General Questions
Where can I find the installation and user manuals?
You will find all available instruction manuals in PDF form in the Documentation folder in your installer Zip file, also user guides are found under the Help tab of your installed application.
Operating Systems and Virtual PC’s
Q: Will my Starfish software run on Windows 10?
A: All recent releases of our currently available software are 64 bit applications and will run on production versions of Microsoft Windows 10 operating system – 64-bit versions. Any product that requires hardware interface cards should be verified with us first because 64-bit drivers are not available for certain cards.
Q: Do you still support Windows 7/ Windows 8?
A: Whilst some older versions of our software may still run on Windows 7/Server 2008 or Windows 8/Sever 2012, we no longer test, and therefore cannot guarantee support, on those operating systems.
Q: Can I run Starfish software on a virtual PC running on an Apple Mac or Linux?
A: No. Virtual PC software does not generally provide the required level of operating system compatibility to graphics card calls. Although some applications may work, no warranty can be given for operation on these platforms and therefore we cannot provide support for this type of installation.
Q: Can I run my Starfish software on a Microsoft virtual PC or VMWare test bed?
A: Some software will run in this mode, but the same limitations can appear as with virtual PCs on other operating systems. Please verify with Starfish Technologies before planning an installation.
Licencing Starfish Technologies products
Q: Can I use a virtual USB hub for my DK2 dongle instead of plugging it into the PC?
A: Whilst we understand from the manufacturers of the dongle that it can be achieved using certain makes of virtual USB hub that connect via IP, they do not guarantee operation with these devices. Anything that runs a DK2 networked server expects the dongle to be plugged directly into the physical PC upon which the license server is running. You cannot as far as we know run a DK2 license sever on a virtual PC successfully.
Overview of DK2 licence Dongles including installing a network licence
FAQ for Audio Description products
Advantage – Media Controls Keyboard Layout
FAQ for Transport Stream Splicing and Switching products
Hardware requirements for a single Channel TS Splicer
The CPU loading will be dependant on a number of factors including: The options chosen for the Splicer configuration i.e. GOP boundary or re-code mode, are Graphics overlays enabled and the input stream encoding format and bit rate. Please check with Starfish Technologies when your system requirements are finalised. As a guide, we would normally recommend a hardware specification that will support future system expansion such as:
Windows Server 2019 operating system, 16GB RAM, Intel Xeon Gold 6128 CPU or equivalent, small SSD for the OS (e.g. 120GB), larger SSD for data (240 GB), quad 1GB NIC.
Hardware requirements for a single Channel TS Splicer running on a VM
The CPU loading will be dependant on a number of factors including: The options chosen for the Splicer configuration i.e. GOP boundary or re-code mode, are Graphics overlays enabled and the input stream encoding format and bit rate. Please check with Starfish Technologies when your system requirements are finalised.
As an guide only: Windows Server 2019 operating system, for a system with an Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E7-8890 v3 @ 2.50GHz CPU we recommend assigning 4 cores and 4GB RAM.
