Using the Martin P3 protocol on Luminex GigaCore switches
The Martin P3 protocol is used to communicate between Martin P3 System Controllers (such as the P3-175 System Controller) and P3-enabled fixtures such as MAC One, MAC Viper XIP and VDO Sceptron XB.
Low-voltage fixtures such as the VDO Sceptron XB do require an external power supply, and hence need a P3 PowerPort between the network and the fixtures.
The protocol is also used between P3 System Controllers and P3 compatible LED video panels (such as VDO Face 5, EC-10, EC-20 and LC+ panels).
The P3 protocol can be used "out of the box" on Luminex GigaCore switches (both Gen1 and Gen2 switches). When controlling large amounts of pixels, some attention has to be paid to setup a correct network topology.
The protocol uses broadcast data for discovery and sync. Unicast is used to send data to the individual receivers. 520.000 pixels take up to 1 Gigabit/s of bandwidth. No settings on the GigaCore have to be changed for this to work.
When using the P3 Management, NDI, EDMX and P3 Output interfaces on the same network, it is recommended to separate these into different groups (VLANS).
When a P3 System Controller with multiple P3
output ports (P3-275 or P3-300) is used, it is mandatory to use separate groups
(VLANS) for each P3 output port.
Pay attention to not mix 100Mbit-only and
1Gbit-only P3 devices on the same daisy chain. Please use separate ports on the
Gigacore switches for 100Mbit-only and 1Gbit-only P3 devices.
When using large amounts of pixels in combination with an ISL Trunks between switches, the combined throughput of the NDI, EDMX and P3 Pixel data must be taken into account to calculate the needed bandwidth on this ISL.
When using the full output capacity of the P3 system controller's P3 ports, the ISL trunk between the switches needs to have enough bandwidth to handle this.
In the setup below, each P3-Data output is sent to a different switch, the P3 traffic on the ISL will not exceed 1Gbps in this scenario.
If we want to run additional data to the GigaCore 10t's (for example NDI, or sACN), we need to take the extra bandwidth into account.
For example, 32 universes of sACN is only +/- 8Mbps, but one HD (1080p60) NDI stream is +/- 130Mbps and one UHD/4K (2160p60) NDI stream needs +/-250Mbps.
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