Application Notes: Dante in Corporate AV Installations
Boardrooms, conference rooms, campuses, lobbies — real-world deployment scenarios Corporate AV is among the most practical deployment target for…
Overview
AV over IP relies on a properly configured managed network switch to function correctly. This article covers the essential switch settings required for stable, high-quality IP video distribution across all KanexPro AV over IP codec families (JPEG2000, H.265, SDVoE).
Important: Unmanaged switches are not supported. All encoders and decoders must connect to a managed switch with the settings below applied.
Required Switch Settings
1. IGMP Snooping
IGMP snooping must be enabled on the switch. AV over IP uses multicast to stream video — without IGMP snooping, multicast traffic floods every port on the switch, saturating bandwidth and causing dropped frames or no signal.
- Enable IGMP Snooping globally on the switch
- Enable IGMP Snooping on the VLAN used for AV traffic
- Enable IGMP Querier on the AV VLAN (required if no dedicated multicast router is present)
Recommended switches: Cisco SG350/SG550 series, Netgear M4250, Cisco Catalyst 9000 series.
2. Jumbo Frames (MTU 9000)
JPEG2000 and SDVoE streams use large packet sizes. Enable jumbo frames (9000-byte MTU) on all switch ports connected to encoders and decoders. Failure to enable jumbo frames may result in degraded video quality or intermittent signal loss.
- Set MTU to 9000 bytes on all AV ports
- Applies to JPEG2000 and SDVoE deployments
- H.265 deployments can use standard 1500-byte MTU
3. Flow Control
Disable flow control (IEEE 802.3x) on all switch ports connected to AV over IP devices. Flow control can cause buffering and latency spikes in real-time video streams.
4. Port Speed
- JPEG2000 and H.265: 1Gbps port speed required
- SDVoE: 10Gbps port speed required
VLAN Configuration (Recommended)
- Create a dedicated VLAN for AV traffic (e.g., VLAN 100)
- Assign all encoder and decoder switch ports as untagged members of the AV VLAN
- Enable IGMP snooping and IGMP querier on the AV VLAN
- Ensure the IP controller is also on the AV VLAN or that inter-VLAN routing is configured
IP Addressing
- Recommended subnet: 192.168.100.x / 255.255.255.0
- DHCP or static: Static IPs recommended for production installs
- Default: KanexPro AV over IP devices default to DHCP. Assign static IPs via the web GUI after first connection.
Bandwidth Planning
| Codec | Resolution | Bandwidth per Stream | Network Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| JPEG2000 | 4K60 | ~500 Mbps | 1G (1 stream per port) |
| H.265 | 4K60 | ~30–80 Mbps | 1G (multiple streams per port possible) |
| H.265 | HD 1080p60 | ~10–20 Mbps | 1G |
| SDVoE | 4K60 | ~9.5 Gbps | 10G (dedicated port per stream) |
Multicast vs. Unicast
JPEG2000 and H.265 devices use multicast by default, allowing one encoder to stream to multiple decoders simultaneously without additional bandwidth overhead. SDVoE uses unicast point-to-point connections.
KanexPro AV over IP Products
- AVO-IPJP2K — 4K60 JPEG2000 Encoder/Decoder
- AVO-IP265-4K — 4K60 H.265 Encoder/Decoder
- AVO-IPSDV-4K — 4K60 SDVoE Encoder/Decoder
- AVO-IPCTL-JP2K — IP Controller for JPEG2000
- AVO-IPCTL-265 — IP Controller for H.265
- AVO-IPCTL-SDV — IP Controller for SDVoE
Related Articles
- Getting Started: What is AV over IP?
- Product Guide: JPEG2000
- Product Guide: H.265 / HEVC
- Product Guide: SDVoE
- Troubleshooting: No Signal Between Encoder and Decoder
