[LAD] AVB not so dead after all

[Len Ovens]

On Mon, 8 Jun 2015, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:

> An Intel I210 Gigabit Ethernet PCI express Card will set you back about $70 
> on Newegg, it does have the hardware support that AVB needs and a driver in 
> the OpenAVB project. I have a couple and they seem to work just fine. A 24 
> output AVB Motu box is $995.

The Intel I210 Gigabit Ethernet PCI express Card has gone up they are $90 
now, but still reasonable. ( this one?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106176 )

This one says it has the same chip for only $50:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833316879

This one (at $30) I might stay away from:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_1048_1052&item_id=55856U
It says it is an "Intel I210T1 Comp." The comp. meaning compatible. It 
actually has the intel 82574 in it not the I210T1. The Intel documentation 
does not mention AVB support as it does for the above cards.

The intel card at the top looks like it has a coax connector on the board. 
The intel site does not make any mention of it though. The I210 chip does 
have 4 GPi/o, I wonder if it is connected to one of these (can be made to 
provide word clock or a multiple). Though I would guess it defaults to 
PPS?

> I'm actually trying to get this going with one of these AO24 Motu

The MOTU UltraLite AVB looks more interesting to me. 10/10 i/o with midi. 
A bit cheaper ($700), can still get an extra 8 i/o with adat. But yes the 
price is getting managable.


> "soundcards" (starting with OpenAVB). I have gotten as far as the OpenAVB 
> stack talking to the Motu card and slaving its clock to it (and the Motu box 
> recognizing it is now the master clock source and AVB is active). Audio 
> streaming is next, I'm just not finding the free time to do this (anyone 
> gotten further along on this??).

For me, even $700 is not cheap. The ethernet card or two is a possibility. 
For as far as you have gotten, what is the cpu load like? Does it affect 
the DSP load as jack shows it while jack is connected to the internal card 
at low latency?

> First goal would be a simple jack client that can stream samples, end game 
> would be a jack backend so this can be treated as a soundcard. We'll see...

The jack client should work with a PCI(e) card that has word clock in or 
spdif in. In my case I could use the spdif out to sync my internal card. 
This would sync jack to the MOTU (or other AVB device).

This is (so far) sounding cheaper than any other AoIP aside from netjack. 
Netjack is fine for connecting two computers but not so much for adding 
inputs. It is also sounding more like there is some movement with it in 
the linux world. In any case an ethernet card is the first step.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net