According to Marc Brunke, Optocore’s founder, “throughout the years there have been many voices that believed MADI would not survive the increased number of network protocols. However, we have observed the complete opposite — MADI is the easiest and most popular multichannel protocol, and is built into almost any professional equipment.”
He adds that the many advantages of MADI help explain why the technology retains its popularity — in addition to its easy implementation by any manufacturer. It is extremely cost-effective, there is no problem with inter-operability between different manufacturers, it doesn’t require any special network equipment and it offers very high performance with very low latency.
“Creating a MADI-based system requires just a cable connection with no special third party device configuration,” continues Brunke. “In fact the DD2FR-FX and DD4MR-FX MADI devices are among our best selling products.”
It is for this reason that the network specialists introduced the new M Series interfaces at Prolight+Sound 2015, which comprises two basic modules with a number of interfaces. The new M8 with four MADI ports: 4 x dual BNC or 4 x duplex fibre, two SANE ports (which support MADI over Cat5) and two Optocore high-speed fiber uplinks; and the M12 with eight MADI ports: 8 x dual BNC or 8 x duplex fibre or 4 x dual BNC and 4 x duplex fibre, two SANE ports and two Optocore high-speed fiber uplinks.
In addition, each of the new MADI devices can work as a stand-alone router with single-channel non-blocking matrix — and each can be integrated with any other Optocore interface.
Consequently, the company says it now offers the most powerful MADI router on the market with the smallest footprint. In just 1RU, the user can interface 640 MADI inputs and 640 MADI outputs and route any single channel between MADI streams — and also through the redundant fibre Optocore uplinks. Shipping begins in May 2015.
www.optocore.com
