Dante

Getting Started with Dante

Dante is the audio transport protocol that the transform.engine uses. The device acts as a standard Dante device, so if you're familiar with Dante device setup, you should be good to go!

If you are new to the Dante ecosystem, you can check out Audinate's (the company behind Dante) quick and easy training videos here.

Latest Version of Audinate Dante Controller

You'll want to have Dante Controller installed to manage the Dante network. To grab the latest version, click here!

Recommend Dante Network Configuration

Gigabit Ethernet

Data rates on Dante networks can become high very quickly. You must use a Gigabit (IEEE 802.3ab) Ethernet network to use transform.engine; 100BASE-T (IEEE 802.3u) networks are not supported.

QoS Settings

Priority	Usage	DSCP Label	Hex	Decimal	Binary
High	Time critical PTP events	CS7	0x38	56	111000
Medium	Audio, PTP v2	EF	0x2E	46	101110
Low	(reserved)	CS1	0x08	8	001000
None	Other traffic	Best Effort	0x00	0	000000

IGMP

• Dante implements IGMP v2 or v3
• One IGMP Querier needed per VLAN
• Query intervals should be short, and time out values long.

Energey Efficient Ethernet (EEE)

• EEE or 'Green ethernet' (IEEE 802.3az) should be turned off on all Dante networks. If not, it can result in poor synchronization and cause audio dropouts.

Considerations

• Running a Primary, Secondary and/ or Control Network: A singular Primary network connection is sufficient, including for Control data. However adding a Secondary network can add network redundancy. A Control network can be used in addition to a Primary/Secondary network to reduce network traffic on your audio network or allow access by devices which are not present on the audio network.
• PTP Clock Leader: for optimum running of your network, it is essential for your network to have a suitable PTP clock leader. The clock leader will be automatically selected by PTP using an election process to select the most suitable device: you can manually influence this using the Preferred Leader setting: the election will pick a device with Preferred Leader set over one that does not. The transform.engine supports being a PTP clock leader if required.

warning

Please note that at this time, the Secondary network must be configured to use Static or DHCP addressing for Dante Redundancy support; see known issue TF-944. Link-local Dante Secondary will be supported in a future release.

Example system configurations can be found here!

For further information about Dante network settings and support, please visit: https://www.audinate.com/support