Information about Virtual Carrier Group and Virtual Edge Input
Virtual Carrier Group
A Virtual Carrier Group (VCG) is a collection of virtual QAM carriers (RF channels) provisioned on a Logical Edge Device (LED).
Each VCG must have a unique name and ID, since it also assigns attributes such as TSID and output port number to the virtual QAM carriers. The output port number only needs to be unique per LED. However, TSID/ONID pair must be unique for the chassis.
Duplicate TSIDs can be assigned to multiple QAM carriers by overriding the default TSID. Overriding the default TSID does not affect the unique TSID/ONID pair on the cBR router. The duplicate TSID overrides the unique TSID on the PAT header.
For more information, see Overriding the Default TSID section.
The service type must be designated in each VCG and the encrypt command must be entered if the carriers are to be encrypted. Enabling the VCG to use encryption and service type designates that each QAM carrier listed in the VCG will consume a QAM encryption license and video service type license. The actual number of licenses consumed will be done at VCG binding operation and is also dependent on the QAM replication requirements.
For more information on how the licenses are consumed, see Cisco Smart Licensing for Video.
Virtual Edge Input
A Virtual Edge Input (VEI) is a customer assigned IP address that is used, from the Head End, as a destination IP address for unicast video IP packets. Each VEI will need to be configured with a routable IP address from within the customer's network.
A VEI is assigned within a Logical Edge Device. Each Virtual Carrier Group (VCG) is associated with one or more IP addresses that represent VEIs.
For GQI protocol, VEI must be configured under the LED, since GQI expects VEI to be able to reach any Virtual QAM carrier listed in the same LED. Again, for GQI protocol, there is a limit of five VEIs per LED.
For the table based protocol, VEI may be configured under the LED or under a VCG. If the VEI is configured under a VCG, it can only reach the virtual QAM carriers associated with that particular VCG.
During the VCG binding operation, each VEI IP address will be bound to a single Video IP interface.
You can isolate the video traffic from other network traffic using MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) and VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding), by configuring the VRF name parameter in video-edge-input command.
![]() Note |
Do not use the same VEI IP address in multiple VRFs, as Head End video session management servers are not MPLS or VRF aware. |