The new Hippotizer V3 system is designed around a very flexible network system called Hipponet. Hipponet used standard Office network technology to allow multiple Hippotizers and external computers to talk together as if they were one big Hippotizer.

The various elements that make up a Hippotizer system such as the media manager, the control screen, the media encoder the DMX inputs and all the other functions are actually completely separate components that talk to each other over the Hipponet network. Even if you are only using one Hippotizer, it will still treat all these functions as separate components but on the same host.

A Hippotizer system is made up of a number of blocks called “Components”, each component has a specific job such as running the control screen, outputting video to projectors or screens, listening to DMX and so on… On a stand alone Hippotizer, there may be up to 50 components all doing their job at the same time – and although this is completely invisible to the user, each component talks to the others using a system called Hipponet.
On a single machine this is hardly noticeable, however Hipponet is very similar to an office network, which means that we can take any of the components that run on one machine and place them onto another computer or Hippotizer on the same network. This means that we can monitor the outputs of the Hippotizer in one place, upload and encode media from another, and program the show from another still.
An because each component doesn’t care which machine it is on, we can have as many Hippotizers in the system as we want, and be able to monitor and control them all from one place.
As an example, we have 3 Hippotizers that are generating the video outputs that drive the projectors., some are just driving single outputs and some are grouped together to create a soft edge blended widescreen. Each Hippotizer has 2 outputs so we only need 3 Hippotizers to drive 6 outputs.
Next we have the master show controller, this has the User interface that allows control and programming of all of the Hippotizers from the control room, it also has a timeline and cuelist so that the whole show can be stored on this machine. This is connected to a lighting board that allows certain sequences to be triggered along with the lighting changes in the show.
The video designer can use his laptop to see what is going on with the Hipotizers, he can monitor what is happening on any layer on any machine and he can view, modify and upload content however he wishes even whilst a show is in progress.

A dedicated media management machine allows for large amounts of content to be automatically encoded and uploaded to the Hippotizers as it is being made, often during rehearsals – this saves precious time by not having to take the show Hippotizers off-line.
Another computer has been loaded with an RS232 and Midi Component to allow the Hipponet network to control external devices such as Matrix switchers VCR’s and Cameras.
For the Stage management, and lighting designer we have provided remote monitoring stations which can be configured to display any combination of outputs from the Hippotizer System.

The most important thing to ensure is that all the Hipponet devices on the network have their network ports set to the same IP address range and workgroup. For example if one machine is configured with an IP of 192.168.0.5 and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 then all the other devices need to have an address that starts with 192.168.0.X where x can be any number from 0 to 255.

As long as the ip range is correct then all the Hipponet devices should find each other and configure themselves automatically.
Important info:
1. Zookeeper will not work properly on Vista. Use XP only

2. The language pack on the laptop must be set to English

3. Use a Gigabyte network, remember that cat5/ cat6 cabels can not be to long with Hipponet, with fiber you will get the best performance
that you need to run a remote ZooKeeper for long distances, or problems can show up.

4. On dmx the total of output engines are 8 . dmx can only control 8 layers in any output mode.
This means you can only run 4 layers per output if you want to control 2 outputs over dmx.

5. The workgroup settings are important, check that you have ALL units are on the same workgroup.Also the ZooKeeper.

PS.Some times the ports are named wrong, this will make the Artnet loosing the IP numbers to the HippoNet instead.
How to fix this:

Because of one or the other reason, it seems like the network ports in the small HippoCritter and some HD/ Stage units can be named the wrong way.
So, your network port named HippoNet should be data and your Data port should be HippoNet.
If the ports are the wrong way, this will cause you lost network connection if running a multisetup with several systems running both HippoNet and ArtNet.