[LAD] Back from the grave?

[Folderol]

On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:28:15 +0100
Florian Faber <faber at faberman.de> wrote:

> On 11/12/10 21:13, Folderol wrote:
> 
> > I've been watching the Etherent/AVB situation for a while now.
> 
> Where have you been looking?

A number of commercial sites, and following links from wikipedia etc.

> > What is the audio quality generally (bit depth, sample rate, noise etc.)?
> > I notice that, as well as stereo in & out, they quote up to 8 I2S channels.
> 
> You can basically throw in whatever you want. AVB is a framework to
> synchronise media clocks and handling streaming by combining already
> known protocols and practices, with some sugar on top.

I get the impression that xmos/atterotech are doing a lot more than just
providing the 'glue'.
 
> > How difficult would it be to create a jack 'endpoint' and control?
> 
> Once you have your environment set up, it is extremely easy. The hard
> part is creating an environment where AVB works.

This is why I think this option looks particularly attractive, although I don't
know how easy it would be to understand the extensions that this system uses.

> > All through, my wish has been to get away from soundcard obsolescence
> > (PCI?), vendor lock-in and software incompatibility. With the AVB standard
> > getting increasing support I believe that if any one compliant endpoint can be
> > supported, then eventually many others could be. 
> 
> You are missing one important point: Synchronized media clocks. Unless
> you have support for PtP and can timestamp your audio data in hardware,
> you can pretty much forget it - except for very simple cases.
> 
> 
> Flo

The link I gave suggests that time code and sample rate restoration is built in
to the software reference design.

-- 
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.