Topic: Dante

With NAMM going on in Anaheim and seeing some of the products coming out, I was just curious if RME has plans to have any products that support DANTE.  Grace's M108 supports DANTE.  Ferrofish just came out with support for DANTE.  Lynx are releasing a new Aurora AD/DA with DANTE support.

Right now I am very happy with my setup:  Lynx Aurora 16 -> HDSPe MADI -> DAW.  So this question is more a curiosity as I think about the future.

Re: Dante

I'm curious about this as well, largely on account of the aforementioned devices (Grace m108, Ferrofish a32 Dante).

I know that MADI has been the "networked digital audio" of choose as recent as the UFX+ but Dante seems to be getting more and more acceptance around the industry.

3

Re: Dante

We already showed a Digiface AVB as technology preview on the ISE show (after NAMM). No plans for Dante at this time.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Dante

Because I have huge respect for RME and your work, could you share the reasoning for AVB over Dante?

Re: Dante

I guess big part of it is that for Dante you have to pay Audinate for license and (not sure wether that's really the only option) have to integrate their Dante implementation (daughterboard with FPGA etc.) into your own design, including FPGA firmware update handling etc... That's expense in multiple dimensions...

6 (edited by Sequenza 2017-03-21 10:42:18)

Re: Dante

Just to add my vote for a Dante/AES67 PCIe RME card with the usual RME DSP goodies.

Apart from the software driver (dante Virtual Soundcard, which doesn't allow for low latencies), the only options today are the Yamaha and Focusrite PCIe cards which I find overpriced for simple interfaces that do not even offer the minimum features-set we are used to with modern RME interfaces (multiclient, DSP, unified drivers).

As previously said, I guess the main hurdle is Audinate licensing price. Too bad really...

Best,
Thomas

Sequenza Studios - Acoustic Recordings
http://www.sequenza.fr

Re: Dante

It's not only the pricing, although 9.000 $ for a single software developer to get to the documentation might be considered expensive.

It is also the fact that you are surrendered to the strategy of Audinate that makes it a difficult decision. After all, Audinate is in the same hardware business.

A lot of others have drawn the same conclusion and are evolving in the direction of AVB, which is an open standard.

MB Pro - 2 X FireFace 400, FF800 & DigiFace USB
ADAT gear: Korg, Behri, Fostex, Alesis...

Re: Dante

Interesting... Wasn't AES67 supposed to play that role and be the future unifying protocol ?

Just found this on the subject: http://controlgeek.net/blog/2016/6/25/a … ocomm-2016

Sequenza Studios - Acoustic Recordings
http://www.sequenza.fr

Re: Dante

That article, and the research the author based it on, is financed by Audinate...

What is driving the market, is the price and availability of ADDA chips.

The automotive industry is including AVB audio (and video) into ICE solutions, built into cars. That means millions of chips, at a very low price. And these companies are about a thousand times bigger than the combined pro audio market.

The same goes for the broadcast market. AVB is being implemented at a very fast rate, but it started fairly late. The BBC and some other European broadcasters have declared their intention to use AVB and not Dante.

So it looks as if Dante will be exiting the market relatively soon.

MB Pro - 2 X FireFace 400, FF800 & DigiFace USB
ADAT gear: Korg, Behri, Fostex, Alesis...

Re: Dante

cyrano wrote:

That article, and the research the author based it on, is financed by Audinate...

That's a very strong statement, can you substanciate that?

The author is just quoting ressources regarding different Audio Ip Systems, one of them being Dante which, at the time the article was written, had the biggest market share in the context of Live Sound Systems. Dante being a proprietary protocol, it's really no surprise the related slide you are referring to was 'financed' by Audinate... Does that make the author sold to this company?

Back to the topic, I'm all for an open standard (same for the author by the way...) with cheaper interfaces and widespread adoption, so it's good to read BBC and other broadcaster are taking the AVB route.

Sequenza Studios - Acoustic Recordings
http://www.sequenza.fr

Re: Dante

Well, it's in the article.

If you write an article, stating that Dante has taken off, based solely on marketing research paid for by Dante...

To be considered balanced, you need at least two opinions based on something. One marketing "report" isn't gonna cut it.

I've worked for a marketing company that specializes in electronics marketing for over 20 years. I know how these "reports" are thrown together.

Do you really expect companies to pay for reports showing they are losing the battle?

MB Pro - 2 X FireFace 400, FF800 & DigiFace USB
ADAT gear: Korg, Behri, Fostex, Alesis...

Re: Dante

Not sure what you are getting at, the source of information was clearly stated so everyone knows how to look at the numbers. But denying that Dante was head and shoulder above their competition in terms of market penetration at the time of writing (june 2016) is just blindness.

Anyway, let's wait and see where this leads to...

Sequenza Studios - Acoustic Recordings
http://www.sequenza.fr