Sac with ethersound network?

[sonomanie]

Is it possible to connect sac to an ethersound network?
Auvitran who makes MY cards for yamaha digi's anounced the folowing:
Mar 22, 2010
New AuviTran Network ASIO Streamer

With just an additional Ethernet cable, and without additional cost, add recording and playback features to:
* any AVY16-ES100 card
* any AVM500-ES (or AVM500-ES/3ports)


Category: Product
Posted by: pty
AuviTran Network ASIO Streamer bridges the best of two pro audio standards:
* ASIO compatible audio applications (Steinberg Cubase, Steinberg Nuendo, Ableton Live...)
* EtherSound audio devices

Connecting an ASIO compatible application to an AVM500-ES (or AVM500-ES/3ports) through one of its EtherSound ports, you can:
* play up to 64 audio channels from PC
* and record up to 64 audio channels to PC

link: http://www.auvitran.com/www/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=9&cntnt01returnid=15

[Yogi]

If you have an ethersound interface for your computer it will work just fine. The digisound LX6464ES is a 64 channel ASIO ethersound PC card. Any ethesound source will connect to it over the ethersound cabling system and wrok just fine.

[gdougherty]

If you have an ethersound interface for your computer it will work just fine. The digisound LX6464ES is a 64 channel ASIO ethersound PC card. Any ethesound source will connect to it over the ethersound cabling system and wrok just fine.

Looks like the Auvitran is a network driver that allows you to use an existing Ethernet card as your Ethersound ASIO interface. In theory, assuming the drivers are stable and performant, I don't see any reason you couldn't do this. It'd save half the cost of a typical AD/DA digital snake setup.

Hmmm.. it does look like it needs one of the Auvitran products. Or maybe that's just the marketing speak to get people to go ahead an purchase the Auvitran products now so it's guaranteed to work...

[Yogi]

Nope, Ethersound will not work with a standard ethernet card no matter what you try to do. It is a proprietary system all it's own and it doesn't come close to the ethernet standards. Besides, you need an in and an out. they sell an ethersound card, the AVI64-ES100.

[HapHazzard]

Right now Steve from Tesla is using the Digigram 64 card for SAW and it works great. Recording 41 channels every time they play. We've been looking into remote control pre's for the snake head so he can eventually cut over to SAC from his Innovason. Above 3-5ms system wide, but until we can get some pre's we won't know for sure.

Hap

[gdougherty]

Nope, Ethersound will not work with a standard ethernet card no matter what you try to do. It is a proprietary system all it's own and it doesn't come close to the ethernet standards. Besides, you need an in and an out. they sell an ethersound card, the AVI64-ES100.


That's odd, wonder how they're doing it then. The page linked claims no additional cost as long as you have one of two Auvitran devices and an extra Ethernet cable. Up to 64 channels of record and playback. Guessing that's 64 total that can go either route.

[RBIngraham]

Nope, Ethersound will not work with a standard ethernet card no matter what you try to do. It is a proprietary system all it's own and it doesn't come close to the ethernet standards. Besides, you need an in and an out. they sell an ethersound card, the AVI64-ES100.

Well that's a bit misleading. You would need something other than a standard Ethernet Card to connect a computer to an Ethersound Network, but you can send Ethersound down the same Ethernet Network as your standard computer network. Now I wouldn't recommend that, but you can do it. You just need switches that have the ability to set up virtual networks and the bandwidth to handle it.

http://www.ethersound.com/technology/overview.php

[RBIngraham]

Keep in mind that with Ethersound or Cobranet, every time you "jump" on or off the audio network, you add some latency. So you have a preamp with A to D, that's one jump on, then you go into a computer, that's a jump off, you then come out of the computer, jump back on, then go to a D-A, jump off. It's fairly small amounts, but if you have a big system with lots of jumps on and off, the latency can add up. No big deal if you're dealing with a convention center, or a stadium sound system. But it might for a smaller theatre like venue.

Just something to keep track of. It shouldn't be a huge worry, but I would try to make sure that all my audio went through the same number of hops on and off the network, so there wasn't any channels that had more or less latency.

[905shmick]

On a side note, has anyone seen or worked with the Riedel RockNet gear?

About RockNet (http://www.riedel.net/AudioSolutions/RockNetOverview/AboutRockNet/tabid/502/language/en-US/Default.aspx)

Audio Interfaces (http://www.riedel.net/AudioSolutions/RockNet300Modules/AudioInterfaces/tabid/509/language/en-US/Default.aspx)

I don't think they have a dedicated PC card yet, but I think you'd be able to use something like an RME MADI card and interface it into their new RN.334.MD MADI interface.

[Wurst Werner]

On a side note, has anyone seen or worked with the Riedel RockNet gear?

About RockNet (http://www.riedel.net/AudioSolutions/RockNetOverview/AboutRockNet/tabid/502/language/en-US/Default.aspx)

Audio Interfaces (http://www.riedel.net/AudioSolutions/RockNet300Modules/AudioInterfaces/tabid/509/language/en-US/Default.aspx)

I don't think they have a dedicated PC card yet, but I think you'd be able to use something like an RME MADI card and interface it into their new RN.334.MD MADI interface.


I've done some jobs with a rocknet/M7CL combination. It's really professional gear and build by some former Salzbrenner/StageTec employees here in Germany. Low latency, rock solid but expensive. It's quite popular over here, because of the "RN.341.MY" card that fits in almost every Yamaha digital desk.

[sonomanie]

There is now more info available on the auvitran website (download section ). The software (asio driver) and the users manual is now available for free.

[Yogi]

While Ethersound data can travel over ethernet networks (and is layer 2 compliant) the data itself is proprietary and you can only "connect" ethersound products to each other. To bring ethersound data into a computer from a remote device an ethersound sound card must be used (not an ethernet card). The computer could have a standard ethernet card or interface for standard network traffic (internet or whatever) but to use ethersound it must have one of the dedicated ethersound cards.

Someday someone "may" figure out how to grab the ethersound data from a standard ethernet card but they would be in violation of the ethersound patent if they tried to sell the software. Even if they gave it away they would be in violation of the patent. I had strongly considered doing this two years ago and when I started asking certain questions I got a stern email from an "interested" party telling me to cease and desist. My nephew, "the lawyer", looked into it and said it would be better if I complied. YMMV.

[RBIngraham]

While Ethersound data can travel over ethernet networks (and is layer 2 compliant) the data itself is proprietary and you can only "connect" ethersound products to each other. To bring ethersound data into a computer from a remote device an ethersound sound card must be used (not an ethernet card). The computer could have a standard ethernet card or interface for standard network traffic (internet or whatever) but to use ethersound it must have one of the dedicated ethersound cards.

Someday someone "may" figure out how to grab the ethersound data from a standard ethernet card but they would be in violation of the ethersound patent if they tried to sell the software. Even if they gave it away they would be in violation of the patent. I had strongly considered doing this two years ago and when I started asking certain questions I got a stern email from an "interested" party telling me to cease and desist. My nephew, "the lawyer", looked into it and said it would be better if I complied. YMMV.

Well that is certainly not how their web sites words it. It sounds like if you buy a piece of their gear, you can plug in your computers over a standard Ethernet connection to that card and then it will stream audio to and from the computer. My guess the catch is that it has to be to and from one of their pieces of hardware. Either a rack mount I/O box or a card in a Yamajunk digital console.

I keep trying to download the instruction manual unsuccessfully for some reason??? Not sure what that is about.

http://www.auvitran.com/www/index.php?page=avs-asio

[Yogi]

They do have a brochure that explains it. And yes "Their" data will ride on an ethernet network, either 100 mbs or 1 gig, but it is "their" data packed in a layer 2 packet. You cannot use a standard ethernet card to do anything with that data. You have to by ethersound cards (and they aren't cheap, around 1300 for a 64 channel card). The other part of this is that card will only talk to ethersound enabled gear on the other end (and ADA8Ks ain't one of them). Ethersound is real close to both cobranet and madi, the main difference being it can travel over standard ethernet networks. But it is still proprietary with no guarantee that it will be around for a long time.

[sonomanie]

So far i understand the explanation in the user's manual of Auvitran's network asio streamer: you need a ethersound network with at least 1 ethersound device ( ins/out) like yamaha SB168-ES or Digigram Aquonda (both 16 ins and 8 outs with remote controlable preamps) and a Auvitran AVM 500-ES. Then you install ES monitor software ( for routing) from Auvitran and their network asio streamer ( to convert the ethersound format to asio format) on a pc loaded with SAC.

[gdougherty]

Okay, best guess reading the manual and the hardware required:
"This new feature is available on all new AVY16-ES100, AVM500-ES and AVM500-ES/3ports device."

You have to enable the feature on the 3rd network port of the Auvitran hardware and connect that to your PC network. The PC must have a Gigabit NIC and the ASIO streaming driver. It looks like the hardware and ASIO driver stream audio back and forth to each other, though quite possibly not over the Ethersound protocol but instead via some proprietary connection.

While Ethersound will not allow use with a standard NIC, Dante apparently does. Audinate has a purchaseable Dante ASIO driver. Very little info about latency though.

UPDATE: The Auvitran driver allows only as low as 128 sample buffers.