Bittree Announces World’s First Dante Network-Enabled Patchbay

Bittree, a manufacturer of high-quality audio and video patchbays and patch panels from Glendale, CA, announced the world’s first Dante audio patchbay to market in time for the 2019 NAB Show. The company will demonstrate its innovation at Booth SU6221 in the Las Vegas Convention Center from April 8-11. The solution streamlines the integration of analog audio and Dante network patching while providing professional, transparent A/D>D/A cross-conversions.
  Bittree’s Dante patchbay eliminates the complexity of analog and Dante audio patching in the broadcast infrastructure. It provides a ramp to instantly move 16 channels of analog audio on and off of Dante networks, and serves as a natural bridge to unite legacy audio equipment with IP systems. Beyond broadcast, the Dante patchbay provides connectivity solutions to recording studios, post-production facilities and commercial AV environments (houses of worship, live event and performance venues, and large corporate and higher education campuses).
 
Consultants and systems integrators benefit from reduced labor and integration costs by removing the need to hard-wire devices into the patching systems. This eliminating extraneous cabling and conversion equipment – and the costs that come with it.
 
The Bittree Dante patchbay will interface with Dante Virtual Soundcard, countless Dante devices, and almost any analog component in the same system, including audio distribution equipment, digital audio workstations (DAWs), digital signal processors (DSPs), mixing consoles, multi-track recorders and video routers. The compact standalone or rack-mounted 1.5RU powder-coat enclosure carefully incorporates TT patching for audio I/O (16x16), redundant DC power in, external word clock I/O, network status, and audio VU multi-level LED metering.
 
Bryan Carpenter, senior sales consultant at Bittree, notes that the company’s Dante patchbay continues Bittree’s legacy of innovation over four decades. Bittree’s industry-firsts include the E3 connectorized audio patchbay and its patented, front-programmable audio technology.
 
“This is an ideal meeting of true innovators in engineering,” says Carpenter. “Audinate’s Dante innovation has been an undeniable game changer for integrators and end users in several industries, and has an exceptionally wide rate of acceptance within the manufacturing community. This patchbay streamlines the integration of analog and digital network audio patching, and establishes a foundation for interconnectivity across facilities within central equipment rooms, production studios, and IT closets among other locations. It is flexible enough to immediately solve problems in existing facilities, or optimize flexibility from the start in new facility designs.”

Bittree’s Dante patchbay supports a wide variety of audio sample rates ranging from 24-bit 44.1 to 192 kHz. The design integrates balanced TT connections to Dante analog and digital conversions, maintaining signal integrity and audio quality without requiring specialized patchbay circuit programming. Settings will be configurable using Dante Controller, including sample rates and channel assignments to and from Dante networks.
www.bittree.com