Using Dante AES67 with VX

Scope

This document goes over the steps to exchange AES67 multicast audio streams between a Dante® device with AES67 support and a VX product with AES67 support

Dante® is a product of Audinate Pty Ltd and we are providing this article with the hope that you will find it helpful. If you need assistance, please contact the manufacturer of your product. Telos Alliance is not able to offer direct support for Dante products.

AES67 Support in VX products

The table below indicates the three main features that are needed for direct exchange of audio between the Dante® device and the VX product.

• VX Enterprise, Prime Plus, and Duo check off all the boxes. Please read over the next sections for a step-by-step guide.
  

• VXs, the containerized version of VX, achieves most of these except for being able to advertise its sources via SAP.  
  Possible workaround: Use the Ravenna RAV2SAP utility to generate SAP advertised streams from VXs hybrid SDP files
  

• The legacy VX products don’t have any of these abilities.  The workaround would be to use an Axia xNode or xNode2 to handle converting Livewire to AES67 and vice versa. As well the xNode will SAP advertise its Sources for Dante Controller to find

Dante with VX Enterprise, VX Prime Plus or VX Duo

This guide is split into several sections. These are meant to be followed in the order shown below

Enable AES67 Mode on the Dante device(s)

1. In Dante Controller, open the Device View for the Dante device you want to use

2. Go to the AES67 Config tab

3. Make sure AES67 Mode is set to enabled

4. NOTE the RTP Multicast Address Prefix   (if the prefix is showing as 192 or 193, change it to something else so it doesn’t overlap with Livewire’s multicast range)
   
   

Ensure that VX and Dante® are synced to a PTPv2 clock source

A PTPv2 Clock source must exist on the network.  This can either come from a proper PTP Grandmaster clock device or from an Axia xNode with its clock mode set to provide a PTP master clock

1. Confirm that the VX is set to sync to PTP  
   In the VX web GUI, go to the Main page
   Set Clock Source to PTP
   Apply Network Config
   
   
   

2. Confirm that the VX is receiving PTP sync  
   In VX web gui go to the Status page.
   Under System Health look for Clock Status.
   It should report OK and indicate the clock ID of the PTP clock source it is syncing to
   
   If you are using a PTP domain other than zero, see this helpdoc on how to change the PTP domain in the VX
   
   

3. Confirm that Dante® is following the PTPv2 clock
   In Dante Controller, go to the Clock Status tab
   Dante using PTPv1 for its own streams, and it is OK if the Dante device is the “Leader” for PTPv1.
   Dante must be syncing (“Follower”) to PTPv2
   

Send AES67 Multicast from the VX Studio Channel/Hybrid

1. Edit or Add a VX Studio from the Studios page in the VX web gui

2. Check the Enable Box for the Channel

3. Set the Channel Modes to AES67 Multicast

4. Set the multicast address to use for sending hybrid audio to network (for the Dante device to receive)
   NOTE.  The multicast address matches the same prefix seen in the Dante devices AES67 config tab.   As of writing this, VX must send using a multicast address using the same prefix for Dante to receive the stream. It may possible in the future to use an address not with the same prefix octet. We will try to update this doc later if that happens

5. Apply changes

Receive AES67 Multicast from the VX Studio Channel/Hybrid

After applying changes in the previous section, the VX will start advertising the Studio Channel/Hybrid via SAP.
On the Routing tab within Dante Controller you should see the name of the Channel/Hybrid show up under Transmitters
NOTE. It may take up to several minutes for the VX Channel/Hybrid to appear in the Dante Controller Routing tab, this is normal.

Crosspoint the VX channel/hybrid to the desired Dante device Receiver

A green checkbox should appear at the crosspoint locations to indicate proper reception of the stream

NOTE.  All AES67 streams in VX Enterprise, Prime Plus and Duo contain two channels.   This means that each VX channel/hybrid output uses two channels, even though it is outputting mono phone caller audio.  This mean that you can either crosspoint both channels (01, 02) , or just crosspoint first channel (01)

You can further confirm proper reception by going into the Device View for the Dante device receiving the stream. Then go to Latency tab
The graph is a histogram showing the arrival time of packets.  There should be one or more green bars indicating arrival time of all packets from the VX

Send AES67 multicast from the Dante device

1. In Dante Controller open Device View for the Dante device

2. Go to Devices menu

3. Select “Create Multicast Flow”
   
   
   

4. Set Audio Flow to AES67, and set Destination Address to Auto
   Select which channels from the Dante device you want to send as AES67 Multicast
   NOTE.  You must select two channels. VX only receives the AES67 stream if it contains TWO channels. Selecting one, or more than two channels will result in distorted audio being received to VX.   Acceptable selections could be  1 and 2,  3 and 4, 2 and 3, 1 and 9, etc
   

5. Click the Create Button

6. Back on the Device View screen, go to the Transmit tab
   The newly created AES67 multicast stream will be listed.
   Note the multicast address that it indicates, you will need it in the next section
   

Receive AES67 Stream from Dante Device

1. Go back to the VX web gui to the VX Studio that you were editing in the earlier section

2. Take the multicast address of the AES67 Flow seen in the Dante Device View Transmit tab, use that for the Advanced Receive address in VX

3. Click Apply

You can confirm VX is receiving the stream properly by going to the Stream Statistics page
Find the receive multicast address under Input section, observe the values shown in the “RTP Recv Packets” section.  
Refreshing the page a few times, you should see Packets and Bytes values increasing.
Lost, Malformed, Probation, Duplicate or Reordered, and Overruns counters should not be increasing. Although it is normal to see some counted over a very long period of time