The Future of HDX?

[Wall2Wall]

Originally Posted by Dantesjuice

ethernet sounds primitive

Read up on Waves Digigrid/Soundgrid. Primitive is the last thing it is. Ethernet is ahead of the game and is on everything already. If not, a simple adapter works in the case of newer Macs. You can build entire audio networks where one Digigrid box can be shared in multiple rooms.

SoundGrid allows you to share and allocate IO across the network – the physical location of the Box becomes less relevant, and a facility can have IOs and Preamps in a common share area, such as a live room and connect these IOs to multiple rooms with a single Ethernet Cable, thus substantially lowering construction costs.

Connecting an additional host and computer is very simple whether this is a stationary, floating or guest computer.

That's just touching the surface.

[Bob Olhsson]

The S6L console uses an Intel processor with a real time OS and a runtime windows interface.

[Wall2Wall]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

The S6L console uses an Intel processor with a real time OS and a runtime windows interface.

So why on God's green earth did Avid have to try and reinvent the wheel with HDX and AAX-DSP

Wait, isn't the S6L a recent product? Is it me, or are those Venue consoles way more advanced/integrated than any TDM/HDX set up.

[Bob Olhsson]

I think the eleven rack uses the same chip so it was probably part of a larger plan if it isn't still.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Dantesjuice

The old accel cards were pcie x1 right, the long connector? Then they moved to the newer short pcie connector for more bandwidth correct? Just seems to make sense they would start using a platform that doesn't change every few years.

You are confusing PCI-x and PCIe. Old HD/TDM cards were PCI-x, newer ones and HDN and HDX cards are PCIe. PCI-x and PCIe are very different interfaces. PCI-x technology in PCs is nearly 20 years old, started to be replaced by PCIe about 10 years ago. I doubt Avid moved to PCIe for bandwidth reasons, they had to move because PCI-x was dying and begin replaced with PCIe which every PC and card vendor, customer and dog could see was so much better.

There are PCIe verisons, (1, 2, 3 and soon 4) and different PCIe lane counts in slots and they are totally different things. "short PCIe connector"... A PCIe connector can vary from 1 lane to 16 in a single slot. . "PCI-x x1" makes no sense, x1 refers to a single lane PCIe connection, there is no equivalent on PCI-x, it is not a serial bus, does not have lanes.

A PCIe slot with more lanes will give you more bandwidth. PCIe is also backwards compatible so PCIe v2 cards work in a PCIe v3 slot. PCIe technology is one of the more stable/compatible things out there and will be as PCIe v4 rolls out. Move away from PCIe technology in audio has/will be driven by increasing CPU performance, wanting more compact systems, ease of connectivity over Ethernet etc. PCIe itself is a wonderfully stable/backwards compatbible part of Intel processor architectures, and in many cases is providing actual connectivity to other peripherals, Thunderbolt, USB 3, etc.

[Dantesjuice]

Thanks for the clarification Darryl

But my point still stands, they moved away from one internal slot to another. So if they continue to do this, then they force all new mac users to get an expansion chassis, OR they make the entire system external with a universal connection, ie...TB3, ethernet or USB C, with the card chassis built in. Then when PC and Mac I/O change, all Avid has to do is release a new expansion port that suits that type of connection.

And as far as ethernet goes, i know that large facilities use this, but not so much the smaller studio or project studios which i think make up the majority of PT HD systems. However, if they implemented the idea of being able to "swap" out the connection type to your computer. Then the large facilities could use ethernet, while the more practical users could use TB or USB type connections. We would all have the same interface, just different ways of connecting it to our computer =) And with TB3 and USB C using the same controller, it seems that could be a valid configuration.

Just brainstorming guys

[Wall2Wall]

The majority of HD/HDX systems are in large post and music facilities. One Disney dub stage has 17 HDX rigs.

Ethernet takes you off of the ever changing slot configuration, thunderbolt 7, pci-e 6.0, USB 8.0 train. Every single computer in the world has an ethernet port already (minus new apple stuff which allows tb/usb 3.0 adaptor for ethernet)

It's cheaper for all involved from the large facility down to the Macbook hobby guy. Cat6 cables are dirt cheap and you can run them really long lengths. No more having to cater to the whims of apple/intel with stupid adaptors and changing protocols every 2-3 years.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Dantesjuice

Thanks for the clarification Darryl

But my point still stands, they moved away from one internal slot to another. So if they continue to do this, then they force all new mac users to get an expansion chassis, OR they make the entire system external with a universal connection, ie...TB3, ethernet or USB C, with the card chassis built in. Then when PC and Mac I/O change, all Avid has to do is release a new expansion port that suits that type of connection.

And as far as ethernet goes, i know that large facilities use this, but not so much the smaller studio or project studios which i think make up the majority of PT HD systems. However, if they implemented the idea of being able to "swap" out the connection type to your computer. Then the large facilities could use ethernet, while the more practical users could use TB or USB type connections. We would all have the same interface, just different ways of connecting it to our computer =) And with TB3 and USB C using the same controller, it seems that could be a valid configuration.

Just brainstorming guys

The computer industry moved away from a dead-end interface technology (PCI-x) to it's successor (PCIe), and in doing that created a whole family of backwards compatible PCIe generations. PCIe is *not* going away. The only real aberration there is Apple built their stupid "pro" trashcans without PCIe slots. An error I would hope they might even undo in future. Until then those Mac users who need to get to pay for the privilege of taking a few PCIe lanes, shoving them over Thunderbolt (which is basically just remote PCIe) and then expanding them back out into PCIe lanes in an external expansion chassis. PCIe slot in high end Windows PCs/Workstations are just not going anywhere. For lower-end/mobile uses sure it's handy to have interfaces that work great with laptops. Again I expect lots of things to change, but not just because of PCIe itself.

Thunderbolt has issues with driver support on Windows, cables are expensive etc. Apple helped ensure it was not widely adopted/available as an upgrade to PCs by mandating video over Thunderbolt, and their time to market deal with Intel did not help. Thunderbolt in general is now far behind in broad adoption on PCs that it may not survive/may become the Firewire of its' time... we will get to see how well Intel manages to push Thunderbolt 3 with PC vendors. A lot depends on Microsoft getting behind this, and as a USB supporter and as an anti-Apple move they may just not want to. We'll see...

There are great Thunderbolt interfaces available today. But I would tend to look forward to USB 3.1 for future direct connected audio interfaces and AVB for higher-end scalable ones. AVB is fairly complex, especially if you start building a larger network, mix different vendors products, etc. And it has driver and support issues as well, and some early products are not as great as maybe they could be. But it is early days yet and we'll see how it pans out. AVB infrastructure just looks so very compelling the moment you start pulling much cable. And when you look at what the equivalent of a rack of multiple HD IO 16x16 boxes will look like in future, I hope they will be be running AVB/connected to a host by AVB.

True ultra-low latency DSP processing (where you want to be able to monitor though those plugins) is not as simple as just throwing remote DSP or standard CPUs at a problem. And just having a fast interconnect is not the whole story, its the latency, including the whole software stack (maybe... from interface to network to OS to DAW back to OS to network... yikes). What HDX and TDM/DSP actually achieves is very very hard to with a DAW and outboard DSP plugin processing... if you try that you are back to dealing with native processing and IO buffers, or maybe you end up with hybrid approaches like UAD Apollo with DSP processing usable in the input at low latency or from the DAW at high latency. My expectation is native processing will just continue to eat up more and more HD/HDX/DSP usage since it's relatively low cost and lets users just ride the commodity processor curve.

I expect USB 3.1 will likely be the future for a lot of consumer peripherals. USB technology is goign to stabilize here for a while. Once it becomes widely enough available you'll see more and more devices including audio interfaces using it, right now many consumer focused audio interfaces can do fine on even USB 2. So yes I expect you'll see lots of low end stuff use USB and higher end/scalable stuff use AVB. And some interfaces will hopefully offer both.

Type-C connectors are likely to proliferate everywhere, and compete with Thunderbolt and DisplayPort for display connections. With either HDMI or MHL running over Type-C. And super-MHL may end up replacing HDMI as it jumped well ahead of HDMI for ultra-high resolution/multiple display support. So absolutely no argument that Type-C connectors will likely be everywhere. It's going to be damn confusing to users what is actually supported over those connectors. Lots of changes going on now, I'd not be rushing to buy a new computer with Thunderbolt 2 or an interface that uses that right now if I could avoid it. Hopefully there will be affordable adapters from Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 1/2, but we'll see. All a bit of a mess right now, Apple pushed Thunderbolt the way they wanted and it looks like broader market realities (like DisplayPort/HDMI running out of steam?) and Intel are now pushing it back the way they wanted (e.g. using a common connector with USB). USB on Type C is also a bit of a mess right now due to all the technology transitions, but less so. e.g. USB 3.1 Gen 1, (i.e. disappointingly slower USB 3.0 not full USB 3.1) on some type C connectors including the new Apple Crapbook.

All those Thunderbolt and USB changes means it is going to be a while until we see what settles out and until you see many interesting new interfaces that use that technology.

WiFi network adoption is kind of irrelevant to AVB. At the most trivial it's a single (5 dollar!) Ethernet cable from a computer to an interface, or in a real studio pulling some twisted pair cable (ideally for a dedicated AVB network) or using existing cable is kind of trivial compared to say analog cabling that replaces. AVB over wired Ethernet should increasingly become a great backbone for modern studio audio, WiFi is what the band can use in the green room to post on Facebook...

[Dantesjuice]

Dayuuuuuum Darrly, now thats a response!!! =)

So would you say future mac interfaces being usb c and future windows interfaces being usb 3.1?

My understanding is that tb, usb3.1 and usb c use the same controller, but use the usb c type connector, maybe im wrong though. But if that is true, wouldnt it make sense then for audio interface manufactures to use the common denominator, usb c, since both mac and pc will be support this, instead of offering 1 or the other...or both? I would think it would be cheaper to make an interface with only 1 type of connection, maybe not though if its all really the same controller?

[JFreak]

USB and Pro Audio have never been best friends