Dante over different subnets

[Dan0010]

I'm hoping someone is familiar is DANTE in a large network environment.

After reading about DANTE I finally have got my shure ulxd and my soundcraft expression 2 (with dante card) connected to the network but I'm having a little issue.

The devices are on different subnets with what I thought I read should work (one reciver is on a 192.168.0.0 subnet and my pc is on a 192.168.10.0 subnet both /24) however the dante controller software doesn't see the devices. I thought you can use dante across subnets but am I wrong. I did some more google searches today and found references to dante netspander as a way to cross subnets but I can't find the software so was that audiante way to cross subnets back in 2011 (as I found the reference articles dated in that year) and now it suppose to be fully supported?

I'm hoping someone understands this as I'm kinda lost.

 

[themuzicman]

Do you have an exact purpose for using more than one subnet? Aside from huge installations, there is no logical reason to be running your network on more than one subnet -- even Broadway shows Dante networks rarely need to run outside of a single subnet architecture.

Go ahead and set everything as a static IP on a single subnet. This will clear it up and allow you to use all of your devices.

 

[Dan0010]

it was the way the network was setup. each floor has it own subnet and the wireless and wired is separated in it own subnet.

at this point i'm setting up equipment on one floor and pulling the audio into a sound board into a control room another floor using the network that already in place.

the future use would be for a separate broadcast group that he have that films events and they would use their control room and we feed the audio, video back and they could even mix the audio by using dante. that way if there a presentation, show, etc then they can feed it into their gear without having to duplicate everything.

 

[themuzicman]

Just ran through the Dante Controller manual, here's what it says for IP, based on the fact that it says 169.254.*.* it seems the netspander features that I can't find a word of on the audinate website are just baked into Controller now. I wouldn't discount that your switches in the installed network might have ports blocked that Dante needs, but that is just speculation: Anyhow:

Correct IP configuration
Dante hardware devices are set to obtain their IP address automatically from the network. They will either:

• Automatically assign themselves an address in the range 169.254.*.* (172.31.*.* for the secondary network if present), or
• Obtain an IP address from a DHCP server if it is present on the network

Your PC or Mac TCP/IP network configuration set should be set to "Obtain an IP address automatically". This way it will automatically acquire a Link Local automatic IP address in the same network as other Dante devices. If a DHCP server is present, the computer and Dante devices will all acquire their IP addresses via DHCP.

and from Yamaha on how to pick a dante-compliant network switch:
http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/globa...ing/dante_guide/chapter1/02_network_switches/

I would also say it would be worth your while to throw a post up on the Theater Sound Google Group, lots of smart folks with a lot of Dante experience over there.

 

[applstew]

Dante as far as I was aware is designed to use Multicast UDP packets, which are normally not designed to cross between networks. It is possible to do in certain applications but I am not sure that it can be configured easily. IMO you are probably better off putting a Dante only switch in and setting up your own network if possible that way if there is a problem, its not propagating out to whatever production network you are on.

 

[Chris15]

From what I remember when it first came out...

Dante is a layer 3 or 4 TCP/IP protocol and is routable.
But something will need to setup routing rules to allow it and at the moment, the controller is rightly seeing the other device as not on the network - in subnetting terms it's not!

I'd be dropping Audinate a line about how to route it across networks if that's the route you want to take...

Were it me though, I'd just be getting a VLAN setup on the network to put all the Dante onto one subnet and keep the multicast traffic off the other subnets...