Demonstration of Issues with Multicast and IGMP Snooping in Inexpensive Unmanaged Network Switches for Shows and Entertainment Applications

In recent years, the use of multicast has grown and—especially in lighting control—has created some issues, especially when running cheap, unmanaged switches. For me, I have to see things to understand them, so I set up a bunch of computers and switches in my little lab space, and did some experiments; then I made a video to share with you.

Here’s the video description:

Show networks are now a backbone technology for live shows. However, not all network switches are created equal. One problem with cheap, unmanaged switches is that they don't handle multicast well, and multicast is widely used in lighting control for sACN, in audio distribution using protocols like Audinate's Dante, and some video streaming protocols. In this video, John Huntington, author of Introduction to Show Networking, demonstrates some of the issues with multicast when not well implemented.

As usual, much more information on show and entertainment networking in my book.

Here’s the video: