Webinar: Training Track - Level 2 Dante Certification - Intermediate Dante Concepts

Sep 26, 2019

 

This webinar has concluded. On Thursday, September 26, SVC Editor Cynthia Wisehart and Audinate's Technical Training Program Manager Danu Vino provided a free Dante training experience.

Level 2 Dante Certification is an intermediate course designed for intermediate to advanced Dante users that are looking to create more advanced systems and learn best practices.

View On-demand Webinar

Date: Thursday, September 26, 2019
Time: 2:00 PM EST (1 hour duration)
Cost: Free

 

Attendees will actually complete the Dante Level 2 certification course during the live webcast. Certification and CTS RUs will be awarded upon completion of an online exam. 

Course Topics

  • Dante Controller - Configuration and Diagnostics Tools
  • Dante redundancy
  • Clocking
  • Latency
  • Unicast & Multicast
  • Dante Flows

Webinar Q&A

Q) If you already have Level 2 can you still get the CTS credits?

A) Yes. If you are already certified in Level 2, then you already have the relevent CTS credits. Your CTS credits for Level 2 will be printed on your certificate. To download the certificate, please go to 'My Certificates' on your dashboard, once you log in to audinate.com/certify

Q) You may get to this later, but what do I do if my IT department mandates managed switches and uses multiple VLANs?

A) Dante is standard Ethernet, so we can work within a single VLAN, no problem. If you need to communicate between devices on different VLANs, you may want to use Dante Domain Manager to make that easier. Our Level 3 class covers these concepts in more detail, but for the short term I would suggest watching a video introducing Dante Domain Manager - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCY3JNpCu_k. For questions on this, contact our support team at [email protected]. If your Dante network is a stand-alone network, where you retain all control, you can choose to go with an unmanaged switch depending on how your network is set up. However, if there is an IT department invovled, and there is an existing policy that mandates VLANS, and managed switches, then you must follow their guidelines. Dante Certification Level 3 provides information on this.

Q) Hello! I have multiple conflicts for this time slot today. I will only be able to attend the first half of this webinar. Will it be offered again soon, or will the recording of this be available for later viewing?

A) If you missed all or part of the webinar, you have the option of either viewing it on-demand using the link provided to you when you registered. OR you can view our training videos by signing up for the Level 2 course at audinate.com/certify

Q) hello and thanks a lot foer the webinarcan you please show us an example of naming a main and a back up subscription identically.

A) Every Dante device remembers the streams it needs to receive, and it knows the name of the device it should get it from. So, if you have a transmitter that fails, you can give it the same name as the prior device and devices will get the subscriptions it was looking for. Of course, you will still need to enter the receive subscriptions for a device. The following example is a good exercise that explains the subscription storage. Really, if you want a true back-up, a Dante Preset may be a better way to restore settings to a single device. The process for creating backup devices is simple. First, connect the main device, and name the device, and label all your channels. Then disconnect the device, and connect the backup device. Name the backup device exactly the same way as the main device, and label all channels the same. Then go ahead and disconnect the backup device, and reconnect the main device and make your subscriptions. At any point, if you need to use the backup device, simply disconnect the main device, and plug in the backup device, and your subscriptions will come back online.

Q) how is the default latency set for devices?

A) To set latency for a device, double click on the device name. Then go to device config tab. In there, you will see the Device Latency section - you can choose from any of the latency options available to that device.

Q) Should we avoid routers? What are the 1588 Priorities for selection? ...example Device Type? Hops?Distance? Time? Speed? MAC? IP? etc

A) If your Dante network is in one subnet, then you don't need a router. However, if your network consists of multiple subnets, then you will have to use a router to get data from devices in each subnet. More information on this can be found in Dante Certification Level 3.

The Dante clock master election is an automated process. The selection criteria is based on whether devices are chasing external clock. If there is still a tie, then we go by devices that have the ""best clock"". If there is still a tie, then we solve it by the lowest MAC address. Of course, you can override all of this by indicating a device is Preferred Master - then that becomes the highest priority. (And if you've indicated multiple Preferred Masters, then the automated process will be used behind that to narrow down one.) Refer to this diagram for a breakdown of the clock election process: https://audinate.com/sites/default/files/PDF/Dante-Clock-Master-Election...

Q) Does Dante support Redundant network in AES67 mode?

A) No. The AES67 specification did not discuss redundancy. However, if you use Dante with SMPTE 2110 (supported in v4.2 devices on many chipsets in tandem with Dante Domain Manager), that does support SMPTE 2022-7 for redundancy. SMPTE 2110 and AES67 are compatible for the most part, so that might be an option.

Q) Access tools for monitoring?

A) Dante controller offers clock monitoring and latency monitoring. For clock monitoring, click on the "Clock Status Monitor" button at the bottom of Dante Controller's "Network View" screen. You may have to click on the "heart monitor" icon at the top to engage this feature. To monitor your latency, double click on the deivce to enter "Device View", and then click on the 'Latency' tab. All of this is covered in the Dante Level 2 class here. Refer to the following sections from the Level 2 course: Clocking - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBm1kS5MqDI Latency - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA9O-UWbjI4

Q) Locking a device locks also changes done locally on consoles?, I mean, not done via dante controller but directly on a yamaha cl5 or similar

A) Locking a device in Dante Controller only prevents that Dante interface from accepting commands from Dante Controller. It does not lock the Dante device that is hosting the card, and it does not stop the host device from making changes to its internal Dante interface. This applies to anything - consoles, DSPs, etc.

Q) I work at Princeton University and we use Dante Audio. We are getting a ton of drop outs and the audio is not working at all. Hoping this course helps but I am trying to figure out why dante doesnt work correctly.

A) If you're experincing audio drop outs, it is likely due to your network configuration. We recommend that you use a dedicated Dante network to avoid such issues. However, if you are in fact in a converged network, and are sharing services with the rest of your network infrastructure, then you may need to apply network management techniques like QoS. Dante Certification Level 3 provides more information on this. Feel free to contact our support team at [email protected] to talk to one of our engineers if needed.

Q) when selecting a master clock, will the audio drop?

A) Generally speaking, there is no audio dropout. While we don't recommend changing clock masters in the middle of an event, the election typically happens fast enough that there is no drop out.

Q) If I use a Black Lion Master clock can I hook it up to a DME64 and make it the Master?

A) If a Dante device has a traditional Word Clock input (which a DME 64 does), you can have the Dante device follow the external clock. Make sure you check ""External Clock"" in Dante Controller - that will tell the Dante interface to follow clock from the host device. At that point, that interface will be elevated in the clock master election process, and should become the clock master on the Dante network.

Q) if the names have been changed. When loading presets with old names could that crash subscriptions?

A) If you load the entire preset, you'll get the old names back. That will work. However, if you load subscriptions only from a preset and you've changed names of the devices on the network, then the subscriptions will not be valid. If you have a lot of problems like this, it may be worth opening up the Dante Preset with a text editor, find the old name, and do a "search and replace" to put in the new name. That would be a reasonably easy way to correct the preset.

Q) can you have multiple masters?

A) In Level 2, where everything is on one LAN and we are not using Dante Domain Manager, yes there should only be one clock master. You can select multiple devices to be the Preferred Master, though our clock election process will still narrow this down to one device. With that said, there are more advanced methods that allow us to distribute clock on larger networks, but this isn't covered in Level 2. If you are considering a more advanced network configuration, please contact our support team at [email protected] and we can help you understand how to achieve that based on your specific network need.

Q) Hello. When I’m doing the level 2 part B exam. I'm confused about the Step 2 item 4: In addition to device names, we wish to ensure that some channels are sensibly labelled as well. How to labeling those other device will be correct? Are there have any example? It's because i tried a lot of time for the test

A) Level 2 Part B simulator requires you to name devices EXACTLY as indicated. Even a slight deviation from instructions will result in it being marked as wrong. If you still have trouble passing, please contact us via [email protected]

Q) Can a preset be edited offline?

A) Not really. Dante Controller's interface is designed to show you the network you are connected to. There is no offline mode. With that said, the Dante Preset is stored as a XML file on your computer. This can be edited (carefully) with a text editor like BBEdit, Text Wrangler or NotePad++. However, this is not like opening Dante Controller and editing based on the preset, and we recognize this is not for most people. We get this request from time to time, and this feature has been explained to the product development team.