AES50-2005

High Resolution Multi-channel Audio

Interconnection

multi-channel
audio

multi-channel
audio audio sample
clocks

network traffic audio sample

clocks

Michael Page
R&D Engineer
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The Plan
• How it came to be
• The philosophy
• How it actually works
• What you can do with it
• Real-world progress, and the future

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 How it came to be

Rewind to early 2002…

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The original engineering
problem
• Super Audio CD pro-application
engineering
• Direct Stream Digital (DSD):
– 64x 44.1 kHz sample rate = 2.8224
MHz
– 1-bit samples
– Delta-sigma modulated

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The original engineering
problem
• DSD connection on BNC

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Desired solution…
• Use one Cat-5 cable
• Full-duplex
• Suitable for pro-studio use
• Latency ~ 10s of microseconds
• DSD sample clock

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Enabling technology
• 100Base-TX (“Fast Ethernet”)
physical layer

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 MAC-DSD
• Multi-channel Audio Connection for
Direct Stream Digital
• Paper 5691 at 113th AES Convention
(Los Angeles, fall 2002)

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 MAC-DSD

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The move to PCM
• How to get around the political
angle?

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The move to PCM
• PCM spec:
– Support all the high-res formats
– Support wide sample-rate deviation
– Phase alignment of word clock
– Transparent to AES3

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 SuperMAC
• Super Multi-channel Audio
Connection
• Paper 5878 at 115th AES (New York,
fall 2003)

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 SuperMAC audio specs
• Latency = three 44.1/48 kHz sample
periods
• 48 channel @ 44.1/48 kHz
• 24 channel @ 88.2/96 kHz
• 12 channel @ 176.4/192 kHz
• 6 channel @ 352.8/384 kHz
• 24 channel @ DSD

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 SuperMAC auxiliary data

• 5.6 Mbit/sec bitstream available

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 SuperMAC auxiliary data

Ethernet!

• bridged over the auxiliary data

bitstream, alongside the audio

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 (higher audio layers not shown) Auxiliary Data Frame Format
512-byte sotware-defined Ethernet frames

Audio Bitstream Formatting Auxiliary Data Bitstream

DSD or PCM (sample sub-frame) Formatting
encapsulation Demarcate 512-byte frames in contiguous
128fs bitstream

Payload encoding
26 64fs bitstreams, FEC-coded and interleaved

SuperMAC Frame Format

1448-byte frames, with defined headers for Ethernet
MAC and protocol-specific identification, plus 1408-byte
payload

PHY Interface Layer

Physical Layer device (MII) interface: physical
layer frames prefixed only by preamble

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 SuperMAC Router

SuperMAC Router
Aud io R outi ng internal routing arc hitecture
con tr ol
Audio routing pla ne
(low -latency aud io chan nel
swi tch)

C at-5
Su pe rMAC i/o
SuperMAC
SuperMAC
SuperMAC
Transc eive r
SuperMAC
Tra nsce ive r
Tra nsce ive r
Auxilia ry data Transceiver
routing pla ne
(pa cket swi tch ) Aud io a nd a uxi lia ry
Cat-5 d ata spl it to R ou te r co ntai ns
Ethern et i /o ind ep en den t ro utin g l arge numb er of
pl ane s Su pe rMAC
Auxi lia ry Data tran scei vers
E th ern et Po rt

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 SuperMAC Router

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 AES Standardization

• Why an open standard?

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 AES Standardization
• Project X140 initiated in late 2003
• Published as AES50-2005 on July
17th, 2005
• See also AES-R6-2005 if you want to
understand the standard!

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The philosophy

of AES50 technology

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Optimization

• All these multi-channel audio over

Cat-5 systems – they’re basically the
same, right?

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Dedicated Routers

• Ultra-low latency
• Totally consistent latency
• Single-channel granularity
• Non-blocking routing

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 How AES50 works

(The tech stuff)

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Transceiver overview

clock to PLL
differential
clock
transceiver
clock from PLL

SuperMAC 100Base-TX
auxiliary data transceiver Physical Layer Cat-5 cable
logic transceiver
multi-channel
audio

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Transmitter logic
SuperMAC transceiver logic (transmit only)

TDM format
adaptation
multi-channel
audio

asynchronous FIFO
buffer

FEC encoder and

aux data buffer interleaver
auxiliary data

PHY frame
assembler
frames to
Physical Layer
transceiver

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 AES50 frame format
20 octets Ethernet MAC-
compatible header Preamble, src/dest addresses, length

4 octets AES Ethertype

protocol identifier Globally-unique protocol identifier

6 octets AES50 header Protocol version, audio format

1408 bytes Payload Multiplexed and encoded audio data

4 bytes Ethernet MAC- For future Ethernet compatibility

compatible CRC

Total: 1442 bytes

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Audio clock alignment

SuperMAC
64fs clock Cable cable clock Cable 64fs clock
clock clock
fs (word) encoder decoder fs (word)
(on link cable)
clock A B clock
Transceiver A Transceiver B
(clock transmitter shown) (clock receiver shown)

SuperMAC 64fs
cable clock at A
fs (word) clock
edge at A
SuperMAC 64fs
cable clock at B
fs (word) clock
edge at B
delay due to cable
propagation delay only

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Word clock phase indication

64fs clock

1fs word clock

multiplexed 64fs cable
clock with phase indicator

t clkmod tclkmod

negative edge modulation tclkmod

exaggerated for visibility in figure

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Latency control
Transmitter Receiver

Clock channel
(latency ~0)
compare sync
fs/2048
trim
sync event
latency

Data (audio) channel FIFO

(latency ~50 microseconds)

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 What you can do with AES50
a.k.a. “systemisation”

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 HyperMAC

High-performance
Multi-channel Audio
Connection

• Gigabit physical layer: copper or fiber

• Up to 384 channel audio, plus 100Mbit/sec auxiliary
data

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Live sound application
front of house stage
analog A/D D/A
inserts A/D D/A
monitoring
analog
A/D D/A stage inputs
monitor outputs
Multitrack recorder amp outputs
A/D D/A

Parallel redundant
HyperMAC optical
Router links Router
Ethernet
(aux data port
on Router) DSP Engine DSP Engine

FoH console up to 500m

SuperMAC link

HyperMAC link

Ethernet link

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Multi-channel workstation
SuperMAC link high-resolution A/D D/A
HyperMAC link 1-bit
2.8224MHz
A/D D/A
audio workstation 24-bit
352.8kHz
with HyperMAC PCI card A/D D/A
analog
24-bit
352.8kHz
A/D D/A

24-bit
352.8kHz
A/D D/A

Router

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 On-air broadcast
Studio 1
signal
processor

AES3 digital
A/D D/A studio inputs
monitoring outputs
analog
A/D D/A studio inputs
monitoring outputs
Central equipment room
SuperMAC links

Router

Router
up to 500m

on-air console
HyperMAC point-to-point
mode connections to
studios 2-7 (like Studio 1)

HyperMAC single-mode
fiber connection to
external facility

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Other applications

• Installs?
• Consumer?

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 Current implementations
• FPGA logic core licensing

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 AES50 transceiver chip

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The future

• HyperMAC completes the initial family

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 The future

• Diversify applications for HyperMAC:

– Installs
– Network operation
– Video

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford
 More information…
• AES Standards:
– www.aes.org/standards
– Search for AES50 and AES-R6

• Implementations:
– Sony Pro-Audio Lab
– www.sonyoxford.co.uk/supermac

• Email me: [email protected]

AES British Section

Oxford Digital Audio
Technologies Interconnection
10 January, 2006
Sony Pro-Audio Lab, Oxford