AES70 is a control and monitoring standards suite for professional audio and AV media network devices, supporting interoperability and system integration based on open standards. A license-free public standard, AES70 provides robust device control and monitoring for networks at any scale, from one device and a single controller to networks with almost any number of devices and multiple controllers. An interesting aspect is that manufacturers are the ones to decide what control and monitoring functions they want to expose for each device. A device can offer a rich AES70 interface for network control of many advanced functions, or it can expose a simple interface with only a few parameters - even just one parameter, such as power on-off. AES70 can also be used to manage virtually any media transport scheme - AES67, Dante, proprietary AVB Milan, etc - to control media streams and connections, and to monitor the state of all media stream operations.
AES70 also works over standard wired and wireless Ethernet, and may be configured to use almost any kind of connection. No special communication equipment is needed, and its reliability is sufficient for critical applications, including life-safety applications. The OCA Alliance industry coalition was formed precisely to promote the AES70 standard and Open Control Architecture (OCA) ecosystem. AES70 is the standard upon which the Open Control Architecture ecosystem of devices, software, development tools, and technical resources is based. This includes development kits, both free and commercially licensed, and applications such as the AES70 Explorer, media network utility for AES70 Device Development.
Python is a general purpose programming language well-used in network and automation environments. Python is a good choice for unifying networked systems of services and devices in a modern Audio over IP (AoIP) world. As adoption of AES70 for professional audio applications accelerates, an AES70 Library for Python is an essential tool for software engineers, enabling practical implementation of network services between connected OCA devices.
Enter the AES70py Project
Experienced in creating the enabling technologies for networked systems, AES70 protocol solutions for embedded devices, OCA Controller hardware, and web-based control user interfaces for connected devices, the technical minds at DeusO GmbH quickly understood the potential for the AES70 Python Library (AES70py) project and became its first sponsor and promoter.
While DeusO primarily develops solutions for manufacturers, by providing a general purpose control software the AES70 Python Library project paves the way for systems and projects by product owners and system integrators adopting AES70. As audio-over-IP systems continue to be implemented this is vital for expanding networked audio applications that meet the challenges for network device parameter control, device monitoring, and unifying all the IT hardware and software into robust functional systems.
According to Matt Hardy, the AES70 standard's potential in system projects for commercial, education, and other sectors would directly benefit from the release of AES70py under a permissive MIT license, thanks to the generous support from sponsors. At IBC 2024 in Amsterdam, AES70py received the support from T&M Media Pty Ltd, as Gold Sponsor. T&M Media is an Australian company specializing in audio processors, network amplifiers, and automatic voice announcements systems for public information installations. The company's Smart pi systems are completely based on industry standards including Dante and AES70/OCA.
"We're supporting the MIT project because we see a Standards approach to infrastructure-focused technology as key to building robust systems which deal with audio and data simultaneously. The AES70 Standard presents the kind of continuity we need in decades-long life cycles of control and monitoring equipment and software deployments alike," states Mark Lownds.
The technical team lead for the AES70py project is Bill Welliver, of Welliver Technologies LLC based in Baltimore, Maryland, who brings extensive knowledge of programming language design and software library development. DeusO GmbH brings technologies to generate the AES70 library for Python in conjunction with the AES70 specification. Together, the project's technical partners have years long, and ground up, experience building open source software libraries, as well as commercial AoIP and control protocol software.
The proof of concept for the AES70py project was initially presented at Infocomm 2024 in Las Vegas, where Bill Welliver demonstrated a working example of the AES70 Python library. The demo involved two WT-NA120 reference design network amplifiers, with AES67 and AES70 software stacks. The audience was presented a stream playback via the amps, a Terminal, and the working result, an OCA Object "Mute", toggled from Off to On, thereby muting the stream, using a Python3 script.
The AES70py team is now planning for an initial presentation of the AES70 Python Library, tentatively at the OCA Alliance booth during ISE 2025 in Barcelona. "To some degree this work is dependent on sponsorship to meet deadlines. We've targeted ISE 2025 as the venue for public presentations as the most likely chance for industry professionals to meet the developers, and we hope, gather valuable information to stimulate further investigation of AES70py for future products or services," adds Matt Hardy.
Matt Hardy also points out that "engineers use Python extensively in systems where things as simple as responding to a network event can present blockers when bridging to OCA devices with AES70. If native control protocols for AES70 are available in Python, it becomes a lot easier to extend existing networked systems natively into the modern Pro Audio control and monitoring realm."
For more information about the project and the developers or how to get involved, visit the AES70py project website.
www.aes70py.org
