28 l February 2013
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studiofeature An AVB port is present on Prism’s new Lyra interface
we feel we offer various DAW features that simply work better.” Nick Cook, a veteran of SSL,
got an account you can access
it directly from the session. These collaborations are important.”
PRINCESS LAYER AVB is Layer 2, adding a dedicated media channel that might offset misgivings about Ethernet’s limitations. As a manufacturer of professional converters and audio test equipment, Prism Sound is already developing technology to interface with AVB: an AVB port is present on the new Lyra interface, for example. The company’s DAW, SADiE, is itself more circumspect, at present. “Our DAW, SADiE 6, is
‘agnostic’ regarding AoIP protocols,” states Steve Penn, SADiE product specialist, “particularly now that SADiE 6 will also run natively and can connect to I/O – or AoIP – via a driver such as ASIO or WDM. “For audio post-production the user case most applicable will be where the network connection on an audio device provides an alternative host connection between the audio device and the workstation. This provides the benefits of host connection and long-distance audio transport – potentially replacing USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt. The workstation end will effectively be a suitable network port and ASIO driver. On the other hand, as workflows evolve more complex routing will be possible that may begin to replace external switcher functionality.”
Tino Fibaek, CTO at
Fairlight’s Sydney HQ, warns against getting too hung up on any given protocol while, at the same time, confirming that it’s a good idea to keep your options open. “In post, the requirement for large amounts of I/O has gone down a lot,” he points out. “But I’ve been looking closely at Ravenna, and I think it has interesting potential. I’m a little worried that there’s a lot of emerging ‘standards’ but no definitive focus on one of them, and it’s a problem at this stage. So much of what we’re doing is almost point-to-point, so AoIP is a clever way of sharing resources but it’s not a huge issue.”
AVID FOLLOWERS Pro Tools inherited a world previously dominated by proprietary platforms, and as computer solutions as a whole gained a foothold in pro audio many of those platforms simply disappeared. But the software- only bubble didn’t last: hardware of varying proportions crept back into the market as the industry groped towards some kind of consensus about workflow and interfacing. Does today offer the most level playing field since those early days of dedicated DSP engines? “If it’s purely a numbers game,
Avid is ahead and has certain advantages like populating most of the film world with Pro Tools,” says Hollebone. “But we’ve managed to carve out niches where
Fairlight and DAR, remembers the transition from dedicated hardware DAWs to Mac- and PC-based solutions but suggests that the very technologies which brought about the demise of those small, under-funded hardware companies is now opening the way for others to come into the market. “There is definitely a change to
the status quo right now,” he adds. “Computing power is reliable and cheap and native software systems are capable of replacing costly external DSP boards which became the norm over the past few years. Also, before the arrival of
Pro Tools, each DAW had its own proprietary file format while the post market – especially film – was looking to standardise on a system for easier workflow management and file exchange. But today more post facilities are looking to keep work in-house and, at the same time, the industry-standard media exchange formats AAF and MXF allow for the free exchange of files both between facilities and between different manufacturers’ workstations.” Such improvements in technology open the door, as they tend to do, for the right kind of business initiatives. “Right now,” concludes Cook, “the combination of Yamaha and Steinberg provides real
ON THE POST-PRODUCTION FRONTLINE
ADRIAN SMITH is based at Evolutions in London and works at the frontline of audio post-production in what’s described as the largest independent, full-service facility of its kind in Soho. His work involves “moving a lot between workstations and the edit suite”, he says, and he is more than qualified to comment on what we’ve called DAW-to-DAW sales. On the challenge to Avid, Smith harks back to the time when there was a much greater proliferation of proprietary platforms. “I’ve used Pyramix a great deal in the past,” he said, “and although Evolutions is Pro Tools-based I think it’s a shame that this industry has lost its habit of choosing the
Evolutions TV 5 Berners Street
workstation that matched the type of work they did. Dubbing mixers would have a big say in that, whereas for the last 10 years the same hardware- software packages have been
sold to the chief engineers. The stock answer to why people have bought Pro Tools is ‘because everybody else has’, not because the workstation satisfies all the criteria in every case.” On the challenge of AoIP, Smith wonders whether the playing field will, in fact, be levelled. “What we don’t know is whether networking will change this paradigm,” he comments. “Ravenna devices, for example, will fit into the network world inside a post house, but whether that’s enough to persuade the whole company to switch from Pro Tools to Pyramix is debatable. I’m all for competition: the industry lacks something if there aren’t enough big players kicking around.”
alternatives to the Avid products with our Nuage and Nuendo systems. Plus we have sufficient muscle to not only develop innovative post solutions, but crucially to support them.” So it seems, as usual, various
initiatives have sprung up to ease the workflow between one workstation and another, and between one facility and another. (Soundtracs DiGiGrid, announced at press time, may well play a key role in this area – Ed.) But, like in politics, ‘openness’
is a public mantra behind which, in private, more discrete connections are made. In the eyes of the purchaser, some workstations will always be more equal than others. n
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