Pakedge RK-1
Pakedge Device & Software says that other AV manufacturers claim Gigabit speeds for their routhers, but only have Gigabit ports. With its RK-1, Pakedge it was getting ready to release what it contends is the AV industry’s first truly Gigabit router designed for the custom AV market.
Purpose-designed for high volume and high speed applications, the RK-1 will be available in November. The RK-1’s speed and enterprise-grade reliability make it fully capable of meeting the challenges of a sophisticated, custom AV installation, according to the company.
“In an industry where 4K content is increasing, where there are multiple HD streaming services, data hungry AV devices, and ‘internet of things’ appliances impacting network traffic, integrators need equipment they can rely on,” said Benson Chan, VP of business development at Pakedge. “Our new RK router is capable of Gigabit speeds and has an average throughput of 950. It is the fastest AV router in the custom install market. Truly enterprise grade, the RK-1 was engineered with only the latest and greatest components. This Gigabit AV router is going to take the custom integration to the next level.”
Pakedge designed the RK-1 with a more powerful dual-core processor and increased CPU speeds to offer what it says is “lightning fast” performance. This allows the router to manage simultaneous streams of high bandwidth, low latency multimedia traffic including 4K and HD video, uncompressed audio, running Voice over IP (VOIP) telephones services, streaming video camera feeds, and supporting other automation control system applications. The enterprise grade router has five LAN ports, two WAN ports for failover, plus two USB 3.0 ports
Pakedge has created the RK-1 for fast and easy set up. It features the same simple management interface as the company’s RE series routers. Preconfigured Pakedge Zones allow installers to more easily segment voice, video, and data traffic onto distinct sub-networks. This enables diverse traffic types to co-exist, be processed more efficiently, and eliminate system conflicts. This makes network set up and installation quicker and easier, according to the company, and enables integrators to improve network performance and prevent broadcast storms and other problems on media streaming devices and security cameras. Integrators can also add more media streaming devices onto the network quickly and easily when required in the future.
The RK-1 incorporates other multimedia traffic management features, as well. These include Pakedge TruStream technology that distinguishes and prioritizes the processing of latency-sensitive traffic (e.g., VoIP traffic, streaming video) from other traffic and IGMP snooping that facilitates the proper operation of multicast media streaming devices within the network.
To offer peace of mind, the RK-1 integrates with the Pakedge Connect+ platform, an integrated system of switches, routers, wireless, power management, and software technologies, designed to work with each other to deliver seamless, scalable, and reliable multimedia performance.
The RK-1 will be eligible for Pakedge’s Custom Engineering program, which burns the integrator’s preferred configurations into the firmware. This means an integrator can still make configuration tweaks on a customized wireless, but can revert back to their preferred customisation by hitting the factory default button. This essentially condenses their best system integrator’s knowledge and experience directly into the devices. The Pakedge Custom Engineering is intended to help dealers scale their business a little more, extending their market reach to new customers more efficiently and effectively while still gaining a profit.
