Machine Room Setup

[Jason Myres]

You need one of these for each machine: https://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproduct.jsp?prod_id=3866

One box is located in your machine room, the other in your edit bay. The 7500 works for two 1920×1200 displays, mouse, keyboard, audio, PS/2, and serial and requires six runs of CAT5 (per computer), but you can get away with four runs if you only need keyboard, mouse, and video.

Many people also swear by Avocent, but in my experience this is the most affordable way to do KVM extension that’s fast enough (i.e, no delay) for creative use.

JM

[Bob Zelin]

I built the Biscardi Creative facility. For my entire career, I have been using Gefen products, and they have always been “hit or miss”. We experienced this with the new Biscardi build. We used Gefen
CAT 5 5500 HD extenders, which worked in the old facility, but did NOT work with the new MAC Pro computers which have the ATI 5770 cards. They also had intermittent issues with the USB2 keyboard/mouse ports.

I can assure you that Avocent extenders are much more reliable, but you will pay a minimum of DOUBLE the price to accomplish this. A nice thing about the Avocent is that it uses a single Cat5e cable, instead of the 4 that are required for the Gefen. Again, most of my clients, including Biscardi would never spend the money for the Avocent.

Ultimately, for the problem systems, at the recommendation of WH Platts in Atlanta, we wound up switching to SMART DVI and USB extenders, which were less expensive than the Gefen boxes, and worked right away with the new MAC Pro’s.

There are countless manufacturers of extenders for DVI, USB, VGA, and HDMI. When I was at Pacific Radio in LA recently, all they carry is Intellix extenders (so I assume that a lot of LA houses use these). In addtion to Gefen, Avocent and Smart, there are lots of other companies that make these extenders. Atlona, and I/O Gear are some, just to name a few.

What you will find is that you will have better or worse luck with these products, depending on the vintage of your products, and the amount of money that you are willing to spend. I have installed more Gefen extenders than any other brand over the course of my career, and I have consistantly seen Gefen products become more “stable” as a product has been on the market for a while. When a new product shows up (like the new MAC Pro’s with ATI 5770 and 5870 cards), what was a “stable” box is no more stable. I have seen this with even the cheapest $29 DVI extender – the I/O Gear passive DVI extender that works with a single CAT5e cable. Atlona also sells this passive extender, but also sells more expensive powered DVI extenders.

Of course, you – like everyone else, wants to accomplish this for the lowest possible price. That is how I tried out the passive DVI extenders (and matching USB extenders). This is the journey of a systems integrator – you just want to get one working box, that does everything, and works for every product – it’s doesn’t work that way. You have to try different things. If money was no object, the Avocent is teriffic, but almost no one I know is wililng to spend that kind of money for a KVM extender.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/570008-REG/Smart_AVI_DVX_200MS_DVX_200MS_Cat_6_Digital.html

this is a Smart DVI extender that worked at the Biscardi facility.
An excellent dealer to work with is WH Platts in Atlanta. They are very familiar with the line.

Bob Zelin

[Andrew Richards]

I can also report a fair amount of attrition with Gefen equipment. I’ve used it over the years at a few facilities where I worked and we consistently had boxes fail and require a mail-in replacement. It led us to keep spares on hand. So if you are only doing a couple machines, springing for the Avocent might actually be cheaper than buying cold spare Gefen boxes to guarantee your uptime.

Best,
Andy Richards

VP of Product Development
Keeper Technology

[Drew Lahat]

I have to concur about Gefen KVM extenders. I installed/supported them at at least 3 facilities, and have always had problems. Gefen support blames your wiring or interference in the cable’s path, and because of the intermittent nature of the problem, by the time the client is fed up and you’ve done all the testing you can it might be past the 30-day return/exchange window.

My recommendation, if possible, is to use fiber. I’ve used those for DVI extension only but they were much more reliable. Check out Gefen DVI-3500HD or ThinkLogical VelocityKVM-24. With those though it might be cheaper to get Avocent. Just make sure you’re getting a full-bandwidth KVM and not some compressed or IP-based solution. Avocent rules the enterprise server market, but as you know running an Avid or Da Vinci session requires instant GUI interaction at full quality. You don’t want it to feel like you remote’d in from home.

It should be appropriate to plug here my article from TFWM about signal extenders: https://www.tfwm.com/0810longdistance

p.s. I love Pac Rad, but I’ve been in lots of places in L.A. and can’t recall seeing any Intellix extenders. It’s really mostly Gefen, for better or worse.

[Walter Soyka]

A lot of these products are single-link only. Does anyone have a recommendation for dual-link DVI extension?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Bob Zelin]

Gefen makes a wonderful Dual Link extender/booster. The only problem is that you need to purchase the expensive Gefen cable, which costs more than the Gefen DVI booster. I have used this product without issue, even with 30″ Apple monitors. This Gefen product has been MUCH more reliable than their standard CAT5e extenders.

https://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproduct.jsp?prod_id=4999

this product is only $249 and works great, but I have tried it with non gefen cables (cheaper DVI cables) and it did NOT work.

Bob Zelin

[Walter Soyka]

Thank you, Bob.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Andrew Richards]

I’ve even had continual trouble with the Gefen fiber DVI extenders. I had ports on several boxes go dark on the last batch. And I can also backup the experience of their support bending over backwards to blame the user.

When they work, they work. But they do break often.

Best,
Andy Richards

VP of Product Development
Keeper Technology

[Bob Zelin]

Andrew writes –

“And I can also backup the experience of their support bending over backwards to blame the user.”

REPLY –
this is exactly what happened to me, and Walter Biscardi, and WH Platts – we are all idiots, and we did not know how to use the Gefen equipment properly. It was our fault.

Like I said, the SMART DVI extenders worked fine in this instance (with the same CAT6 cabling).

Bob Zelin