Dante audio protcol over IP

[sklankowski]

Looking to test Audinate ADP-USB-AU-2X2 adapter, but now what to output to 3.5mm output in unison with the USB.  Will FPP allow this dual audio output?

[CaptainMurdoch]

You should be able to create a custom .asoundrc file that will use ALSA to output to separate audio devices.

Here are a couple links to get you going:

http://www.6by9.net/output-to-multiple-audio-devices-with-alsa/
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=96138

[algerdes]

I am not at liberty to say which stadium (agreement signed in order to see all the 'back stage stuff'), but I just got a crash course in "BIG".  The letters OMG don't even come close.  Literally thousands of devices, with full routing from any device to any other device, or ALL devices.  WOW.

Talking with the head tech for the stadium, I asked the direct question, "why doesn't this work across wireless".  The answer received was simple. The amount of handshaking going back and forth requires the wired network's speed (Gig, minimum) to keep the protocol from dropping the connection.  Even if the wireless connection is quickly re-established, the amount of information that would pass to get the sound running again is very "choppy".  (The tech's exact words.)

On the side of "hope in the future", as wireless gets faster and faster, there is a chance that it will work - and perhaps soon. 

As soon as it does, I'll have a few of them on each of my speaker clusters.

[TypingOffKey]

Has anyone tested the Dante USB adapter with FPP yet? I just checked online and several places are offering it for $99. This seems like a GREAT solution for wide audio distribution, which I too am very interested in.

[chasingtraction]

For anyone that finds this in the future - The reason it will not work on wireless (as well as the dante controller will refuse to work on connection via a wireless adapter is clocking) 

There is a device election that happens automatically to decide on the PTP master clock device, this is a complex negotiation that the devices sort themselves out in the background and also can repair themselves if a node jumps offline but you can also override it. Once the clock master is set the packets are sent out via UDP purely for speed, there is no error checking and the clock MUST be accurate and stable for this to work. If you intoduce wifi you also introduce a larger amount of variance in the latency between the master and slave clocks, this means dropped packets and lost audio. 

There are other technologies that are newer than dante like AVB and AES67 that have multiple benefits over Dante but dante is by far the cheapest. 

By using a network control like this you can do some pretty cool stuff with mixers, microphones and multiple sources. I use these terchnologies all day every day in my work and have seen it setup in universities, stadiums and conference centres ( I also use it to bounce audio from chromecasts around my home network ) 

if you ever get stuck with network audio let me know ill try and help out

[sklankowski]

Success, got the Dante signal to be carried over two airMAX 5AC on PtP mode.  Only several drops of signal during test, but seems viable going forward.  Further details in coming weeks!

[rthom24]

I use Dante for my show so I can control which AMPs are getting which feed through my mixer and account for distance between speakers to avoid the echo effect. The reason why Dante doesn't like wifi is because it uses a lot of multicast for timing. Doing that over wifi means sending a constant stream of multicast packets which can cause a massive amount of latency. That's why they prefer everything to be on the same hardwired layer 2 network segment. The Unfi devices you are using are for network extension, which is why they are passing the multicast traffic, regular AP's would have trouble doing that with multiple clients. 

Just ran across this and wanted to add some info.