Cobalt Digital COMPASS 9284 3G_HD_SD-SDI 8X4 Video Routing Switch - Manual (Page 12)

1
9284 Functional Description
1-8 9284 PRODUCT MANUAL 9284-OM (V1.3)
The DashBoard™ software can be downloaded from the Cobalt Digital Inc.
website: www.cobaltdigital.com (enter “DashBoard” in the search window).
The DashBoard™ user interface is described in Chapter 3,“Operating
Instructions”.
Note: If network remote control is to be used for the frame and the frame has not yet
been set up for remote control, Cobalt ® reference guide Remote Control
User Guide (PN 9000RCS-RM) provides thorough information and
step-by-step instructions for setting up network remote control of COMPASS
®
cards using DashBoard™.
Download a copy of this guide by clicking on the Support>Reference Docu-
ments link at www.cobaltdigital.com and then select DashBoard Remote
Control Setup Guide as a download, or contact Cobalt
® as listed in Contact
Cobalt Digital Inc. (p. 1-26).
Serial Control Interface
The 9284 rear module is equipped with an RS-232 serial control connector
which provides a generic Command String Protocol interface between this
card and external control systems. The RS-232 serial control port supports
baud rates of 9600, 38400, and 115200.
RS-232 pinout is as follows:
• Pin 2……….TX
• Pin 3……….RX
• Pin 5……….GND
Generic Protocol
Commands are sent to a routing switcher in a group called a command string.
A command string can contain zero or more commands, limited only by the
size of the receive buffer of the router, whose size depends on the particular
router model. A command string consists of a leader string of asterisk
characters, zero or more commands, and a trailer string of exclamation marks.
Larger Routing Switchers require two leader (
** ) and trailer ( !! ) characters,
while small Routing Switchers require only one, in order to make the protocol
compact for those Routing Switchers. The remainder of this document gives
examples using doubled characters. Note that two leader/trailer characters
may be sent to small Routing Switchers even when only one is required, and
they will still work fine.
If a leader character ( ** ) is encountered within a command string being
processed by a router, the string up to that point is discarded and a new
command string is expected. This ensures that a router will always act on a
complete command string sent to it, even if the previous one was never
completely received.