Focus / 4 Way Antrica workflow

Focus / 4 Way Antrica workflow

A walkthrough guide for setting up a Focus / 4 way antrica workflow on Mac with local server.

Walkthrough

An overview of the Focus/ 4 way Antrica hardware set up based on the availability of four SDI feeds.

On the antrica box there should be four signs each with a unique IP address relating to a SDI input port. These IP addresses are usually prefixed with '192.168.1.' followed by a unique 2/3 digit number to finish off the IP address e.g. 192.168.1.97. These are the IP addresses each SDI port will be converted to and are essential in setting up the network and Focus inputs.

Once the hardware is set up, open the Mac and head to the network preferences to create a closed network.

Mac network set up-

  1. Switch off any wifi or existing ethernet connections.
  2. Select the ethernet connection linked with the switch.
  3. Configure IPv4 to manually by selecting it in the drop down menu. 
  4. Enter an IP address on the same range as the antrica IP addresses but not exactly the same as the existing antrica IPs. For example if the antrica IP addresses are 192.168.1.97, 192.168.1.98, 192.168.1.99, 192.168.1.100 then enter 192.168.1.[any number not matching the existing antrica IPs between 2-250]
  5. Set subnet mask to 255.255.255.0
  6. Set router to 192.168.1.1

 

Antrica feed check- 

  1. Open Terminal on the Mac

  2. Type “ping [One of the antrica IP addresses]” e.g. ping 192.168.1.97 

  3. Press enter
  4. If the above network and hardware set up is successful then the data should start coming though as in the picture below. 
  5. Close down the terminal.

Antrica feed set up-

  1. Enter one of the four IP Addresses found on the antrica into a browser (works best in safari usually)

  2. Enter username and password into interface as set on the antrica box, usually username = admin Password = admin

  3. Once logged in, select SDI main in the left menu.

  4. Within this page's settings set the key interval to 30 and enable RTSP from the drop down menu.

  5. In this area it is also possible to manipulate the bitrate of each feed by increasing or decreasing the bitrate number input. Increasing the bitrate will increase the image quality but will as a result increase the end recorded file size and vice versa if we decrease the bitrate.
  6. Save and repeat for each IP Address.

  7. Once all four IP addresses are set, close the browser down.

Once happy with the settings it is possible to miss out this stage in future uses of the antrica as they will be saved.

Focus video server set up-

  1. Open Focus Video Server

  2. Go to the Input page then select Add Input

  3. Type into URL - rtsp://[ip address]:554/sdi e.g. rtsp://192.168.1.97:554/sdi

  4. Give the angle a corresponding name and click Save

  5. If successful the IP address will appear as ready after a period of initialising the feed

  6. Repeat for the rest of the IP Addresses

  7. Go to Output on the Focus video server tab menu
  8. Set the Video Recordings and logs directory directory using browse. The video recordings directory and log directories are where the video and log files will be saved.

Focus client set up-

  1. Open Focus Client and from the main menu select Settings > General

  2. Set up the Default session export folder via the browse button.This is where all the exported video will be saved.

  3. Go to server settings, select the local tick box and press connect.
  4. Click save in the bottom right.
  5. At the Focus main menu select start a new session with live video streams
  6. Give the event and session a name/ type.
  7. Select the SDI feeds to record
  8. Click Ok

The live session will now start and the main Focus capture interface will appear.