W13: Networking for Local and Wide Area Production

Chair:
Dave Immer, Digifon, Fairfield, CT, USA

Panelists:
Russ Hamm, Qmedia, New York, NY, USA
Gary Holladay, Studio Network Solutions, St. Louis, MO, USA
John Klett, Singularity Enterprise, Carmel, NY, USA

As Ethernet achieves gigabit data rates and beyond and production methods come to rely more and more on networking, there is a natural movement toward the installation of Studio Area Networks (SANs) that can handle the massive amounts of data inherent in audio and video moving around within a facility. Fiber-channel SAN seems to be emerging as the net-work protocol of choice for these activities. While coded digital audio over ISDN is currently the popular (and low-cost) approach for wide-area audio production, producers really want linear digital audio and broadcast-quality video. High-speed fiber-optic networking for high-definition video and audio is looming in the not-to-distant future. Real-world demonstrations to prove the promise and cost effectiveness of this technology will be provided.