For a long time, I’ve felt the need for a robust switch for my cart (and my Rigging Programmers setup) that would work well with my Zyxel switches, be powerful yet easy to set up, do great at multicast query and snooping and have a ton of POE power.  For a long time there were options that fit some of these criteria, but were very expensive or not actually that easy to use.  All of that has changed, and now there are two reasonably priced network switches that are available for around $600 each.  They are the Obsidian Control Systems NS8 and the Netgear M4250 GSM4210PD.  I’ve had some time to test both of them and I’d like to share my experience.

NS8

The kind folks at Obsidian Control Systems allowed me to test a pre-release version of the NS8 and it’s been pretty cool watching the software evolve quickly.  The build quality is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Netron- solid metal, about the size of the EN4 and similar weight. 

It has a total power budget of 100 watts and is capable to sending up to 30w down any port.  Though you are seeing six ports on the front, there are two ports on the back to allow for easy in and out daisy chaining.  Power is via Trueone connection.  Fun fact- all the colored LEDs can be changed to any color you want to indicate what each port should be used for!

The interface is simple and easy to navigate by logging directly into the IP address or by using the CLU software to discover.  EDIT: One thing confused me, and that is the prebuilt presets.  When I first read the manual, it looked like each preset places every port into a separate VLAN.  But upon closer reading, I see that the label for each port is something like VLAN A, VLAN B while in fact all the ports are on the same VLAN by default.

When I tested the unit on its own using Multicaster II, I got a very good 248 universe stress test result multiple times.  Behavior allowing console to console communication with Eos was excellent and reliable.

Advantages: Color per port, incredible ease of use, internal power supply, Netron support means you will be speaking to a person that understands lighting whenever you need help, ethercon ports, great price, comes in an IP66 rated chassis for a bit more money.

Disadvantages: Not the highest universe count achievable, no password lockout that I can see, not yet with a full scaled product line for larger installations.

Summary: An excellent option for many users at a great price and with lighting industry tech support.

M4250 GSM4210PD 

The smallest of the family, the M4250 GSM4210PD is a little powerhouse.  This series was created to specifically support the AV industry and thankfully, they more than included Lighting in that category.  With a total power budget of 110 watts of POE+, this device is ready to power your peripherals.  Though every identifier for this product talks about it having 8 ports, it actually has 10 RJ45 ports and one SFP port.  You can see 9 RJ45 ports here and the SFP port, while one more port is on the back with its own IP address to serve as an IT-access port for updates and system troubleshooting.  

The interface is easy, though I did have some interface issues while using Safari.  Selecting ports for configuration was intermittent on whether it would show my selection or not.  Switching to Chrome bypassed the issue.   

The software is built around profiles.  Basically, you select the function you need and then ports you want to be configured for that.  Here’s a list of the profiles:

• Audio AES67
• Audio Dante
• Audio Q-SYS
• Audio Soundgrid
• Audio Video AVB
• Creston DigitalMedia AV Network
• Data
• Lighting
• NUCLEUS Converged AV Network
• Shure Converged Audio and Control Network
• Shure Split Audio and Control Network
• Sonos
• Video
• Video NDI4
• Video NDI5 with Dante, Q-Sys or AES67 audio
• Video with AES67 audio
• Video with Dante audio
• Video with Q-SYS audio
• Visionary AV Network

I choose the Lighting Profile, assigned it to all front facing ports and it worked perfectly straight away.  Testing with Multicaster II revealed an astonishing 1016 universes supported.

Advantages: Huge universe count, easy setup and configuration, already part of a full product line that offers up to 48 ports and everything in between, great price.

Disadvantages: Non-lighting tech support (though Netgear tells me they have a team that only supports the AV line), external power brick on the smallest form factors, color coding of the ports of the interface is very small, no ethercon.

Summary: a tiny beast.

Conclusion

What’s great here is you have two amazing choices at a $600 price point.  Both are reputable companies that will be here for years to come and both take the mystery of configuring switches of multicast and simplify it greatly.  I’ve tested both for about a week each and have yet to make them stumble.  They’ve also worked really well with my Zyxel switches, so look for articles about setup for the next two weeks.