At the NAB Show 2024 in Las Vegas, Audinate was promoting not the technology in itself, but the possibilities that audio networking enables in the era of remote and cloud productions, increasingly adopted by large broadcasters and live event production companies. As Dante has already proven itself as the "de facto" standard for local audio networking in commercial audio and live events, Audinate is now trying to expand its own ecosystem with an open, expanded approach to current remote production needs - meaning, connected over the Internet and the cloud.
Dante Connect is a suite of software applications that facilitate cloud-based production and is a powerful platform for audio and mixing engineers, combining the familiarity, ease of use and tight synchronization of Dante networked audio with seamless connectivity to centralized production tools running on cloud instances. More specifically, Dante Connect delivers synchronized audio directly from on-site Dante networks to cloud services, enabling increased flexibility and more efficient usage of personnel and on-site hardware.
Originally introduced at the end of 2023, the Dante Connect audio transport solution for cloud-based workflows was applied in actual productions and proof-of-concept tests prior to becoming widely available.
Dante Connect adds WebRTC-powered remote contribution functionality to the existing uncompressed Dante audio transport streams. The remote contribution feature allows Dante sources connected to the Internet worldwide to be captured as an audio source, giving broadcasters and production companies a new, lower-bandwidth option to easily add a commentator or any other audio stream to the broadcast. This high-quality compressed source is transmitted using WebRTC functionality, ensuring the highest quality possible without requiring expensive dedicated transmission lines. Paired with the existing remote monitoring functionality, broadcasters gain new options for production staff to monitor, contribute to and produce content remotely.
And expanding on the cloud service providers already including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Audinate has also joined the Google Cloud Partner Advantage as a partner in the build engagement model, enabling customer flexibility to deploy audio transmission and production with Dante Connect in Google Cloud environments.
"Dante Connect on Google Cloud provides broadcasters with more options to meet their production flexibility and cost-saving goals in any deployment configuration. We are proud to have Audinate as a partner serving the demanding broadcast market," says Kip Schauer, Global Head of Media & Entertainment and Gaming Partnerships at Google Cloud.
Solid State Logic (SSL) has also introduced its first native cloud implementation of Dante in their new System T cloud mixer. This virtualized Tempest audio processing and control solution is designed for live-to-air broadcast audio production. The System T cloud mixer provides up to 256 processing paths, supporting stereo, 5.1 and immersive formats, all controlled via hardware or software interfaces from any location. By utilizing the Dante Connect SDK within their virtual DSP, SSL was able to directly integrate and route Dante inputs and outputs within the System T cloud mixer.
"At SSL, we aim to provide technology that enables our customers to work efficiently. By natively integrating Dante into the System T cloud mixer using the Dante Connect SDK, we were able to provide the best, most efficient user experience with Dante Connect," adds Tom Knowles, Director of Product Management at Solid State Logic.
And to support the integration and sales of Dante Connect, a new company joined the Audinate reseller program. Alpha joins existing Dante Connect resellers, Advanced Systems Group (ASG), Diversified, and HHB Communications.
"We’re delighted to be a partner bringing Dante audio transport technology to the cloud. Production solutions are constantly evolving to best meet customer needs for production flexibility and cost effectiveness, and Dante Connect is an expanding, robust platform we’re excited to share with our customers," says Bryan Nelson, Senior Sales Executive of Alpha.
Precisely one of those resellers, ASG, has recently supported a remote audio contribution workflow for a broadcaster who wanted to implement remote audio production to extend their local Dante network. ASG configured and deployed the components of Dante Connect to support reliable transport between locations. This included Dante Domain Manager for orchestration, security, and permissions of all Dante devices, Dante Gateway to seamlessly support clocking across low-latency local networks with higher latency connections, and Dante Virtual Soundcard to transfer lossless synchronized audio between locations across the United States.
ASG specified supporting hardware requirements and configured all software for deployment into the production. For each event, the broadcaster sent out a pre-configured fly-pack of technology, which was connected to the local private high-speed network. Audio and Mix Engineers connected to the Dante network remotely from Los Angeles, where they mixed event audio for the final broadcast.
Audinate created a dedicated Dante Connect webpage with more use cases and resources.
www.audinate.com
