FEATURE
APRIL 2025
simplifies integration with IT networks while providing flexibility, reliability, and easy scalability.
Jim Kidwell Principal Product Marketing Manager Audinate
How does Audinate’s AV over IP platform ensure seamless scalability while maintaining low latency and high-quality signal transmission across large deployments? The Dante platform is a scalable, secure and reliable system that is easily specified and built by system integrators, managed by service providers, and accessed on a daily basis by end users. Dante uses standard IP networking to deliver scalable, low-latency, high-quality AV signal transmission across deployments of any size. By operating over Layer 3 networks, it allows AV traffic to traverse network infrastructure without proprietary switches or cabling and easily scale across multiple subnets in managed Dante networks making system expansion straightforward and cost-effective. Dante leverages common networking protocols like IGMP for multicast management and QoS for prioritization, keeping AV traffic reliable as systems grow. It also uses Precision Time Protocol (PTP) to keep all devices tightly synchronized and maintain low latency across large systems. This standards-based approach
With AV over IP systems relying on network infrastructure, what are the key security challenges, and how can organizations safeguard their AV data from cyber threats? Safeguarding all IT Systems is critical for most organizations. Some systems rely upon security primarily through obscurity. Yet with the worldwide popularity of Dante, this is likely not enough to safeguard a determined hacker. In many typical Dante installations, Dante is implemented in an “unmanaged” state where device configuration can be changed by anyone with access to a network port. By implementing a management tool such as Dante Director or Dante Domain Manager, Dante networks are protected from changes behind user authentication. Also, with the forthcoming Dante Media Encryption, an additional layer of protection is added to the media streams between Dante devices. Encryption can be enabled with updates to existing and new devices as manufacturers adopt new firmware available from Audinate. With various manufacturers adopting different protocols, how important is interoperability in AV over IP, and what role do standards like yours play in ensuring cross-platform compatibility? Ensuring that customers have the choice of the best products for specific uses means that interoperability is key. With so many Dante devices on the market today, there is likely a Dante device available for almost every use case. If devices that aren’t Dante-enabled are preferred, a variety different format conversion hardware is available from a wide variety of manufacturers. In cases where legacy
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