AES Standards News Blog

AES-10id-2005 (r2011) Engineering guidelines for the multichannel audio digital interface AES10 (MADI) has been reaffirmed in a new printing.

The AES10 standard defining the multichannel audio digital interface (MADI) provides for the serial digital transmission of 32, 56, or 64 channels of linearly represented digital audio data at a common sampling frequency within the range 32 kHz to 96 kHz, having a resolution of up to 24 bits per channel. The format makes possible the transmission and reception of the complete 28-bit channel word (excluding preamble) as specified in AES3, providing for the validity, user, channel status, and parity information allowable under that standard. The transmission format is of the asynchronous simplex type and is specified for a single 75-ohm coaxial cable point-to-point interconnection or the use of fibre-optic cables.

This companion Information Document deals with a number of implementation details not laid down in the AES10 standard, or unnecessarily restricted by the standard, concerning synchronisation, packing, and so on which have given rise to delivery problems.

The latest revision of AES-10id is divided into sections dealing with: input from AES3 bitstreams, output to AES3 bitstreams and including additional concerns for other digital audio interfaces, synchronisation of AES3 to MADI decoders, synchronisation of MADI to AES3 decoders, and some general problems uncovered by experience.

http://www.aes.org/publications/standards/