Expanding Scope
But what exactly does “AVnu certified AVB” mean?
For starters, there’s the entire suite of AVB standards: protected bandwidth for time-sensitive streams, deterministic low latency, network clocking, and a defined protocol for discovery and control of devices.
These standards also define the packet format for a stream, the bandwidth optimization rules for network switches, and the information a device can report about itself so that the user can choose which connections to make, and quickly re-route individual channels on the fly without affecting the rest of the system.
And it’s not just live sound products that will benefit from certification. Since these fully-ratified standards are now part of Ethernet, they have also been adopted by other, much larger industries, including manufacturers of consumer entertainment and automotive equipment.
Participation from these other industries means that there’s an even wider range of products that need to interact. Is it likely that you will ever need to mix a rock concert in your car? Probably not, but maybe you have an iPod that you would like to listen to in your car, and then digitally connect it to your console for sound check.
But even with all these components clearly defined, it’s still possible for devices that meet the standards to not actually be able to share audio.
That’s where the additional interoperability requirements from the AVnu Alliance come in: they define a common stream and channel format that audio devices must support in order for a product to be certified. This ensures that regardless of the make of your AVnu-certified devices, as long as one can send audio and the other can receive it, you will be able to get audio flowing.
This is just one example of a number of AVnu-specific requirements that will ensure every user’s success when using AVnu certified AVB products.
In the past, system designers were often forced into certain product choices based on the transport protocol they had chosen. With all the manufacturers currently involved in the AVnu Alliance, and more joining all the time, a designer who chooses an AVB network isn’t locked into specific products or licensed IP from a single manufacturer.
This is especially relevant for large-scale systems like theme parks, where one area or attraction may be added or completely remodeled, with the rest of the park remaining unchanged.
Using an open standard allows for much more long-term flexibility when it comes to swapping out individual components, whether it’s a single processor or an entire subsystem, and still be able to interface with the existing systems, without being limited to a single vendor.
This grants a huge amount of freedom to system designers to choose equipment based on features instead of transport mechanism, and allows owners to spend money on system performance instead of licensing.