RAVENNA teams with Genelec for AES67 event
“Everything you wanted to know about AES67 but were afraid to ask,” was the title of the event hosted by RAVENNA and Genelec at Genelec’s plush London demo facility in Scrub’s new premises at 69 Wells Street in the heart of Fitzrovia, London.
The Genelec Experience Centre showcases a comprehensive range of Genelec’s loudspeaker technologies (many of which form part of a full 11.1 immersive audio configuration) including their 8430 IP SAM studio monitors, making it an ideal environment to show off interoperability via AES67.
The evening kicked off with an introduction from RH Consulting’s Roland Hemming, who provided an overview of audio networking in general, adoption levels across the industry and some examples of the types of projects, often very high profile, that rely increasingly on audio networking for reasons of quality, practicality, and cost-effectiveness. He then handed over to ALC NetworX’s RAVENNA evangelist, Andreas Hildebrand, who explained what AES67 is, how it works, the close relationship between AES67 and RAVENNA, and why AES67 is important in today’s increasingly connected environment.
Hildebrand followed up with a live demo of an AES67 system using a Cymatic Audio uTrack24 multitrack recorder/player, an ARG switch, a Grandmaster clock from Sonifex, a RAVENNA Virtual soundcard, and the Genelec 8430 IP speakers. After demonstrating full interoperability amongst all RAVENNA-enabled devices running AES67-formatted streams, a Dante device (an AOIP box from Infomedia) was added to the set-up and – with the help of the recently released and freely available RAV2SAP converter – Hildebrand showed streams running back and forth between the RAVENNA and Dante eco system.
“It was a hugely successful evening,” said Hildebrand. “We were over-subscribed but people came anyway, and then stayed on to chat to us and ask more questions for well over an hour afterwards, so we’re delighted. We will definitely be putting on more of these events in the future.”
Co-host Genelec was equally pleased. “As a long-term RAVENNA partner we were delighted to host this event,” confirmed Howard Jones, international project manager for Genelec. “The size and quality of the audience shows just how significant IP has become in the world of audio.”
RHC’s Roland Hemming agreed: “It was all the more gratifying as we had a really high profile audience with heads of production from TV companies, national radio, post production, live events and installed sound. There is clearly a desire and a requirement for this type of education which is great news for anyone involved in audio networking.”