theibcdaily
Toward a networked audio standard Opinion
Interoperability for networked audio products is little more than an illusion in the short term argues Mikael Vest, sales director, NTP Technology
"Predicting the future shape of technology is a fool's game," claimed BBC Technology correspondent Rory Cellan- Jones recently. "If you believed the forecasts of future-gazers when I was growing up, we would all be taking holidays on the moon, consuming our meals in tablet form and enjoying a 10-hour working week by now."
That comment is certainly true at a general level but less so in any area of business related to the electronics industry. Here, if anything, progress comes hurtling in a thousand times faster than the average prophet could possibly predict. Technologies and
implementations for delivering uncompressed multi-channel low-latency digital audio over a
standard Ethernet network have existed since the mid to late 1990s. The first commercially successful system was Park Audio's CobraNet which was introduced in 1996. Since that time, IT
technology based on Ethernet has been adopted very widely thanks to the ever-increasing capacity of network infrastructures and falling costs. Ethernet is today the dominant delivery platform for audio and video media technology. One of the very important aspects of this large consolidation of network technology is the strong focus on standardisation of Ethernet protocols and formats. Another advantage of Ethernet is the layered approach of building each successive standard on
top of its predecessor. Ethernet is an open and widely accepted standard (IEE 802.3) that, in the IT sector, has largely replaced competing wired LAN
technologies such as FDDI and ARCNET.
Alongside and after the first
introduction of Cobranet, other similar formats for realtime audio via Ethernet appeared. One example is Livewire, which has the ability to operate at the Layer 2 level on fast Ethernet (100 megabit per second) networks. However, the capacity was less than 100 channels and the audio and clocking formats were based on proprietary implementation on top of the Ethernet standards. In recent years, proprietary systems from QSC and Audinate/Dante based on
Audio clarity for public TV ETRI By Adrian Pennington
What is the point of TV in public venues like rail stations or airports if you cannot hear the audio properly? Prototype technology could mean that audio accompaniments to video in noisy environments can now be heard clearly via remote wireless audio. Dubbed by its Korean
inventors as e-odi k, the audio delivery system works over Wi-Fi base-connected to the
audio output terminal of the TV. The user is required to install the e-odi k app on their smartphone. “You might be able to watch the sound of the TV clearly in noisy environments, to apply simultaneous interpretation services in conference centres, or tourist guide services without expensive equipment,” explained Dr Sung-Hoon Kim of ETRI's Realistic Broadcasting Media Research Department. In addition, the service can be used at home via headphones. Conventional techniques
such as wireless headphones using the radio frequency or Bluetooth, demand a receiver, a dedicated transmission device special is required, and, says ETRI, you will not be able to provide services to a large number of users at the same time. With its technology it is possible to connect a dongle device to TVs and by way of the app e-odi k means its possible to provide a service to large numbers of users, changing our infotainment in outside places. 8.G08
Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3 offering many hundreds of channels have appeared. Following these, the Ravenna format has been introduced as an open implementation framework by the ALC group. In 2013 the AES67 standard from Audio Engineering Society was published. Formats based on AVB Layer 2 are also used for Gigabit audio interfacing in some systems.
These newer generation of formats for realtime audio using Ethernet are all different. The basic Ethernet specifications are used and common, like IP/UDP, and PTP/clock synchronisation via the IEEE 1588 standard, but once we see the implementations as a system with audio packages, clocking, device discovery, configuration and control, they will work only with themselves. So is interoperability an illusion? Over the short term of some three to five years ahead I think that is indeed the case. The main focus for manufacturers and customers now is to implement systems
and solutions that work most efficiently within the area they cover, even though the products used may not be universally interoperable. The main focus for a new technology like this is to provide practical working solutions embracing the core benefits of Ethernet technology I am confident that
standardisation work will continue and eventually embrace the complete functionality that needs to be in place for manufacturers to offer interoperable products based on open and accessible standards. 8.B51
Listen up: e-odi k for public TV
50 theibcdaily
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132