Thomson Licensing

Kurt Knuth

Jens Brocke

Frank Gläser

Ralf Köhler

Frank Glaeser

Ralf Koehler

After every bus reset operation in an IEEE 1394 network, the network is reconfigured. This involves a table with further station-specific information being created after the bus initialization phase, the tree structure identification phase and the self identification phase. Each network station returns its station-specific information to the requesting network station. In the first phase, all that information which has been received up to a time determined by a first abort criterion is sorted into the table. Next, the still incomplete table is enabled for use by an application program in the requesting network station. In the second phase, the still missing station-specific information is then requested again and is sorted into the table when it is delivered by the stations to which requests have been sent. After a time determined by a second abort criterion, the further request for the still missing station-specific information is terminated and the table is closed in this state and is provided for use by the application software.

Method for providing a table of station-specific information in a network of distributed stations, and network station for carrying out the method

The invention relates to a method for setting consistent values for a parameter in a network of distributed stations (to), and to a corresponding network subscriber station. In certain circumstances, it has been found that inconsistent entries can occur for the gap count parameter on the local bus in an IEEE 1394 network. If the bus management instance () relies on the automatic behavior, as provided in the Standard, of all the network subscriber stations (to) to automatically set the maximum value of 63 after the second bus resetting process without any intermediate resetting of this parameter, this can lead to progressive resetting of the network, and this can result in blocking of the network. The problem is solved by immediate transmission of a parameter setting message for the critical network parameter once an inconsistency has been found. Alternatively, two or more successive inconsistency findings will be tolerated, with the parameter setting message not being transmitted until this stage.

Method for setting consistent values for a parameter in a network of distributed stations, as well as a network subscriber station for carrying out the method

The invention relates to a method and a device for acquiring electronic information about transmission speeds between nodes of an acyclical network, in particular of an IEEE 1394 bus network, precisely one transmission link being present between in each case two of the nodes of the network, and a respective PHY transmission speed of the transmission link being determined by a minimum value of PHY speeds of the nodes of the network lying on the transmission link, in the case of the method the respective PHY transmission speed being determined for one subset of the transmission links in the network by acquiring the PHY speeds of the nodes lying on the transmission links and electronically acquiring minimum values of the PHY speeds; and the respective PHY transmission speed being electronically acquired for another subset of the transmission links, which is different from the one subset of transmission links, on the basis of one of the PHY speeds which have been determined for the nodes lying on the transmission links of the one subset, and electronic topology information about a topology of the network being electronically acquired using optimization means which are formed in a node of the network. The device is provided for carrying out the method.

Method and device for acquiring electronic information about transmission speeds in a network

The invention relates to a network subscriber station and to a method for operating a network subscriber station for a network of distributed stations, particularly a network of IEEE 1394 network subscriber stations, which are connected by means of a data bus. The network subscriber station comprises at least three memory areas for operation-dependent interface configuration data and pointer means, which comprise electronic pointers to the at least three memory areas, and driver means for handling electronic data in the at least three memory areas and for electronic data transfer between the at least three memory areas.

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Hannover, Germany

Kurt Knuth