Two industry standards join to enable full digital integration

Crestron have announced DigitalMedia now supports the Dante audio networking protocol with its new input and output blades for 64X64 and 128X128 DM® matrix switchers. The 4K HDMI and Dante input blade for DM switchers provides eight HDMI inputs, while the 4K HDMI and Dante output blade for DM switchers provides eight HDMI outputs with built-in 4K scaling. CEC embedded device control is possible with the addition of a control system. Dante is the industry networking protocol for transmitting HD audio over Ethernet, adopted by more pro audio AV manufacturers than any other networking technology. Now, with these two new blades, seamless, fully digital integration and interoperability with DM is possible. A common application is for use with video conference systems. Send content from a source, a laptop for example, and connect it to the HDMI port; internal processing extracts the HD audio and outputs as Dante over Ethernet through the LAN port on the DM CPU blade. The audio is then sent to a local DSP in a conference room, which mixes the program audio with the microphones. The mixed audio is then sent out to a codec. The opposite setup, while not as common, is easy too. The audio goes into the LAN port on the DM CPU blade, is internally processed, and then sent out as HDMI to a local display. Analog audio inputs and outputs are enabled by connecting the optional analog audio breakout box to the blades in the DM switcher. When the analog audio breakout box is connected to the input blade, the balanced analog audio input is then embedded with the digital video signal. Similarly, when the breakout box is connected to the output blade, the balanced analog audio output is extracted and fed into a sound system.