on network performances must also be avoided. There can be network issues if
the LOLA generated traffic goes via a number of Local Area Network Switches which are shared
with other IP traffic: indeed LOLA generates a high rate of packets (PPS rate) as it uses 1K packet
size, and this can affect performance of a number of LAN switches, resulting in a poor LOLA end-
to-end connection. A workaround can be to connect LOLA PC directly (or as close a possible) to the
LAN edge routers connecting to the network backbone, to avoid switches.
As LOLA provides no error recovery procedures and a very minimal data buffering, the
whole end-to-end network connection must be with very high performance: low jitter, error free and
the lowest possible network latency (packets Round Trip Time, RTT); network latency adds in fact
to LOLA system latency, and the sum define the upper limit when real-time human interaction is
still possible. LOLA has been developed to use the services provided by the Research and
Education hi-end networking services (like GARR, GÈANT, Internet2) and can run both on shared
IP network services (TCP and UDP) or on dedicated circuits, which provide better network
performances and reliability, especially at high bandwidth configuration. It is recommended to
perform end-to-end network tests also using additional tools (like iperf or equivalent
http://iperf.sourceforge.net/) trying to simulate LOLA expected traffic before using LOLA itself.
These tools are also useful as a powerful network debugging aid, in case of problems using LOLA.
Table 1: Suggested configuration for Analog B/W and Color video streaming
Host PC Intel dual/quad core based system (i5/i7 required for color), with at least 4 GB
RAM
Motherboard with PCIe bus and DDR3 ram technology with enough PCIe free
slots
1 or 2 Gbit LAN ports (see section 2.8)
PCIe Graphic Card (for incoming gpu-accelerated features we suggest an
NVidia card with CUDA support).
Low noise case with a really good, stable and silent PSU (Corsair AX series,
Seasonic or Antec suggested).
Audio RME HDSPe-AIO (PCI-Express internal card)
RME Hammerfall HDSP 9632 (PCI internal card)
RME Multiface II (PCI/PCIe host card + external ADC/DAC box)
Video BitFlow ALTA-AN1 grabber with at least SDK 5.60 drivers
Sony HR50 b/w analog video camera or Hitachi KP-FD30 or Toshiba IK-TF5
analog color video cameras
Analog cable for camera connection
Low latency/response time LCD Monitor or a much faster old style CRT
Monitor
Network 1Gbps end-to-end connection. See session 2.5 above.