6. Setup And Administration, Continued

Both the Windows application and the web-based admin provide access to the same status information and configuration options, so I'll mostly show the Windows app, since its screens are better organized. Many of the controls (Multicast, VLAN, QoS) appear to be intended for use by the AV200's primary target market, IPTV service providers, with settings that are fairly cryptic. The User Guide at least explains what each setting is intended to do, but falls a bit short on providing consumer-level guidance on the how, when and why.

The MAC page lets you force an AV200 to End Point (EP) or Access Point (AP) mode - the latter only if you've entered a Network Identifier, however. Each AV200 network has a single AP and up to 31 EPs, with APs in charge of sharing channel access within the nodes of each network. If two or more networks share the same power lines, one of the access points becomes a "QoS Controller" (QC), which is responsible for controlling how the multiple networks share the OFDM spectrum to avoid collisions and interference. This determination is normally made automatically, and these settings are mainly needed in situations such as apartment buildings or hotels, where multiple networks might need to share the same power grid.

NOTE: Both HomePlug and DS2 200 Mbps based devices use OFDM as part of their base technologies. OFDM is a modulation technique also used by ADSL modems and 802.11a and g wireless networking products.

The Network Settings page contains the IP address controls for the device, letting you set static IP information or change to having the AV200 pick up the info via DHCP.

Figure 9 shows the PHY settings page, which I've included because I thought its function was interesting, if not a bit cryptic. All you get is Enable / Disable, so enable at your own risk.

Figure 9: PHY settings
(click image to enlarge)

Multimedia content is often distributed using IP multicasting, which allows the same content to be more efficiently delivered to multiple recipients. Figure 10 shows the AV200's Multicast settings, which allow bindings between adapter MAC addresses and multicast IP addresses. No bindings are set by default, and the results are saved in the adapter's non-volatile RAM (NVRAM).

Figure 10: Multicast settings
(click image to enlarge)