"When we started designing our Infinito - System Management Suite, the main challenge was to find a stable, flexible, and easy communication protocol to deploy in our MCUs," commented Marco Secondini, R&D Engineer with FBT. "Being developed for professional audio systems, the AES70 standard allowed us to quickly develop our Infinito control system in all the new FBT products. It has brought an additional value since our products were ready to be integrated into complex and interoperable systems, entirely manageable from a unified control platform."
"The way FBT has utilized AES70 to quickly and efficiently develop a media networking ecosystem across their portfolio is a great example of how standards can provide benefits to end users as well as development groups," notes Ethan Wetzell, Marketing Chair for the OCA Alliance. "The use of standards really is a force multiplier for engineers that results in more development, quicker time to market, and a strategically sound investment in resources, time, and money."
AES70 is an open control and monitoring standard for professional audio and audiovisual media network devices. From a single device and controller, to networks with almost any number of devices and multiple controllers, AES70 provides for powerful, high speed, low cost, robust system control and monitoring of devices from different manufacturers.
AES70 can be used in conjunction with any available transport protocol (Dante, AES67, Cobranet, AVB/Milan, etc.). Offering interoperability across different media transports and manufacturers’ devices, it enables whole new levels of complex system integration and options as to how and where network devices can be deployed. The architecture operates on commodity Ethernet networking hardware, or even via standard 802.11 Wi-Fi.
Control functionality allows system professionals to change and monitor all operating parameters of a network device, including the creation and deletion of signal paths, parameter adjustments for signal processing objects, network device firmware updates and management of access control. Control can also be limited to provide simpler ‘operator’ functionality, such as providing just level, mute, power on/off and fault indication.
AES70 is the standard upon which the Open Control Architecture ecosystem of devices, software, development tools, and technical resources is based. AES70 is not itself a media transport, or a means of programming a network device or system control or generating a user interface. AES70 is available free of charge to manufacturers, system integrators and designers, to implement with their own and third-party network devices, as they require.
The OCA Alliance is a non-profit corporation formed to promote the AES70 standard and Open Control Architecture (OCA) ecosystem, as a control solution for professional media networking applications.
www.fbt.it
To learn more about the OCA Alliance and AES70 visit:
www.ocaalliance.com
