06 l April 2013
www.psneurope.com news EXCLUSIVE
Bosch hails OMNEO as “problem solver” for the AVB generation
Accommodation for both AVB and OCA protocols means that 2013 could be the year for Bosch’s OMNEO media networking architecture to make its mark. David Davies talks exclusively to the all-knowing Ethan Wetzell
“AVB...OCA... The challenge with networking is always to try and explain your technology without the conversation descending into acronym soup!” laughs Bosch Communications Systems’ platform strategist Ethan Wetzell, down the line from his Minnesota lab. If this would seem to be
more idealistic vision than realistic hope at this point in time, Wetzell nonetheless believes that Bosch has found an “accessible” language with which to describe its OMNEO media networking architecture.
Developed over the course of more than three years, OMNEO debuted as a concept at InfoComm 2011 – but it is only now that it is beginning to roll out across the Bosch portfolio with products from multiple brands due for introduction this year. Comprising two primary components – media transport and system control/integration – OMNEO owes its description as “an interoperability solution and a problem solver” to its foundation on accepted standards. Providing the media transport is a technology that should require little introduction – Audinate’s increasingly ubiquitous, IP-based solution Dante.
Chances are, however, that the system control
RTS OMNEO OMI cards component
will be rather less familiar... “We’re using OCA (Open Control Architecture), which is designed to co-operate with current and future signal transport standards – including AVB,” says Wetzell. OCA is represented by the
OCA Alliance, of which Bosch is a founder member alongside the likes of d&b audiotechnik, LOUD Technologies, TC Group and Yamaha Commercial Audio, with the latest associate members – Audinate, Waves Audio and Attero Tech – announced last month (The OCA 1.1 specification is currently the subject of an AES standards effort, X210, that is said to be “progressing well and could result in a standard being completed and ratified by early 2014... although I find predictions are always a little difficult when it comes to standards!” With Audinate reconfirming its intention to accommodate AVB in the Dante feature-set elsewhere in this very issue [see page 54], the spectre of a
Ethan Wetzell: “Predictions are always a little difficult when it comes to standards!”
fully standards-backed solution revolving around AVB for transport and OCA for control and device identification would seem to be hoving, irresistibly, into view. “Exactly,” agrees Wetzell, “although the overriding objective with OMNEO is that it will be able to complement user requirements now and in the long-term future.” After several high-profile
trade show presentations, 2013 is the year for OMNEO “to make its mark”, with the architecture due to be brought to product lines across the Bosch portfolio. First to receive the OMNEO treatment are
Electro-Voice’s TourGrade and Dynacord’s PowerH amplifiers, both of which can access this new functionality via the recently- announced RCM-28 DSP network module. Launching at NAB this month, new interface cards enable owners of RTS ADAM intercom matrix systems to implement IP-based, AVB-ready intercom networking. Prolight + Sound visitors, meanwhile, will have the first opportunity to take a look at Bosch Communications Systems’ ‘OMNEO-based conferencing solution’, the DCN multimedia Conference System. With the final AVB-related
standard currently undergoing final review [see AVB feature beginning on page 54], it makes sense for AVB-readiness to be part of OMNEO’s marketing pitch. But by making OMNEO a “foundation” of long-term R&D plans across its brand portfolio, Wetzell says that Bosch is looking into the future five or even 10 years’ hence – and, in particular, greater AV/IT convergence. “The focus has to be on expandability and futureproofing our customers’ investments,” he says. “Just as pro audio doesn’t stand still, we all need to acknowledge that IT doesn’t either – and that’s an issue that will become increasingly pertinent as new technology becomes more and more integrated with existing systems in a building’s infrastructure.”n
www.boschcommunications.com
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