Possible digital interconnection standard

[mixedupsteve]

There appears to be some widespread interest in promoting a new ethernet based digital device interconnection standard.

AVnu

[Audiop]

I'd like to see widespread use of Light Peak Technology:

http://techresearch.intel.com/articles/None/1813.htm

Only thing that make sense AFAIU.

One high bandwith standard with galvanic isolation.


/Peter

[mixedupsteve]

I just hope that a real standard is established so that systems can be built with broad choices available from many manufacturers.

[fifthcircle]

In the live world, that is already happening with Ethersound and Cobranet. While the support isn't complete, there is quite a bit out there. Problem is that like the DAW AES32 (was that the number?) session compatability standards, nobody will follow the standards because they all have their own "better" way of doing things.

--Ben

[mixedupsteve]

It really does have to be adopted by almost everyone in order to become a true standard. This has the IEEE people behind it as well as Intel, Cisco and others.
We'll see!

[fifthcircle]

I'll believe it when I see it... Too many "standards" have come and gone. In the end, IEEE and Intel may be nice in the consumer world, but it doesn't do squat to make a cable standard that Yamaha, Digico, Midas, Digidesign and such will all be willing to use

Not to be negative, but just realistic.

--Ben

[DannyL]

Which standards have "come and gone?"

IEEE, AES, EBU and other regulatory agencies are in place because industry wants them to be there. Standards are decided, generally, by consensus (AES51, IEEE AC power cords, etc) sometimes by use of habit
(19" rackmount standards, etc). But everything, from the size of your garbage can to the way digital signals carry information are based on standards that are suggested by the aforementioned regulatory bodies and accepted by the manufacturers and major industrial end users.

The process of acceptance tales into account: technical viability, ease of manufacture, cost and availability of components, environmental and even political considerations.

The chances of a CAD-6 based RJ-45 connector being used in a digital transport standard is excellent because of the aforementioned reasons.
As you pointed out earlier, Ben, these connectors are already seeing a lot of implementation. No real need to be "negative." Manufacturers will agree to standards because of the economic advantages of doing so.

Danny

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

I'll believe it when I see it... Too many "standards" have come and gone. In the end, IEEE and Intel may be nice in the consumer world, but it doesn't do squat to make a cable standard that Yamaha, Digico, Midas, Digidesign and such will all be willing to use

Not to be negative, but just realistic.

--Ben

[LX3]

A standard is way more than just a connector and cable specification.

History suggests that when it comes to these kind of multichannel digital audio interconnects, by the time any "standard" has been adopted by a handful of manufacturers it's been superceded by some other flavour of the decade

The adoption (or not) of any interconnection system seems to depend on each manufacturer's particular commercial considerations. Making something a "standard" sadly doesn't seem to guarantee universal adoption.

eg MADI, Ethersound, Hypermac/SuperMac/AES50...

Still, we can hope. Wouldn't it be great if everything worked with everything else? But don't hold your breath.

[aussie_techie]

Nothing can bridge consumer and large scale professional systems because the requirements differ to greatly.

For professional audio SuperMAC/AES-50 seems like a pretty good 'standard' going forward now that KT are offering it royalty free. I think there is much more hope of widespread adoption of an AES standard than a closed propriety technology.

I cant understand people using Ethersound, it may be a mature technology it was extremely outdated when it came to market and that is no way to go forward.

[Audiop]

Originally Posted by aussie_techie

Nothing can bridge consumer and large scale professional systems because the requirements differ to greatly.

Hi!

Why is that? A fiber standard would be perfect for all possible gear and situations.

No problem with signal strengths (voltage) or impedances and extremly high bandwith.

Light Peak Overview

Light Peak is the code-name for a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect your electronic devices to each other. Light Peak delivers high bandwidth starting at 10Gb/s with the potential ability to scale to 100Gb/s over the next decade. At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds. Optical technology also allows for smaller connectors and longer, thinner, and more flexible cables than currently possible. Light Peak also has the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling the technology to connect devices such as peripherals, workstations, displays, disk drives, docking stations, and more.

/Peter

[aussie_techie]

As i said the requirements are just to different and with consumer equipment being built to a price point there is no room for the cost of professional features. The cost of a 10Gb fiber network is beyond an individual, even a single Gbit fiber link is crazy.

A consumer that only wants between 2-6ch of audio and doesn't even know or care about sample rates or compressed/uncompressed audio is a world away from a large scale professional system like for example HyperMac which delivers 192 Bidirectional channels @ 96 kHz with low latency and redundancy. now how could a consumer justify that kind of system?

[mixedupsteve]

First of all I'm not promoting this particular approach or standard.
I would just like to see a widely accepted standard.
Regarding the cost of bandwidth, there are several chip companies that currently have inexpensive Gb Ethernet chips including some of the partners in this group. Bandwidth is cheap and getting cheaper all the time.
The consumer industry is interested in this because people are migrating to media servers and switching systems. Houses will become small networks and will need interconnection standards.
Ethersound has a new 1GB system too.

[Audiop]

Originally Posted by aussie_techie

As i said the requirements are just to different and with consumer equipment being built to a price point there is no room for the cost of professional features. The cost of a 10Gb fiber network is beyond an individual, even a single Gbit fiber link is crazy.

A consumer that only wants between 2-6ch of audio and doesn't even know or care about sample rates or compressed/uncompressed audio is a world away from a large scale professional system like for example HyperMac which delivers 192 Bidirectional channels @ 96 kHz with low latency and redundancy. now how could a consumer justify that kind of system?

What Steve said. All digital is getting cheaper and cheaper and optical is allready used today in most laptops and in many HT-receivers and processors.

I don't see why in a couple of years this would be affordable if widely used.

Possibly it could be cheaper in the end since a manufacturer of various type of gear aimed at audio, video and any type of data to pro's as well as to amateurs/consumers could buy one type to implement in all products.


/Peter