Topic: Audio Transport over IP Thread

[Chilly Brioschi]

Sometimes you look out the door and your future hits you like a lightning bolt.

Is anyone on the board working in Audio over IP ?

 http://news.aesshow.com/2012/08/133rd-aes-convention-introduces-networked-audio-track/             
 

[H₂O]

No but this is a natural extension of VoIP and the Yamaha mLAN technology - both of which are more than 10 years old - so I am sure this is fairly well along the dev path

[ScoobieKW]

Yup it's caled bittorrent. 

Seriously, I've read about it, but where I work we use a bit of fiber distribution, with old-school analog audio snakes for most use. Our investment in copper has long since paid for itself, and the benefits in weight savings aren't enough to offset the cost, latency and extra layer of tech to go bad.

The technologies that exist to do networked audio over ethernet skip past the TCP/IP layer which doesn't provide low-latency or reliability guarantees for streaming multiple channels of high data rate audio. Cobranet is an older protocol that runs on ethernet,  used by many manufacturers of pro audio gear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CobraNet

[Chilly Brioschi]

Gigabit copper and QoS says low-latency and thousands of a Hi-Res audio channels by IP/ethernet

[Gutbucket]

The technologies that exist to do networked audio over ethernet skip past the TCP/IP layer which doesn't provide low-latency or reliability guarantees for streaming multiple channels of high data rate audio. Cobranet is an older protocol that runs on ethernet,  used by many manufacturers of pro audio gear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CobraNet

With CobraNet and other protocols seeming to be mature and robust technologies for larger scale sound reinforcement and installed sound applications, I can't understand why we have yet to see the application of this or something similar to smaller scale studio gear, especially things like monitoring systems.  Take the JBL 4300 series stuff for example- networked self-powered monitors, subs, controllers, etc. which all get linked together with Cat5, but for control only.  Users must still route analog, or AES or SPDIF digital to each speaker and sub separately and add the required interface for the DAW.  It means that each piece needs 3 separate input cables: power, audio, and control.  What a hassle and mess of wiring.

When will I be able to simply plug five monitors, a sub or two and my laptop DAW into a powerstrip and into an ordinary 8-port ethernet switch and have everything work together? 

Not really too much to ask in this day and age I think.


[edit- I don't really care if it uses the IP protocol or not, I just want to connect it all with vanilla Cat5/6.  If the network switch needs to be part of the system to accomodate some non-IP protocol that's not a deal killer, but using generic off-the-shelf ethernet networking components would be nice.  If standard TCP/IP can work, then the possibility of a wireless LAN is the next question- cuts the rat's nest down to power cables only.  A seperate dedicated wireless LAN for audio is fine.]

[cybergaloot]

There was an article in last week's Pro Sound magazine about this very subject. Its here but its still coming if that makes sense. The standards are still being hammered out but it is the future to some degree. I see it as useful for us in remote control and board patches, less so for mics and preamps. People are just too fussy about those two areas. But I'm sure somebody will come out with some sort of ethernet version of the USB mics we see.