Magewell Cloud

Centralized Management Software for IP Devices and Streams

Magewell Introduces Centralized Encoder, Decoder and Stream Management Software

Magewell Cloud multi-device management software. Available free of charge for installation on an on-premises server or cloud hosting platform, the Magewell Cloud software provides centralized configuration and control of multiple Magewell IP encoders and decoders plus powerful stream management features including protocol conversion and SRT gateway functionality.

“While Magewell streaming and IP conversion solutions all have their own intuitive user interfaces, customers with multiple Magewell devices or systems integrators supporting Magewell solutions across several end-user installations may wish to manage them all remotely from a single dashboard,” said James Liu, VP of Engineering at Magewell. “The Magewell Cloud software makes it easy for integrators, administrators, and IT staff to configure and manage multiple Magewell IP devices across any number of sites through an intuitive, browser-based interface while also providing workflow-simplifying stream management functions.”

  • One management platform for many Magewell devices

Magewell Cloud supports remote management of all of the company's current hardware solutions for streaming and IP conversion. These include the Ultra Stream family of live streaming and recording appliances; the recently-introduced Ultra Encode series of universal live media encoders; and the Pro Convert portfolio of encoders and decoders for bridging traditional video and audio signals with IP media networks using NDI® technology and other popular protocols.

Once the Magewell hardware devices have been registered to a Magewell Cloud installation, users can remotely configure device parameters, monitor the status of each device, trigger operational functions – such as starting or stopping encoding – and perform batch firmware upgrades across multiple units of the same model. Administrators can also group devices together and assign permissions for different devices or groups.

  • Simplifying SRT streaming

Magewell Cloud simplifies one-to-many or many-to-many streaming with the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol by serving as an SRT gateway. SRT-capable Magewell devices – including Ultra Encode universal live media encoders and Pro Convert multi-format IP decoders – and third-party SRT products can connect to Magewell Cloud rather than directly to each other. This eliminates the need to allocate public, static IP addresses for each SRT device, as only the Magewell Cloud software installation needs to be accessible over the internet to enable SRT streaming between multiple endpoints.

While the SRT protocol enables secure, reliable, low-latency transmission even over unpredictable networks such as the public internet, many legacy encoders and decoders do not directly support SRT. The Magewell Cloud platform can convert streams bi-directionally between RTMP and SRT, allowing users to take advantage of the robustness of SRT within their workflows while providing compatibility with a broader range of devices and software.

  • Flexible deployment

Magewell Cloud is delivered as a Docker container, enabling deployment on Windows®, Linux®, and MacOS® computing platforms with minimal configuration requirements. Customers can run Magewell Cloud on their own private server or public cloud infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, and can view the host platform's CPU, memory, and network usage through Magewell Cloud's browser-based GUI.

Magewell Cloud Feature Overview: SRT Relay Server

 2021.08.25

The SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) protocol enables secure, reliable, and low-latency delivery of high-quality video between multiple locations even over unpredictable networks like the public internet. Magewell Cloud simplifies one-to-many or many-to-many streaming with the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol by serving as an SRT gateway with SRT relay functionality.

SRT-capable Magewell devices – including Ultra Encode live media encoders and Pro Convert IP decoders – and third-party SRT products can connect via Magewell Cloud rather than directly to each other. This eliminates the need to allocate public, static IP addresses for each SRT device, as only the Magewell Cloud software installation needs to be accessible over the internet to enable SRT streaming between multiple endpoints.

1. Simplifying multi-point SRT streaming

Magewell Cloud's SRT relay feature simplifies one-to-many or many-to-many SRT streaming. Each SRT device acts as an SRT Caller, and Magewell Cloud acts as the corresponding SRT Listener. Users only need to fill in the fixed, public IP address of the Magewell Cloud deployment and specify a port number (8000 in our example) to enable many-to-many SRT streaming.

2. Saving IP resources and costs

Without an SRT gateway or relay, many-to-many SRT streaming generally requires multiple fixed, public IP addresses – which can be costly to obtain from internet service providers – and multiple port numbers. By using Magewell Cloud and making it accessible over the internet, users can save money by eliminating the need for fixed, public IP resources for the other devices in the workflow. In addition, the SRT Stream ID function can help distinguish different SRT streams to allow the use of a single port number, which improves network security and simplifies network management.

3. Compatible with a wide range of SRT-capable devices

Magewell Cloud's SRT stream management features are not limited to working only with Magewell devices. In addition to Magewell SRT solutions, third-party SRT products can also connect to Magewell cloud. Users of SRT-compliant third-party devices can use them without worrying about compatibility issues between products and brands, which improves the scalability and flexibility of SRT workflows.

Magewell Cloud Feature Overview: Centrally Managing Magewell Streaming and IP Conversion Devices

 2021.08.19

Our recently-launched Magewell Cloud intelligent, centralized management software makes it easy for systems integrators, administrators, and IT staff to configure and control multiple Magewell IP devices such as encoders and decoders. This blog post explores some of the capabilities of this feature.

1. One management platform for many Magewell devices

Magewell Cloud supports remote management of all of the company's current hardware solutions for streaming and IP conversion, including Ultra Stream encoders for recording and live streaming; Ultra Encode live media encoders; and the Pro Convert Encoders and Pro Convert Decoder portfolio of encoders and decoders.

Once the Magewell hardware devices have been registered to a Magewell Cloud installation (see our earlier blog post for a tutorial on adding devices), users can remotely configure them via an intuitive browser-based interface.

In the “All Devices” page, users can view device information such as serial number, IP address, firmware version, and working status.

2. Configure devices in batch

Users can also remotely configure device parameters, monitor the status of each device, trigger operational functions – such as starting or stopping encoding (Ultra Stream only) – and perform batch firmware upgrades across multiple units of the same model.

3. Manage device warnings

Users can enter the “Warnings” page to check alerts and troubleshoot issues.

4. Group devices

Administrator account can manage all the devices and groups hosted to the cloud platform, and assign user permissions for each group and device. General accounts are allowed to check and configure assigned device, but unable to modify device grouping.

How to Add Magewell Streaming and IP Conversion Devices to Magewell Cloud

 2021.08.10

While Magewell streaming and IP conversion solutions all have their own intuitive user interfaces, customers with multiple Magewell products – or integrators supporting many Magewell customers – may wish to manage them all remotely from a single dashboard. With this in mind, we introduced Magewell Cloud: intelligent, centralized management software that makes it easy for systems integrators, administrators, and IT staff to manage multiple Magewell IP devices such as encoders and decoders. This article will explain how to add Magewell hardware devices to the Magewell Cloud platform.  


Devices Used:

  • The Magewell Cloud software, already installed on your own server or cloud hosting platform
  • One Magewell streaming or IP conversion device (Ultra Encode HDMI is used in this example, running firmware version V1.3.452 or higher)
  • One laptop (for accessing the Magewell Cloud software).

Steps:

Our communication flow is outlined in the diagram below.

1. Log into the Magewell Cloud. Click “Cloud Settings” in the left-side menu, then click “Security” in the expanded sub-menu. Turn on the "Invitation Code" switch in the configuration panel, and copy the four-digit invitation code (8205 in this example; you can also click the refresh button on the right of the Code field to generate a new invitation code if you wish). Then click "Apply".

 

2. Log into the web GUI of the encoder, and choose “General > Cloud” from the left navigation menu. Click "Register". Fill in the invitation code (8205 in this example) and the IP address of the Magewell Cloud installation (47.104.XXX.XX in this example) on the pop-up panel. Click "Save".

3. Return to the Magewell Cloud interface. Click “Pending Approval” in the left navigation. In the Waiting List, you should now see the Ultra Encode device you just attempted to register to Magewell Cloud. Turn on the checkbox to the left of that device, and click “Accept” to grant the required permissions.

 

4. Approved products can now be accessed in Magewell Cloud on the “All Devices” page, where you can assign tasks to devices or group the units.

 

5. Repeat the above steps to add more Magewell IP devices to Magewell Cloud. For Ultra Stream and Ultra Encode units, use the “General > Cloud” menu item in step 2; for Pro Convert encoders and decoders, use the “System > Cloud” menu item.

If you do not see these menu options on your Magewell streaming or conversion device, you may need to update its firmware (for example, Ultra Encode units must be running firmware version V1.3.452 or higher).

 

Receiving NDI® Streams from Different Subnets with NDI® Decoding Software

 2021.08.04

Network administrators often divide IP networks into multiple subnets for various reasons, such as simplifying network management, improving network performance, or simply overcoming IPv4 address shortages.

In our previous blog Configuring Magewell Pro Convert Devices to Transport NDI® Streams Across Different Subnets of the Same Network, we explained how to configure Magewell Pro Convert encoders and decoders – as well as decoding software – to connect to each other across multiple subnets using the NDI® Discovery Server. In this article, we will describe how to use NDI® decoding software to receive NDI® streams from different subnets of the same network without requiring NDI® Discovery Server, instead of using static IP addresses.


Devices Used in this Example:

  • One Magewell Pro Convert encoder (Pro Convert HDMI TX is used in this example)
  • One PTZ camera (as a source for the Pro Convert encoder)
  • One laptop (Laptop A) with NDI® encoding software (NDI® Test Patterns is used in this example) installed
  • One laptop (Laptop B) with NDI® Access Manager and NDI® decoding software (NDI® Studio Monitor is used in this example) installed
  • Several HDMI cables and network cables.

Workflow Overview

In this example NDI® workflow, the encoding solutions (a Magewell Pro Convert hardware encoder and NDI® Test Patterns software running on Laptop A) and decoding end (NDI® Studio Monitor software running on Laptop B) are in different subnets of the same network. The Pro Convert encoder and Laptop A use IP addresses 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2, respectively, while laptop B uses IP address 192.168.2.1. The content flow is outlined in the device connection diagram below.


Steps:

1. Open NDI® Access Manager on Laptop B, select the "Remote Sources" tab, and click "New".

2. In the pop-up page, select "NDI Source" in the "Type" drop-down menu.

3. Fill in the IP address of the encoder (192.168.1.1 in this example, for the Pro Convert encoder) in the "Device IP Address" field and click "OK".

4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to create another new NDI Source, then fill in the IP address of Laptop A (the one with NDI® Test Patterns installed) in the "Device IP Address" field (192.168.1.2 in this example). Click "OK".

 

5. After completing the above steps, NDI® Studio Monitor on Laptop B can now discover and decode NDI® streams sent by the Pro Convert encoder and NDI® Test Patterns software in different subnets of the same network.

NDI® is a registered trademark of Vizrt Group.
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