User Manual

NETWORKING
66
■ AVB is already shipping on current Macs —
Apple supports AVB on all current shipping Macs,
and the UltraLite AVB can operate as a standard
AVB audio interface when connected to your Mac’s
AVB-equipped Ethernet port.
MOTU’S AVB IMPLEMENTATION
MOTU engineering has faithfully implemented the
IEEE 802.1 AVB standard for the MOTU AVB
products. This means that MOTU devices are fully
interoperable with any 3rd party AVB-compatible
device. In addition, MOTU has fine-tuned AVB
operation among MOTU AVB devices for
optimum performance, within the AVB specifi-
cation. Here is a brief summary of advantages you
will enjoy when using MOTU AVB devices
together in a network:
■ 256 channels of host I/O — MOTU AVB
interfaces equipped with Thunderbolt (the 1248,
8M, 16A and 112D) support 256 simultaneous
channels of audio I/O (128 in, 128 out) to and from
the entire network.
■ Support for multiple computer hosts — All
computers and all network devices run in sync
with each other, resolved to the network’s master
clock.
■ Gigabit Ethernet — The MOTU AVB Switch
delivers 1 Gbit Ethernet performance, which
provides substantially higher bandwidth than
100 Mbit Ethernet. This allows you to have many
more devices on the AVB network.
■ Over 500 channels of network audio — MOTU’s
AVB network can stream over 500 channels of
audio throughout the network. Depending on the
model, some MOTU AVB devices can broadcast
sixteen 8-channel network streams and simulta-
neously listen to sixteen 8-channel network
streams.
■ Exceptionally low network latency — Standard
AVB network latency is 2 ms. MOTU AVB network
latency is an astonishing 0.6 ms, even over seven
“hops” (switches) and hundreds of meters of cable.
By comparison, other commercially available,
proprietary audio network protocols have variable
(unpredictable) network latency in the range of
2-5 ms.
■ Star configuration — MOTU AVB supports a
star network configuration, which is much more
flexible than daisy-chain scenarios, which depends
on all devices in the chain.
■ Web interface — MOTU AVB devices can be
controlled from the MOTU AVB Control web app,
which runs within any web browser on any
networked laptop, tablet, or smart phone.
Although the web app shares the network with
AVB, AVB audio streams are never compromised
because AVB streams over the network traffic.
■ Bridging to standard Ethernet — the MOTU
AVB Switch provides an extra standard Ethernet
port for bridging to your local Ethernet network,
Wi-Fi, etc. for command and control, internet
access, and other standard network traffic. All
ports allow connection to standard (non-AVB)
network devices, however, the “Ethernet” port is
suggested because it does not support AVB.
NETWORKING EXAMPLES
Networking comes into play as soon as you hook
up a second MOTU interface to your first one, as
explained in “Setup for two interfaces” on page 32,
to add more I/O to your studio. Here are just a few
examples of what is possible.
Personal studio expansion
Let’s say you have a UltraLite AVB next to your
computer. You could add an 8M interface and
position it across the room, near your drum kit, for
placing up to 8 mics on the drums. All the mic
cabling is kept near the drums, and you have one
simple, clean network cable running back to your