Livewire Channel Numbering
Scope
This document discusses a recommended Livewire Channel numbering scheme. This applies to all devices that support Livewire.
Description
When setting up an AoIP network using Livewire, it's important to assign channel numbers to sources, each of which is unique to the network. Like IP addresses, you do not want to have more than one source on the network using the same Livewire channel number. So it's important to develop a strategy at the beginning of the installation and stick to it.
Our Strategy
There are many ways to do this, but we've always liked to use the device's IP address to determine the range of the channel numbers for that device. Typically, we'll use digits in the last byte of the IP address as the first digits in the channel number.
Take an xNode for example. In most configurations, the xNode will have 4 stereo sources. Say this xNode's IP address is 192.168.2.123. The 4 sources for this xNode should be 12301, 12302, 12303, and 12304.
This provides a few advantages:
- By looking at the channel number, we can immediately tell what the device's IP address is
- By looking at the channel number, we can immediately tell which xNode input the source is tied to.
- Since each device will have a different IP address, the odds of having a duplicate channel is dramatically decreased
Exceptions
There are a few exceptions to this strategy that would require some deviation. The most obvious one is with devices like PowerStation, where the number of LW outputs to the network can be greater than the number of channels available in the range. In this case, an additional range should be chosen to avoid conflicts. Luckily, the PowerStation's internal switch uses its own IP address and is not able to generate LW sources, so its range can be used to augment the channel number range of the device.
Another way to get around this is to use the channel numbers that don't appear in a normal range using this strategy, like channels 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
Also, the highest channel number available is 32767. Since the highest IP address in our example subnet is 192.168.2.254, channels 25500 - 32767 can be used for additional sources that don't fit in our strategy.
Whatever is done, remember that it's ultimately up to the user to pick a strategy, stick to it, and remember what it is.
Let us know how we can help
If you have further questions on this topic or have ideas about how we can improve this document, please contact us.
