Fleet Commander About Comrex 3 Preface 4 About Fleet Commander 4 Getting Started 6 Installation 6 First time launch 6 Instances 6 Tiles and Devices 7 Active device 7 Adding Devices to Fleet Commander 7 Controlling and Managing your Codecs 9 Adding Peers (Remotes) 9 Adding Profiles 9 Editing Profiles 10 Removing Peers/Profiles 10 Copying Peers and Profiles to other Devices 10 Adding Licenses 11 Metering 12 Settings 13 Connecting 14 Disconnecting 14 Fleet C
Using and Setting the Default Profile 14 Switchboard Peers 15 CrossLock 15 Statistics 17 Miscellaneous Topics 18 SCHEDULING CONNECTIONS between units 18 Peer/Profile Filtering 20 Resizing the Panes 20 Recommended System 20 LOGGING 21 FAQ 23 licenses 24
About Comrex Comrex has been building reliable, high quality broadcast equipment since 1961. Our products are used daily in every part of the world by networks, stations and program producers. Every product we manufacture has been carefully designed to function flawlessly, under the harshest conditions, over many years of use. Each unit we ship has been individually and thoroughly tested. Comrex stands behind its products.
I. Preface About Fleet Commander Fleet Commander is a Microsoft Windows™ application designed to manage a fleet of Comrex audio codecs. Fleet Commander can provide near-universal control of any Comrex BRIC-Link, BRIC-Link II, ACCESS Portable, ACCESS 2USB, or ACCESS Rack codec, from a single control interface. Fleet Commander is compatible with codec firmware 3.x and higher only. Fleet Commander has all the control capability of the built-in, browser-based control page of Comrex codecs.
The figure above shows Fleet Commander with three instances added. NicoleR is selected and connected to a codec with metering enabled. Conference Room ACCESS and EricS ACCESS Rack are idle and ready to connect.
II. Getting Started Installation Fleet Commander is installed via a Windows executable file that is downloaded from the Comrex website. It has been tested to work properly under Windows 7, 8 and 10. On launching the executable, Windows may provide a warning that the publisher is unknown. You must agree to install Fleet Commander, and agree to the End User License Agreement when it is presented. You will be prompted for an install directory (default is C:\Program Files (x86)\Comrex\Fleet Commander) and ask
Tiles and Devices When Fleet Commander is first opened, there are two view options. The default view is Stats Table. By selecting View then Tiled, you will see the instances in the top section as “tiles” and as more instances are added, these tiles will pile up into a two-column grid. Each tile shows a representation of the audio meters on the product, along with the unit name and the current status (idle, online etc). Units that aren’t fully connected will have a slightly darker gray background.
If the unit has an alternate password, then the connection will fail, the unit tile will display Device Login Failed, and a pop-up asking for the correct password will appear. If you close the password prompt, you can re-open it by right clicking the appropriate tile and selecting Input Password.
III. Controlling and Managing your Codecs Adding Peers (Remotes) To add a peer to the device’s peer list, select the device in the summary pane, and select the Connections tab in the details pane. Right click the peer list and select Add Peer..., fill out the form that appears, and click OK. The peer will be added to the device. Adding Profiles To add a profile to the active device’s profile list, you must make a copy of an existing profile.
Editing Profiles Right click the profile you wish to edit and select Edit Profile from the drop-down menu. A profile editor will pop up. Use the profile editor to make your desired changes and then click Save. For more information on Profiles and settings associated with them, please consult your product manual. NOTE: You cannot remove or edit factory profiles, but you can duplicate a factory peer and edit the duplicated profile.
Adding Licenses Fleet Commander allows you to add licensed features to Comrex hardware. License keys are provided by Comrex support for specific features like Switchboard and specific encoders/profiles (If not included by default). To add licenses to a device under Fleet Commander, right click the desired device tile and select Licenses… from the drop-down menu. The next window popup is where you can view and apply licenses to the units.
Metering Each device under Fleet Commander will be metered. This feature can consume a fair amount of bandwidth, and requires a well performing network to work correctly. Metering can be disabled, and is done so on a per-device basis. By default, metering is turned on for each device added to Fleet Commander. If you notice metering is not working for a few devices, or if you want to save data on a connection, we recommend you disable metering.
To re-enable it, right click the device and select Enable Metering. Settings Fleet Commander allows you to change your device settings. These settings are the same available via the unit’s Web-based Interface or Touchscreen Interface, and are described in the user manual for the codec. To modify device settings, select your device, and click the Settings tab, located in the Details pane. Choose a setting on the left panel, and edit it on the right panel.
WARNING: The Settings editor, (under Security), allows you to change a setting titled Remote Control. Exercise caution when setting this to “false”. If you do, this will disable the mechanism by which every interface, including Fleet Commander, can operate this device. The only way to re-enable this feature is to re-enable it on the device’s console GUI which requires you have physical access to the device. Connecting Select a device and open the Connections tab. Next, choose a peer from the list.
Switchboard Peers Switchboard is an optional feature. It employs a cloud-based server that synchronizes with a codec fleet, displays presence information, and aids in connection. Fleet Commander handles Switchboard functionality. On configured and licensed units, Switchboard peers appear in the Connections peer list. Switchboard peers have colored asterisk icons next to their name in the peer list. A gray icon indicates the remote peer cannot reach the Switchboard server.
If CrossLock is utilized, the CrossLock tab will show real-time statistics from the CrossLock layer. This includes error correction activity as well as how data is allocated if using multiple networks. As shown in Figure 10, the data rate graph moves from right to left over a window of 60 seconds, and has different colors to indicate the total data rate used for each network. CrossLock is able to provide these graphs for both directions in the link.
Statistics Fleet Commander offers connection statistics similar to the ones provided by the ACCESS, BRIC-Link and BRIC-Link II web interfaces. To view these stats, select a device and click on the Statistics tab. This tab displays a list of connected devices and two graphs that represent the quality of the incoming connection. All connected devices under Fleet Commander retain a thirty second history until they disconnect. The graphs convey information for one connected peer at a time.
IV. Miscellaneous Topics SCHEDULING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN UNITS Fleet Commander allows users to schedule the timing and duration of connections between units. These connections can be made on a one-time basis or on a recurring daily or weekly basis. This means that customers who regularly establish connections between given Comrex units (e.g., daily or weekly radio broadcasts) only need to set up the scheduled connections between their units once and no longer have to manually establish these connections.
Next, select the target peer unit (i.e., the unit you want to connect to) from the drop-down menu as shown in Figure 2. Figure 3 SCHEDULE THE DATE/TIME THE CONNECTION WILL BEGIN AND END Finally, select the dates and times when the connection will begin and end using the buttons on the left side of the screen as shown in Figure 3. By default, scheduled connections are not set to repeat.
Peer/Profile Filtering You can filter the peer and profile lists on the Connections tab by typing in the boxes underneath each list. This makes it easier to find what you’re looking for on systems with many peers and profiles. Filters that yield no results cause the background to turn red. When a filter is active, the filter box background becomes bright yellow. To remove the filter, simply remove all text from the appropriate filter box. Figure 4 The profile filter is active with a filter of “HE-.
LOGGING The Logging feature allows a user to log all activity while the feature is enabled and to view all activity on the unit since they last logged into it. The log contains valuable information like when audio connections start and stop and when a connection loss percentage reached a significant threshold. Customers can use the log to debug connection failures and to determine if an audio connection dropped due to user error or bad network conditions.
Figure 6 SAVING and resetting LOGS The best way for users to maintain longterm records of a unit’s performance is to save the unit’s logs on a regular basis. To do this, select the “Log” tab in the middle of the screen and click the “Save” button in the lower right corner, as shown in Figure 6. The log will be saved as a .txt file. In order to ensure optimal performance in Fleet Commander, Comrex also recommends that users reset their logs after they’ve saved them.
FAQ What is Fleet Commander? Fleet commander is a program that lets you manage and operate multiple ACCESS and BRIC-Link units from a single application. Does it run on Windows? Yes. Does it run on OS X? Not yet, but we are working on a port that will run on intel-based Mac computers. Does it run on Linux? We aren’t planning on it, but it isn’t impossible. What does Fleet Commander control? Fleet Commander will manage all ACCESS codecs, BRIC-Links and BRIC-Link IIs running firmware versions 3.x and higher.
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