Cloud-based broadcast production is gaining popularity since it offers several advantages over traditional production workflows, including flexibility and efficiency. Dante Connect is a software application suite that facilitates cloud-based broadcast production and is a powerful platform for A1s and mixing engineers, combining the familiarity, ease of use and tight synchronization of Dante audio with seamless connectivity to centralized production tools running on cloud instances.

Produce Anywhere, Send Anywhere

Dante Connect allows broadcasters to rethink how they approach audio production by enabling a seamless transition to the cloud, maintaining the familiar workflows that production teams are accustomed to in on-premise environments. The shift to cloud-based production workflows opens up new possibilities for efficiency and collaboration, transforming the traditional boundaries of remote audio production by connecting Dante devices directly to the cloud.

With Dante Connect, Dante audio products can send up to 256 channels at a time of synchronized, high-fidelity audio directly from on-premise Dante devices to best-of-breed or customer-preferred production software in the cloud, reducing the need for mobile studios and trucks. Audio can be distributed globally within the cloud, allowing different teams to use the same audio within multiple applications and locations to address different audiences, languages, and aspects of the production process. Source audio can be sent from remote sites directly to the cloud so mixing engineers can do their jobs from wherever they are located, again without the need to roll expensive outside broadcast truck deployments.

Dante Connect currently allows professional quality audio to be shared between applications in separate Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, including across AWS Regions. Part of the intent with Dante Connect is to allow broadcasters to set up and tear down workflows in minutes, using only the resources needed for as long (or short) as needed, saving time and money.

Dante Connect comprises the following applications:

• Dante Virtual Soundcard, which provides up to 256 x 256 channels of audio to be transmitted and received by applications residing in the same cloud instance (“node”).
• Dante Gateway, which adeptly synchronizes low-latency local networks with higher-latency connections using in-cloud clocking. Each Gateway can support up to 256 channels to extend the reach and ensure audio delivery across distant connections.
• Dante Domain Manager, which provides orchestration, security, and managed API. It discovers all Dante devices, sets permissions, and allows for the organization of resources to suit production needs.
• Dante Controller, which allows the user to configure and monitor the Dante nodes via a familiar user interface.

Dante Connect offers broadcasters a robust suite of capabilities. To make deployments more streamlined, Terraform modules and sample scripts are available. These resources serve as a foundational toolkit, enabling customers to craft their own automation scripts for quick instantiation and configuration of necessary components.

Dante Connect is offered with a concurrency licensing model, giving flexibility to broadcasters that need to quickly realign their resources between productions. This allows customers to use their connections dynamically and move seamlessly from one production to the next. They maximize their licensing investment by spinning up what they need using the included Terraform scripting when needed.

Dante Connect Use Case Examples

Picture a week filled with overlapping races: a Formula 1 Grand Prix in Monaco, a MotoGP race in Valencia, and a World Rally Championship event in Finland. Each of these events, happening in different locations and time zones, requires a unique audio setup, and Dante Connect is the key to managing these complex requirements.

On the ground at each race, Dante-enabled microphones capture the engines’ roar, the crowd’s cheers, and the commentary from the pit lane. These microphones are connected to Dante-enabled mixers and communication systems, creating a robust on-premise audio network that can capture and process high-quality audio in real time.

This audio is then seamlessly transmitted to a centralized production hub via Dante Connect. Here, cloud-based Dante-enabled mixers, digital signal processors (DSPs), and intercom systems take over. These devices allow technical staff to control and fine-tune the audio broadcast from a single location, regardless of where the races occur. This seamless integration of on-premise and cloud-based devices creates a flexible, efficient, and scalable audio ecosystem that can adapt to the needs of any broadcast.

Audio First

Currently, most of the cloud production in broadcast is a “video first” approach, which makes sense from a bandwidth and editing perspective for multi-camera events. The audio travels with the video, getting muxed in with various protocols: SRT 2110, AES67, NDI®, pick your flavor. It’s pretty straightforward. However, keeping the audio synchronized with multiple AV sources is not.

Much like on-premise networks, a master clock is required to keep streams synchronized in the cloud. The challenge is that the “cloud” can comprise several virtual instances without knowledge of each other regarding the time domain. So, synchronization becomes an integral part of a successful broadcasting solution in the cloud. A combination of gateways and virtual sound cards is crucial to operate in these flexible environments, where we don’t have the benefit of dedicated hardware to establish a master clock. Gateways seamlessly manage the synchronization between on-premise and cloud-based clocks, as well as across different cloud geographic locations, ensuring consistent timing for optimal performance. At the same time, the virtual soundcards support hundreds of audio channels that can be transmitted/received by virtual applications running inside a cloud instance or node. That allows us to ensure the audio streams are in sync — at least amongst themselves — and brings about a way to easily embed them back with the video at later points in the signal path.

In audio-only productions, there are several instances where maintaining the integrity of the audio stream without embedding it into other media is crucial. For example, in multilingual radio broadcasts or podcasts, providing language-specific audio streams without altering accompanying elements can significantly streamline production processes. Additionally, when distributing audio content across various platforms or channels, it may be necessary to deliver audio separately to meet the diverse specifications or quality standards of each platform. Keeping audio tracks discrete in post-production workflows also simplifies version control and editing, offering the flexibility to make revisions and updates to the audio content without impacting the entirety of the production.

Financial Considerations

From an economic standpoint, fewer people traveling between events and less hardware being shipped results in lower travel & entertainment (T&E) and shipping costs, which can add up quickly. A soft benefit of reduced travel for many employees is improved quality of life, as extended time on the road really can wear people down quickly.

The broadcasting landscape is rapidly evolving, and with it, the debate between capital expenditures (CapEx) and operational expenditures (OpEx) in infrastructure investment intensifies. The future of broadcasting, while not set in stone, demands that executives prioritize flexibility in their infrastructure to meet both current and potential future needs. Traditional CapEx investments tie broadcasters to specific devices for the entire depreciation period, which is increasingly untenable as consumer habits shift unpredictably. In contrast, the cloud and virtualization offer a dynamic alternative, where fixed costs are not fully depreciated but transitioned into OpEx. This shift includes considering expenses such as egress and cloud computational fees, which, although challenging to forecast far into the future, provide the agility necessary to adapt to the ever-changing production landscape.

Nothing is happening in the virtualization of broadcast production right now that the corporate IT world hasn’t already figured out, which is typified by a hybrid of edge and cloud. You might want to avoid posting certain things on a cloud computer from an intellectual property (IP) or a legal standpoint. The future will see the rise of robust hybrid infrastructures, combining cloud production’s scalability with the reliability of traditional production methods to guarantee uninterrupted broadcasts—even in the face of cloud connectivity issues. Edge compute systems will become a staple on-site, providing a resilient safety net and representing a calculated capital expenditure (CapEx) that ensures the show will go on, regardless of external network factors.

Looking To The Future

There’s a long and rich roadmap planned for Dante Connect, including support for additional cloud-based platforms and the release of Remote Monitor, which allows broadcasters to listen to a compressed audio stream from the cloud over the internet via a web browser. Several popular cloud-based tools like Waves Cloud MX mixer, Audiotonix, and Riedel Communications’ Simplylive Production Suite are already capable of ingesting Dante audio, and many more are likely in the works. All of these facets make a compelling case for broadcasters to consider migrating toward cloud-based production workflows.

Whether it’s overlapping motor racing events or a live music festival, Dante Connect offers a flexible, efficient, and scalable solution that can meet the demands of any broadcast. The future of broadcasting lies in the ability to manage complex, overlapping productions from a centralized location, and Dante Connect is leading the way in making this future a reality.