I have just written an article for Lighting and Sound International, setting out why I think AVB may not work out in the pro-audio industry.
I have made it clear that I might be wrong and would be happy to be stand corrected. The point is to have an open debate which Lee Minich responds to in subsequent pages.
One person within the AVnu alliance said that my view goes against the perspective of 50 companies.
Having spoken to Lee and read his response, I agree with many of the points he makes, but they don’t address most of the problems I raised. Open standards are good, but AVnu seems to be the wrong open standard. I think the fundamental difference is that AVnu sees AVB as a standard, I see networking as a product that needs support and development, especially when its in its infancy. The PDF took many years of careful nurturing to become the standard it has become.
One person commented to me is what I have set out is the difference between reality and marketing, on that note I thought that it would be useful to see who has licensed what and analyse as best we can what the take up rate is.
Graph of network licensees:
(Click on the picture for full resolution image)
I have compared AVnu AVB, Cobranet, Dante and Ravenna. For AVnu I have split the numbers to show all AVnu members and also those relevant to the Pro-AV industry – this has eliminated automotive and chip people.
The numbers are difficult to ascertain so I am happy to accept corrections, but I have explained where I got the data from – all from official sources.
The curves might be wrong but the total numbers to April 2013 are correct. What the different network organisations don’t say is when someone leaves their partnership or is just inactive. These numbers also do not include organisations using any of the networks where a licence is not necessary – such as some Cobranet implementations and users of the Dante virtual sound card.
What I haven’t yet done is a cross comparison for companies who licence more than one protocol:
- Ravenna seems to be mainly in a world of its own with few manufacturers using the other three protocols
- Anecdotally I am told that 60% of AVnu members in Pro AV also licence Dante
- A number of manufacturers have a combination of Dante/AVB and also Cobranet involvement
We will look at this issue in more detail in future postings.Copy of Audio-Networking-Licensees