Crystal and potential customers sometimes take for granted the features that come with every CrystalVision system and the options that are available to add to it. In fact, some of these functions have come standard with CrystalVision since 1990 (while our competitors are just now adding them to their lineup). It’s one more way of demonstrating that our software is designed for broadcast customers.

Manage Your Network

Monitor & Control All of Your Facilities

Manage your entire network of equipment from centralized or distributed locations worldwide, limited only by the ability to connect to each location. Configure systems without ever physically being at the remote location - even thousands of miles away.

CrystalVision NMC can control devices in control rooms, unmanned shelters, and redundant sites, whether the equipment is across the street or across the world using Ethernet, SNMP, LAN, WAN, satellite, and even dial-up connections.

Control Your System from Your Desktop

Want to see and operate your CrystalVision system with your own familiar Windows® desktop or laptop? Now you can!

Using a LAN/WAN or dial-up connection, you can connect to your CrystalVision system or Comtrol Device Master and view, control, configure, and manage your equipment. Only the user interface resides on your Windows machine; all system commands, scripts, logging, scheduling, and device drivers remain on a real-time CrystalVision computer. 

See Technical Overview for a more technical explanation.

Control Your System Remotely

Log on via the internet or your LAN using a web browser to troubleshoot problems. This tool is strictly for engineers who need access remotely. Using this tool, you can browse logs, monitor equipment, control equipment and manage your system.

Control SNMP Devices and Managers

Crystal's Network Management Software allows for both device and manager of manager's SNMP connections, making virtually all types of interfaces to third party software packages possible.

These connections allow you to see and control your other systems from within CrystalVision and to see and control CrystalVision from other systems. In the latter situation, we use comprehensive security administration to maintain the security of your CrystalVision system.

SNMP-based device drivers are implemented by populating a translation table that the SNMP manager uses to convert MIB objects to and from Crystal’s common format. The MIB Translation Table is used to decide which SNMP parameters are to be polled and how frequently. It also allows the user to assign any SNMP parameter as a fault. Each individual status and fault point in CrystalVision NMC can be configured to generate a trap when a change occurs.

A screen is then built that links widgets to those common format objects for display and user entry. The SNMP manager supports versions 1 and 2c messages and version 2c traps. It also allows the user to write his own MIB Translation Table for new devices as they come available.

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Stay Up and Running

Back Up Your Equipment

Protection switching ensures that your signal is not interrupted in the event of equipment failure. You can buy protection switches OR you can use CrystalVision's much more flexible, powerful, and FAST protection switching software option. This is when real-time becomes so important. When CrystalVision executes a protection switch, there is no database table, no query, no delay; just a high-priority message transmitted directly to the device(s) on the fastest network available.

As part of our automation tools, protection switching has long been a powerful feature of our software. Protection switching executes scripts when a certain circumstance happens. These circumstances and their associated scripts are stored in what we call a rules table. CrystalVision "reads" this rules table using rules-based processing. It can be as simple as a primary unit with a single backup (1:1) or it can involve an unlimited number of primary and backup units (m:n).

For example, if there is a major alarm indicated by an HPA, a script will execute to switch to a backup HPA - or even a backup site if all HPAs at one site are not available. Or a script can display an alert if a downlink signal deteriorates due to rain attenuation. The system displays an alert when an equipment or signal failure occurs.

Redundant equipment, chains, or entire sites can be automatically switched over to minimize or eliminate service downtime. Switching to backup equipment or sites occurs in milliseconds and is achieved by priority tasking. If a failure occurs, the software immediately goes to the front of the task list and executes any associated actions.

Back Up Your Monitor and Control System

Equipment Node Redundancy gives you the assurance that in the event of a main equipment node failure, your system will continue to operate with only an alarm notification to interrupt your operator. Although redundancy can be accomplished with two computers, it is usually more efficient to use redundant hard disks or power supplies. See these options on our technical overview page under Hardware.

Back Up Your Site

In these uncertain times it is better to be prepared for the unexpected events of the world. Don’t get caught without a plan for continuing your uplink or downlink without interruption.

What do you do if for some reason you have to evacuate personnel from your facility? What if you have constant weather-related outages on a mission-critical uplink or downlink? What if you are thousands of miles away and you have a critical need for information on your uplink or downlink? Crystal has the answer: the Business Continuity Option.

CrystalVision Network Management & Control can provide you remote PC-based Microsoft Windows® access to an unmanned facility via Internet, Dial-up, or WAN and is only limited by the bandwidth of the connection from the remote site to the primary site. See and do remotely everything that you can already see and do on-site with the CrystalVision NMC Microsoft Windows® GUI/Business Continuity option.

CrystalVision NMC also offers Site Diversity. Through our rules-based processor, we can switch your downlink or uplink equipment, chains, or entire site to a backup location that you designate. This process takes milliseconds to occur and is dependent on the connection you provide between locations. Site diversity is ideal for operations that have a need for disaster recovery in the event of weather problems, natural disaster or terrorist activity.

Crystal is the only company to have implemented the site diversity feature. One of our direct-to-home customers has been using site diversity since 1999 to automatically switch over 30 digital uplink chains from a primary site to a diverse site and back whenever weather becomes detrimental.

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Manage Your System

Control Access

CrystalVision provides for password protection that is both easy to configure and versatile in operation. All security changes can be made while the system is online.

The System Administrator will typically have special rights and access codes. Users are then assigned access to one or more security levels. (A default user is defined as having access to no equipment, therefore forcing a user to log on in order to access equipment.)

Security levels are defined by allowing or prohibiting access to a set of equipment and/or attributes. For example, an "equipment set" can be as general as 1) all upconverters and HPAs or as specific as 2) upconverter 1’s attenuation only and HPA's RF inhibit only.

A device can be assigned to an individual(s) or to a group(s). Only those users with that individual or group are permitted to control that device.

The administrator can set up a user to be logged off automatically after a defined number of minutes since log on (i.e. 8 hour shift for operators), or a defined number of minutes since last activity.

Schedule Maintenance and Retire Failing Equipment

All commands and status changes are logged to a Main Event Log. Each message includes the date and time of the change, the device and parameter that changed, and the node from which the command was initiated. Activities such as log on, log off, maintenance mode, and the status of all nodes are also logged.

Additional logs can be set up for your specific requirements (such as all HPA activity logged to its own file).

The log can be searched and filtered while the system is online. The log can also be archived on a daily, weekly, monthly, or size basis. Custom archiving can be set up. The logs are maintained in a space-delimited ASCII format that is database compatible.

We're now offering an HPA maintenance report to uplink sites that require it to satisfy FCC regulations. See What's New for details.

For more analysis flexibility, CrystalVision NMC can send real-time, time-stamped status changes to an external database. This external database maintains a user-configurable number of historical changes that allows trending, graphing, and analysis of the data stored in the database. Use multiple trending databases for multiple trending analyses.

This function takes periodic snapshots of the devices attached to the CrystalVision NMC and records the values into a MySQL database. Alarms are also automatically recorded. The database can then be queried to plot or extract any device-related data point.

For example, an engineer may want to plot HPA power during the last thunderstorm to see how well the Uplink Power Control is working. Or a manager may want to find out when various operators log on and off. Or another engineer may want to look at a history of arc faults on a Klystron. You’re probably already thinking of other device and user patterns that you’ve always wanted to know.

The database function normally resides on a separate computer that is attached to both the CrystalVision NMC network and the customer's network. Database inquires can be made though almost any connection including TCP/IP, C++, JDBC Type IV 3.0 API, or ODBC 3.51 specification Level 1 for connectivity to Microsoft applications such as Access or programming interfaces such as Visual Basic and Borland Delphi. The database supports APIs for .NET, DBI/Perl, Ruby, Python, and PHP.

Database queries can be made using web-based forms, canned queries, Windows® GUI (MyCC or something similar), SQL reporting applications such as Crystal Reports®, or SQL command-line. (Crystal Reports is a product of Crystal Decisions, Inc.; it is not affiliated with Crystal Computer Corporation.) Graphs are auto-ranging and can be line, bar, or pie charts.

If the day comes that this database becomes critical for your daily operations, it can be distributed among several computers for redundancy.

There's more to come! Future database projects include MySQL to SNMP and MySQL to XML conversion for seamless reporting to other management systems.

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Keep Your System Updated

A Configuration Package is available that enables you to modify, create, or delete your own windows. You can also add, move, and delete devices. The Configuration Package gives you the ability to make system changes as often as required and can be purchased in conjunction with your CrystalVision system or after installation has been completed.

This package includes the Tilcon Editor, Crystal Engineering Tools, and a 3-day training course at Crystal facilities (transportation and expenses not included). The Tilcon editor is a CAD-like drawing package that is extremely flexible. Using its cut and paste capabilities, you can design your windows quickly and easily. You won't even have to reboot to make the new windows live.

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Let CrystalVision Do the Work for You

Automate Your Feeds

One of the most desired features of a monitor and control system is automation. Crystal's automation scheme is called scripts and they can be used for:

Macros	executed manually by an operator
Scheduled Events	executed by a timer - see Schedule
Protection Switching	executed by a certain circumstance, usually for backup purposes - this feature is an option
Custom	executed by any user-defined circumstance(s) - this feature is an option

An operator can create a script - online - by placing the CrystalVision system into record mode. All commands executed during this mode are recorded into a file until the operator terminates the recording. These commands are not sent to the devices. This file can be edited and made more intelligent, online, using simple Boolean operands and/or Perl or Korn shell programming languages.

Scripts are used extensively for a number of system functions such as remote boots, viewing log files and file synchronization. They allow a means to control any attribute on any device and allow third party software a gateway to interact with the CrystalVision system.

The brains behind CrystalVision scripts is its rules-based processor. The function of scripts makes the CrystalVision system a very strong, flexible and reliable tool for the monitoring and control of broadcast equipment for an earth station, teleport or television station. The added ability to interact with other systems, such as automation and scheduling, makes CrystalVision a key component to your overall data and facilities management system.

CrystalVision also comes with an event scheduler that is practical and flexible. It provides on-screen status as well as a synopsis of upcoming events.

CrystalVision's Schedule allows single or recurring events (script files) to be programmed in advance. For example, an event could be scheduled for a downlink feed that occurs every week at the same time. The script for this event would begin executing a few minutes before the down link time. The event would:

• Position an antenna
• Tune a receiver
• Start a VTR in record mode

Alternatively, an event could simply pop up a window that contains a reminder to perform a certain task.

Events are created, enabled, disabled, viewed, modified, and deleted from the schedule window - online - which is invoked using the menu at the top of the main window.

Scheduled events are stored in an event table and consist of the name of a script and a time and date to execute that script. The number of events is limited only by disk and memory space. When the scheduler begins a script, the action is recorded in the log. You can even run multiple schedulers for different departments to use.

This feature provides the opportunity to read device status and calculate “if-then-else” and “do while” conditional logic.

For further event automation including conflict detection and per episode editing, see our new Crystal Content Ingest System.

Automate Your Router Selections

Smart Router enables automatic router path selection based on satellite and transponder selections made from the receiver, IRD, or L-Band router device windows. This allows you to free up ports on the output side of your router.
Here's how it works: from the receiver/IRD window, the operator selects an antenna. The name of the bird to which the antenna is pointed is displayed and the list of transponders for that bird is updated. The operator selects the transponder. At this point, commands are sent to the receiver/IRD to select the correct frequency, ... and to the router to send the appropriate feed from the selected antenna to the receiver/IRD device.

With this option, you can use a smaller L-Band router and fewer receivers/IRDs, and do all the routing by picking an antenna and transponder from the receiver/IRD screen.

For more explanation, see the smart router page.

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Monitor & Automate Your Uplink Signal

CrystalVision can implement Automatic Uplink Power Control (AUPC) though software control and a beacon receiver, radiometer, or other signal source. This option is used to increase transmit power or upconverter gain automatically in the event of rain or cloud cover. A single beacon receiver (or other signal source) can be used to control uplink power on multiple HPAs.

If an HPA is configured for AUPC, the HPA device window will contain an On/Off button to enable or disable AUPC and a receive-signal indicator. The receive-signal indicates in dBs what the beacon receiver signal level is - in reference to clear sky.

CrystalVision can use more than one beacon receiver or radiometer as primary and backup sources of attenuation measurements.

EIRP monitoring provides you the assurance that your uplink signal power levels are in acceptable ranges. In situations where monitoring the downlink is not possible or there are strict uplink power level guidelines, the CrystalVision system can provide an excellent solution.

EIRP monitoring takes a small portion of the signal being transmitted by the antenna and feeds that back to a measuring device. The CrystalVision system can then take that reading, perform calculations and determine if the signal is in an acceptable range.

The CrystalVision system has two modules for Effective Isotropic Radiated Power monitoring. One module is used in conjunction with a meter source. This module will take EIRP measurements from only one measuring device and display that reading. The second module is used with a spectrum analyzer and can contain up to 30 preset calibrations. Different uplink signals from the same antenna feed or uplink signals from multiple antenna feeds can be monitored using this second module.

Make Sure You're On the Bird

The purpose of the Carrier Monitoring System (CMS) is to periodically compare an uplink or downlink carrier against a known good baseline and generate an alarm when there is a significant deviation from that baseline. The CMS requires a spectrum analyzer, power meter, or signal generator (and an optional input switch if multiple carriers from multiple sources are to be monitored).

CMS uses a power meter to calibrate the signal generator's signal. Using a signal injected into the down link path as a real-time reference, a spectrum analyzer takes multiple measurements of the monitored carrier to determine the optimal carrier pattern.

CrystalVision's CMS displays signal strength using a graph. The baseline is represented by a green line, the monitored carrier by red. If 5% of the points deviate more than 5% from the baseline, a minor alarm is generated. If 5% of the points deviate more than 10% from the baseline or if 10% of the points deviate more than 5% from the baseline, a major alarm is generated.

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Monitor Your Equipment

Follow Your Signal Flow

CrystalVision includes dynamic colored paths that verify signal flow through your uplink and downlink chains. This feature allows the operator to see at a glance what path is being followed. Each potential path is colored differently to allow for a clear distinction of each path. When a waveguide changes position, the dynamic colored path line automatically follows the new output path in real time. If a device goes offline, the colored line ends at its icon.

If two signals are combined, the resulting signal is changed in color at the combiner to indicate the combined signal. Any fault in the equipment chain causes alarms and a change in the dynamic colored path line to alarm status.

Customize Alarm Settings

Don't crowd your user interface with alarms that can wait. CrystalVision comes with configurable alarm settings. A minor or major alarms makes the Faults button flash yellow or red. You can then display a list of all uncleared faults by clicking on the Faults button. From here, you can go to the device that is producing the error or mask the fault.

Alarms can be filtered to only provide an alert when certain defined criteria is met. You can define which alarms are major and which are minor. Major alarms appear red while minor alarms appear yellow. Masked alarms appear white. All faults can be logged for easy trending and charting analysis.

Alarms can be set online to provide audible, pager, e-mail, or visual (via contact closure) alerts.

For cue tone monitoring alarms, see What's New.

Set Device Status

CrystalVision provides a comprehensive set of Operational Modes designed to show device status and assist in equipment maintenance:

• Clear
• Busy
• Maintenance
• Unavailable
• Uninstalled

Busy mode is used to keep other operators from using a particular device. An operator or a script can put a device into busy mode and, optionally, indicate the time and reason. A timer can be set to automatically remove a device from busy mode after a specified time period.

Maintenance permits engineers to control and view an offline device without disturbing operations with error messages. Unlike other control systems, CrystalVision continues to poll devices that are maintenance mode. We also provide a test mode which allows an engineer and/or Crystal to view the communications between CrystalVision and the device.

You can set a device to unavailable if you wish it to no longer respond to polls.

Control Your Spectrum Analyzer Remotely

CrystalVision's spectrum analyzer option provides an interface to monitor and control local or remote spectrum analyzers. View the spectrum analyzer window while peaking on the satellite or bringing up a carrier.

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Don't Get Stuck

CrystalVision includes a complete on-line help and training guide as well as mouse-over information for each device attribute and field.

If this doesn't help you, call us for free support for 90 days after installation. After that, sign up for one of our 3 support plans if you feel you'll need ongoing help.

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