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Momentum for Milan Network Protocol Builds with New Members, Products and Ecosystem Tools

Amsterdam, NL – Integrated Systems Europe 2019, RAI – February 5-8, 2019 – Avnu Alliance announces new members and ecosystem tools, while manufacturer members plan to demonstrate and showcase new Milan-ready products at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2019.

Milan is a standards-based, user-driven deterministic network protocol for professional media, that assures devices will work together at new levels of convenience, reliability and functionality. Created and maintained by Pro Audio market leaders in the Avnu Alliance, Milan is the first tangible solution for promising deterministic, reliable, and future-proof delivery of networked media. Milan combines the technical benefits of the AVB standard with Pro AV market-defined device requirements at both the network and the application layer for media streams, formats, clocking and redundancy.

“Members of Milan have been diligently working behind the scenes for the last six months and we’re excited to use ISE as a forum to showcase the momentum and progress that Milan has made and set the stage for Milan in 2019. We now have the full suite of Milan specification documents available, representing almost two years of work from technical workgroup members and dedicated manufacturers who are providing the tools and resources for the correct implementation of this protocol,” said Avnu Alliance Pro AV workgroup chair Tim Boot, Meyer Sound. “With the new members that have joined us in 2018 and now, the Milan initiative has proliferated the professional audio market. With more members, more expertise and more market leaders contributing to the effort, we’re gearing up to create a new streamlined testing and certification program that will enable companies to move to a solution that guarantees interoperability on a technically superior, future-proof network.”

New Members

Since launching at InfoComm 2018, Milan has seen continued momentum with new member manufacturers joining the effort. In recent months, the Milan work group within Avnu has introduced three industry leaders as new promoter members dedicated to creating a new ecosystem of interoperable Milan devices: Adamson Systems Engineering, a Canadian  exporter of loudspeaker technology for the pro-audio sector; ICEpower, a fast growing, innovation-based sound house specializing in audio power conversion solutions, based in Denmark; and UK-based Sienda Multimedia, a developer and designer of hardware products for pro audio, live sound and broadcast markets, and a range of other networked media products

Milan Forum

To encourage collaboration, provide information and answer questions from the greater pro AV community, the Milan workgroup has launched a Milan Forum. This is open now for anyone to join and have discussions in, or get answers about Milan implementation, specifications, certification, and more. It is free to join and open to anyone, just sign up at milanavcommunity.proboards.com.

ISE Presentations and Events

At ISE 2019, Milan members will share new developments and announcements to the market in a series of events during the show, including two news conferences and a happy hour event for networking.

  • Tuesday, February 5, 2019 – 17:30 – 19:00 – Milan News Conference – Hosted by d&b audiotechnik: Demo Room E105/E106
  • Wednesday, February 6, 2019 – 17:30 – 19:00 – Milan News Conference – Hosted by L-Acoustics: Demo Room E103
  • Thursday, February 7, 2019 – 17:00 PM – 18:00 PM – Milan Happy Hour – Hosted by Meyer Sound: Hall 1, Booth #1-M90

Registration is required for the demo room presentations. Interested manufacturers, press and consultants may RSVP for one of the presentations in this link.

In addition to Milan presentations, members will showcase Milan-ready products, demonstrations and news in their own booths on the show floor including: Adamson Systems Engineering (booth #7-C235), d&b audiotechnik (booth #7-C210), L-Acoustics (booth #7-X230), Meyer Sound (booth #1-M90) as well as an interoperability demonstration of new Milan-enabled devices in the Luminex booth (#7-S197).

Milan-Ready Open Source Tools

Avnu member, L-Acoustics has published an open source, free-to-use AVDECC Library that is now fully Milan compatible with the recently published Milan Discovery, Connection & Control Specification for Listeners & Talkers. With this specification, Milan delivers a clear, defined profile for devices with a small subset of the standard and removes all ambiguities from this subset in order to achieve interoperability at the control layer. The open source library offers a set of tools for controlling AVB and Milan devices using the AVDECC (IEEE1722.1) protocol and to meet Avnu Milan specifications. These libraries can be implemented on Windows, Linux and macOS using standard development tools. Unit tests and sample programs are also available. The open source tools are available today on GitHub.

Education

Avnu member, Richard Bugg, Meyer Sound will present an AVIXA Flash Track session on Milan and AVB in room 13-N110 on Tuesday, February 5, 4:30-5:00 PM entitled, “Addressing Challenges for AV Networking Using Ethernet & AVB.” This is a flash track version of Avnu’s popular training Master Course, which has been offered for the past three years in an effort to offer best practices and practical, applied examples of challenges that network professionals encounter. The training continues to evolve to address new market needs and requirements. The class offers AV and IT managers, integrators and specifiers a look at common challenges faced during AV networking management, and corresponding solutions for the distribution of time sensitive audio, video and control signals over an Ethernet network with Audio Video Bridging (AVB) and Milan.

Manufacturers interested in exploring Milan network implementation should visit www.avnu.org/Milan or get in touch with Milan@Avnu.org or join the Milan Forum. Milan specification documents are final and available now at http://avnu.org/specifications/.

To learn more about Avnu Alliance, visit www.avnu.org.

About Milan

Thoughtfully designed and developed, Milan is a user-driven protocol built on top of IEEE Audio Video Bridging (AVB) open standards with added specification requirements for professional media to ensure that all Milan devices will work together on a Pro AV network. Milan is the Pro AV market-defined protocol and toolkit that provides manufacturers a specific set of rules and directives for products to be built with requirements for the network layer and the application layer including media streams, formats, clocking and redundancy, and thus once tested and certified, form a fully interoperable ecosystem for deterministic networking in the Pro AV market.