NEW YORK — At the 139th Audio Engineering Society Convention, the recently formed Media Networking Alliance (MNA) held its first public display of audio networking based on the new AES67 interoperability standard. The demonstration showed interconnectivity between 22 currently available products from 18 different companies, all streaming live audio over the same network via AES67. AES67 specific extensions to the different network platforms utilized by each manufacturer provided for the common interchange of digital audio between an array of products. Lawo provided its RAVENNA-based equipment including its sapphire compact broadcast mixing console, JADE Studio software application, and the new A__mic8 analog-to-IP interface. Separately, Lawo announced that Lawo JADE VSC, designed to make PC audio apps AES67 capable, is now shipping.
More details from Lawo (www.lawo.com):
AES67 supports both unicast (one-to-one) and multicast (one-to-many) audio transmission. The technology on display was primarily a multicast configuration and allowed visitors to see how some of the manufacturer-specific discovery, control and monitoring functions can augment AES67 audio interoperability and coexist on the same network. Digital audio signals were seamlessly interchanged between devices from ALC NetworX, Archwave AG, Axia Audio, Digigram, DirectOut, Focusrite, Genelec, Lawo, Merging Technologies, QSC, Solid State Logic, Telos Systems and Yamaha. All devices were connected to a standard network through a single Ethernet switch and appeared as available sources for monitoring on Lawo’s sapphire compact console.
“From a very early stage, Lawo has been a strong supporter of an open industry-wide standard for audio routing and management within IP networks. The Media Networking Alliance represents an excellent opportunity to achieve a practical, industry-wide implementation of AES67,” states Andreas Hilmer, Lawo’s Marketing Director and Member of the Board of the MNA. “In order to support the transition to IP-based infrastructures, we encourage all manufacturers to come together and embrace interoperability and open standards as the best solution for our mutual customers. Lawo is committed to this goal and we are fully supporting the MNA initiative with the adoption and implementation of AES67 across our full product range.”
Separately, Lawo announced that Lawo JADE VSC, designed to make PC audio apps AES67 capable, is now shipping.
Introduced at IBC 2015, the software enables Windows-based audio applications to fully integrate with AoIP networks without any external hardware interfaces.
The software delivers 64 channels bi-directional RAVENNA and true AES67 streaming in the Microsoft Windows™ environment and provides multiple WDM drivers and an ASIO driver that can be loaded by more than one application at the same time. It also features advanced real-time broadcast-quality sample rate conversion for transparent playback of content sampled at a different rate than the network.
“JADE Virtual Soundcard is a perfect fit, whenever you just need to get audio software on PCs or Servers connected to IP-based audio networks. No matter if it’s only a single user application or a full broadcast station”, explains Mike Dosch, Director of Virtual Radio Projects at Lawo. “Broadcasters with large or remote facilities will love the fact that they can access drivers remotely via a separate control application. JADE VSC gives broadcast software developers the ability to make their products comply with the AES67 networking standard quickly and easily.”
For more information please visit www.lawo.com/jade-vsc and try the free JADE VSC demo software.
