The EtherSound protocol provides fully deterministic, real-time transmission of synchronized audio channels over standard Ethernet. Up to 64 channels of 24-bit digital audio at 48 kHz, plus bi-directional status and control data, may be transported among more than 60,000 connected devices. Its ultra low latency of only 125 microseconds makes it suitable even for demanding applications such as live sound or broadcast. The technology has already been licensed to a number of different manufacturers across the globe, all of which are developing EtherSound products for their market.
But what of control? Would it be possible to develop a control system that would be compatible with all EtherSound products, regardless of the manufacturer? A number of meetings with Stardraw.com confirmed that this would indeed be both possible and extremely desirable, and so the partnership was formed. The new software tool, "Stardraw Control", is to be shown for the first time at the PLASA trade show in London.
A key aspect of Stardraw Control is that it offers a unified control framework for the different devices by different vendors that can make up a heterogeneous network; installers can look forward to seamless integration of diverse products using a single control interface. According to Digigram's managing director, Philippe Delacroix, "So far, we've had unanimous support from all the EtherSound licensees who have had the opportunity to be presented with the project, including Auvitran, NetCIRA by Fostex and Nexo, and we are confident that the others will feel the same way once they have been familiarized with the advantages."
Stardraw.com CEO, David Snipp, points out, "Stardraw is dedicated exclusively to software development and we have proven many times that we can deliver better solutions, faster and for less than most hardware manufacturers' own development departments. This is the obvious advantage of specialization and Digigram were quick to acknowledge the value we could add to EtherSound technology. In fact, we are so excited by its potential that we have embarked on a true partnership and will develop and deliver the EtherSound control application entirely at our own cost. By this we mean that all EtherSound Licensees and integrators will have free access and distribution rights to the control authoring application. We believe that its versatility and ease of use will drastically reduce the costs of creating custom control interfaces for all types of system; it will remove the need for the integrator to write even one line of code."
Phillippe Delacroix concurs. "This partnership is an important step for EtherSound technology and a great example of how imaginative companies can combine their unique skills to deliver leading-edge solutions. With EtherSound, Digigram has cleared the many hurdles that stood in the way of efficiently distributing audio over Ethernet - rather than being limited to star configurations, EtherSound can use both star and daisy-chain network topologies, or a combination of the two. Ease of installation means that it's an appealing solution for contractors, while flexibility of implementation and operation has attracted more and more manufacturers to adopt EtherSound as their routing standard of choice, suitable for many different uses across many different industries."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
