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June 25, 2002
OL-2739-01
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Note You can find the most current Cisco documentation on Cisco.com. The electronic documents may contain updates and modifications made after the hard-copy documents were printed. Cisco 6920 documentation can be found under the Digital Video subject heading in the Broadband/Cable section. |
These release notes provide information regarding Release 2.6 for the Cisco 6920 RateMux Multiplexer. These release notes describe new product features and provide instructions for updating to this release and obtaining additional documentation and technical assistance for this product.
For a list of caveats that apply to Release 2.6, see the "Open CaveatsRelease 2.6" section.
These release notes discuss the following topics:
The Cisco 6920 RateMux multiplexer is a real-time bandwidth management solution for digital cable operators and digital video service providers. The Cisco 6920 uses high-speed programmable digital signal processors (DSPs) to dynamically perform real-time rate conversion and bit-stream manipulation on encoded MPEG-2 streams. This maximizes audio, video, and data signal throughput and effectively widens bandwidth capability, while ensuring quality transmission at full transponder link rates.
The Cisco 6920 accepts up to 15 main profiles at main level (MP@ML) MPG-2 input signals through interfaces compliant with DigiCable Headend Expansion Interface (DHEI) or Digital Video Broadcast - Asynchronous Serial Interface (DVB-ASI). The unit's programmable statistical remultiplexing engine then performs real-time variable bit rate (VBR) and constant bit rate (CBR) rate conversion and bit-stream manipulation processing to the input streams.
Using a proprietary statistical model, the processed streams are then recombined into a highly efficient, multiplexed program transport stream, while maintaining video quality. The Cisco 6920 processing engine, aside from performing static grooming, also supports packet identifier (PID) filtering and program clock reference (PCR) jitter removal.
The hardware components supported in this release include:
Use these instructions for either upgrading to a new software release or reverting to a previous release.
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Note These instructions assume that you have BootLoader version 148 or later versions running on your Cisco 6920. |
To change software releases on the Cisco 6920, you need the following files:
Before starting the download process, record the IP address, MAC address, and configuration information for the Cisco 6920. For configuration information, save the HTML pages to your PC. Be sure to save the Program Select HTML pages for each output.
Connect.exe establishes a connection via Ethernet from the PC to the Cisco 6920 using a network connection or a crossover Ethernet cable. If you are using a crossover cable, make sure that the IP addresses of the PC and the Cisco 6920 are on the same subnet. After the cabling is physically connected, use the following steps to establish communications:
Step 2 Click Connection on the pull-down menu, then click connect.
Step 3 Enter the Cisco 6920 IP address in the window. Don't click OK.
Step 4 Power on the Cisco 6920. Within 10 seconds, click OK. Connection should occur in 5 to 60 seconds.
a. Power cycle the Cisco 6920 and establish connection to the Cisco 6920 using the Connect.exe program as described in the "Using Connect.exe" section.
b. At the top-level menu, select A: Download Boot Code Firmware.
c. At the "INFO: Waiting for BootLoader file . . ." message, click File on the pull-down menu, then click Download a File to download the binstallXXX.fls file.
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Note Do not download the binstallXXXb.fls file. |
INFO: Bootloader about to be reprogrammed.
INFO: Please monitor output on DEBUG port.
INFO: Wait at least 2 minutes before resetting the RateMux.
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Caution In this phase, the BootLoader is being reprogrammed. A major failure (such as power-off) corrupts the FLASH on the PowerPC card, in which case the only corrective action possible is to send the card back to Cisco for reprogramming. Do not reset the PowerPC card for at least five minutes. |
Step 2 After five minutes, program all the cards in the chassis using Easy Chassis Download,
a. Power cycle the Cisco 6920 and connect to the Cisco 6920 using the Connect.exe program.
b. At the top-level menu, select F: Easy Chassis Download.
c. At the Do you want to be in CHASSIS mode? [n]: prompt, type y and press Enter. The BootLoader takes up to 60 seconds to configure all the cards in the chassis.
d. For each card in the chassis you are asked if you want to perform a software upgrade. Type y and press Enter for each card you want to program. At the "INFO: Waiting for Module . . ." message, click File on the pull-down menu, click Download a File, then download the correct file.
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Note Any additional .ld and .fls files are for support use only. |
Step 3 You are prompted to program the PowerPC (PPC) card.
a. At the Do you want to load the PPC file? [n]: prompt, type y and press Enter. Click File on the pull-down menu, then click Download a File. Load the PPC2.6.ld file.
b. At the Do you want to erase the Application Configuration? [y]: prompt, press Enter if you do not want to save the previous configuration (recommended). Otherwise, type n and press Enter.
c. At the Do you want to load the board parameters? [n]: prompt, type y, then press Enter. Click File on the pull-down menu, then click Download a File. Load the PPCenv2.6.ld file.
d. When prompted, enter the IP address for the Cisco 6920 (for example, 192.168.0.200).
e. When prompted, enter the subnet mask (for example, 255.255.255.0).
f. When prompted, enter the Gateway address (for example, 192.68.0.1).
g. When prompted, enter the PowerPC card name (for example, PPC200).
Step 4 Exit the BootLoader program.
h. Press Escape until you reach the top-level menu of BootLoader.
i. At the top-level menu, type q and press Enter to quit the program and allow the Cisco 6920 to complete its power-up.
j. After approximately 60 seconds, connect to the Cisco 6920 by entering the unit's IP address in a browser.
For identification purposes, following is a list of revision numbers for all files and modules in Release 2.6:
MIBs have been updated and are available in the sub-directory called mib within the release image.
The following section lists the new and changed features supported in Release 2.6.
This software release provides support for the new high-density DSP card. The number of DSPs per card has been doubled (from three to six). This helps free up chassis card slots and increases to four the number of output transports supported per chassis. The card has also been upgraded to include faster DSPs, increasing the number of streams that can be processes per DSP. For example, each DSP on the DSP6 card can support three streams requiring moderate rates of rate reduction (10 to 20 percent), as compared to two streams that can be supported at the same rates using the existing DSP3 card.
RateMux Manager has been revised to support the DSP6 card as well as a combination of DSP3 and DSP6 cards.
This release also supports the new DVB I/O2 card which provides two independent DVB-ASI outputs in a single card slot. This is an improvement on the existing DVB I/O card which supports two duplicate outputs. In addition, each output has been increased to 78 Mbps from the previous 54-Mbps limit to make it more compatible with new high-density QAM modulators appearing on the market.
RateMux Manager has been revised to support the DVB I/O2 card.
RateMux Manager has been enhanced to ease the configuration effort required for properly allocating DSPs for video processing. This new feature can be used before system configuration to help to determine the optimal program lineup and distribution across the various outputs. Users can set aside reserve DSP processing capability for future extension and use.
With automatic DSP assignment, programs automatically are assigned to DSPs, so it is not necessary to set the number of DSPs in the Output Configuration page. This number is determined by the system. The system assigns programs to DSPs based on available DSP types and pre-allocated DSP CPU bandwidth that is assigned to an output in the Chassis Configuration page.
Pass-through programs do not require any DSP CPU bandwidth. All other quality of service (QoS) types use DSP resources.
Manual DSP assignment mode gives more control to users. Hardware resources also can be used more efficiently because characteristics of each video program are known to the user.
Programs can be manually assigned to individual DSPs by slot and module. This locks that particular DSP for only the programs that have been manually assigned to it. Use this feature to ensure High Definition programs do not share the DSP with other programs.
Programs can also be manually assigned to a group. Enter a group number and a DSP will be assigned to that group. Only programs assigned the same group number are allocated to that DSP.
Support has been added for music programming that includes still video frames with the audio channel. These frames are not statistically multiplexed with other video streams (in order to protect the frame timing), and because of this, appropriate pass through bandwidth must be reserved in the output bandwidth. A program map table (PMT) is generated for these programs.
The definition of pass-through programs has changed from previous versions of the software. The new Total Pass Thru Rate field in the RateMux Manager GUI represents the instantaneous peak rate of all pass-through programs and PIDs combined, irrespective of the input port sources.
This release provides an improved transrating and statistical remultiplexing algorithm, resulting in noticeable visual improvement. QoS levels have also been recalibrated to provide a greater difference between different quality settings.
A new capability provides selection of video stream conversion type before setting the output configuration. Types available are:
A button has been added to the Utilities page to allow erasure of the application configuration stored in the Cisco 6920.
The GUI for the RateMux Manager software has been reorganized and enhanced to provide more intuitive operation and readability.
What was called Pass-through is now called No Rate Reduction. It uses a DSP resource and statistical multiplexing. This is recommended for HDTV programs and other programs for which the full input quality must be preserved.
What is now called Pass-through does not use any DSP resources. It is recommended for low rate and constant bit rate applications. The stream uses the predefined pass-through bandwidth.
If the Watch Dog Timer is not supported on the PowerPC card, the following enhancements are not enabled:
If the Watch Dog Timer is not supported:
It is possible to control the Cisco 6920 across gateways. To do so, you must define the environment variable GATEWAY; for example, "GATEWAY=10.0.0.6". Only one gateway can be specified. For information on how to define an environment variable, refer to the "Changing Software Releases" section.
The EEPROM on the PowerPC card is currently used as follows:
The following applies to PowerPC cards with the EEPROM present:
To program the content of the EEPROM with an Ethernet address and permanently store the Ethernet address on the PowerPC card, use the Manufacturing menu in the BootLoader. From there, load the Ethernet address into the EEPROM. ETHERADDR in the environment also is updated.
During EasyChassisDownload, after loading the file ppcenvXXX.ld, the prompt Enter New Ethernet Address does not appear. If the content of the EEPROM is valid (previously written by the user), ETHERADDR has the value from the EEPROM. Otherwise, it has the value from Flash memory.
If the ETHERADDR is changed in Change Environment Parameter and Add Environment Parameter, two different results are possible:
When a card is loaded using the .ld file (or more than one .ld file for the PowerPC card), this variable contains the version number of that file (VERSION=2.0.4 if loading ppc2.0.4.ld and ppcenv2.0.4.ld). This applies to the environment variables on all cards. (For each card, you should expect the version number from the appropriate .ld file.)
To keep track of cases where individual Flash memory partitions are loaded (for example, by using the .fls files), this variable is erased from the environment if any Flash memory partitions are modified.
The following notes apply to the Monitor Rate Screen:
1. Selecting Monitor Rate creates a Monitor Rates window reflecting to the output currently selected on the Cisco 6920. This output may be different from the output showing in the browser from which the Monitor Rates window is created (for example, if the selection had been changed from another browser).
2. Performing a Reload from the Monitor Rate window causes the window to be refreshed with the data referring to the output currently selected on the Cisco 6920. This could be different from the output that the Monitor Rates window was displaying before the Reload (see 1 above).
3. If an output configuration is changed while a Monitor Rate window is active for that output, then that Monitor Rate window may display inaccurate data. Either close that window and create a new one or click Reload (keeping in mind the information in 1 and 2 above, in case of systems with multiple outputs).
To use a custom logo on the web browser, use the following procedure:
srec2fls -f inputfile -0 outputfile [-da] [-t type] [-e entrypoint] [-v version] [-s memorysize]
where:
inputfile | Specifies the name of the input file. |
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outputfile | Specifies the name of the file to be generated. |
-d | Provides more information. |
-a | Generates the output in ASCII format. |
type | Specifies the type of the output file. It is also used to determine whether the input file should be interpreted as an executable file in S-record format (types 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) or as a binary file. |
entrypoint | Specifies the entry point of an executable file. |
version | Specifies the version number to be used (maximum seven characters). |
memorysize | Specifies the maximum size of the internal buffer (default is 1 MB). |
For example, to convert the file logo.gif into a Flash memory file logo.fls with version number 745, the command is:
srec2fls -f logo.gif -o logo.fls -t 0x24 -v 745
or
srec2fls -f logo.gif -o logo.fls -t 36 -v 745
Step 2 Download the .fls file into the PowerPC Flash memory by selecting the BootLoader menu choice Download Flash Modules. The partition type in hexadecimal for this logo Flash memory file is 0x24.
Step 3 Add or change the variable OEMLOGO to OEMLOGO=YES, and save it to Flash memory.
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Note Any string assigned to OEMLOGO, except "NONE", is the same as YES. |
This section describes possible unexpected behavior by Release 2.6.
All the caveats listed in this section are resolved in Release 2.6.
These documents are available for the Cisco 6920 RateMux multiplexer on Cisco.com:
The following sections explain how to obtain documentation from Cisco Systems.
You can access the most current Cisco documentation on the World Wide Web at the following URL:
Translated documentation is available at the following URL:
http://www.cisco.com/public/countries_languages.shtml
Cisco documentation and additional literature are available in a Cisco Documentation CD-ROM package, which is shipped with your product. The Documentation CD-ROM is updated monthly and may be more current than printed documentation. The CD-ROM package is available as a single unit or through an annual subscription.
Cisco documentation is available in the following ways:
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