Audio Networking

Bob Moses AES Vice President Western Region USA/Canada

Updated: May 21, 2002

Presentation Outline
Why Network Audio? How? Ramifications Listening Tests

Why Network Audio?

Put an engineer, marketing exec., business development mgr, and consumer in a room and ask them why network your audio system? Engineer: Because we can Marketing: To exploit new opportunities BizDev: To make lots of money Consumer: To access every recording ever made, instantly

Engineering Perspective
Digital Audio systems benefit by being networked Share resources
Lowers cost Increases performance

Provide a modular upgrade path

Partition the system so that only those things that need to change must change

Enhanced user interface

Graphical Single and multiple points of control

Engineering Anatomy of a modern audio widget

S to ra g e

N e tw o rk Access

A u d io R e n d e re r A u d io R ip p e r U ser In te rfa c e

A u d io O u tp u ts A u d io I/O A u d io In p u ts

Evolution the PC meets Darwin

Jim Reekes, Founder of Kebango: A general-purpose computer is an instrument of torture. They do many things, but nothing very well. They paradoxically implement a continually changing set of standards. Of the top 10 selling software packages, 6 cure problems created by other programs.

Introducing the Home Network

Carries all types of data Files (TCP/UDP, SCSI, etc.) Audio streams (MP3, Real, WMA, Dolby/DTS, Redbook, 24/96, multichan, etc.) Video streams (Real, MPEG4, uncompressed SD & HD, MPEG PS or TS, DV, etc.) Control & monitoring protocols (RC5, AVC, ASCII, JAVA/Jini, UPnP, proprietary, etc.) Transparent to the data Quality of service for streaming A/V exceeds human perception (bounded latency, low jitter, no drop outs) Guaranteed delivery with handshaking, retries, time outs, etc. Consumer friendly Low cost Easy to set up and use Robust Secure, but not finicky

Many Contenders for the Home Network

IEEE 1394 Ethernet IEEE 802.11a HomeRF HomePNA HomePlug Etc.

More details later.

Example Home Network

Ethernet in Home Office IEEE 1394 in A/V System

Ethernet or Wireless 1394 backbone Broadband Internet Gateway

Marketing New products!

Information Appliances Personal computers Home Internet terminals Personal digital assistants Digital mobile telephones Boom boxes Digital Jukeboxes Internet Radios Set top boxes Wrist watches Etc., etc.

Business Development More money!

41% of US households are now online (US Dept Commerce, 2002) 71% of U.S. households will be online by 2003 (Forrester) 18,000,000 people have broadband at home now; grew 121% in 20002001 (Arbitron/Edison Media) 34% of U.S. population regularly streams music today (Arbitron/Edison Media) 40% of U.S. population will be listening to Internet radio by 2003 (Webnoize) Digital downloads will grow from 3% of online music sales in 2001 to 30% in 2006 (Jupiter Media Metrix) The market for smart handheld devices will grow from 12.9 million units in 2000 to over 63.4 million by 2004 (IDC) The worldwide market for information appliances will exceed 89 million units, or $17.8 billion, in 2004, up from a market of 11 million units and $2.4 billion in 1999 (IDC) Napster enlisted more users in 1 year than AOL did in 15 years.

Broadband The Next Big Thing

Broadband Internet access is booming 51% of the 2.3 billion hours spent online in the month of January 2002 were via broadband, outpacing dial-up Internet access for the first time. Forrester Research predicts that 38 million European homes will have broadband Internet access by 2006. An estimated 13.4 million homes in North America have highspeed connections now, and the US Government is being heavily lobbied to raise that to 80% by the end of 2003. Many devices want access to Broadband services, necessitating a home network Multiple PCs for various members of the family Streaming and downloadable media (MP3, Real Video, etc.) Music metadata look up services (e.g. CDDB) Gaming Intelligent appliances

Home Networking is on the Rise

12 million homes expected to have home networks by 2004 (Parks Associates) Most popular reasons for a home network (HomeRF)
Sharing high speed internet 39.1% Sharing dial up internet account 37.2% Sharing printers 34.7%

Sharing audio 33.3%

Sharing files 31.8% Sharing drives 26.4%

Where did this come form?

The Internet found a killer app digital music immediate gratification! transcends all cultures, ages, and personal preferences portable, cheap, low power, tremendous access Convenience vs quality Leverage advances in Larger/cheaper memory faster CPU speed broadband Internet access portability Convergence Computer industry trying to entice consumers Consumer industry trying to sell new products Music enthusiasts trying to access vast amounts of music Musicians trying to reach listeners (95% of the music is owned by five large companies. Only 5-10% of the money you pay for a CD goes to the artists. )

New Business Models

The CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association recently stated, The content industry wants to turn the Play button into a Pay button Subscription services (AOL, MSN, Napster, etc.) Music lockers (my.mp3.com) Peer to peer networking Napster Fastrack / MusicCity/Grokster (1.5 billion illegal downloads in Sept 2001!) Gnutella Audio Galaxy Hardware is a loss leader What does that mean for audio quality? Brick and Mortar stores are they going away?

Online Music Services

Real Networks MSN Music mp3.com Live365 Shoutcast Icecast Loudeye Radio Yahoo Music Napster etc.

How do we network Audio?

Two methods: Streaming and File Delivery Streaming synchronous, uninterruptible flow of audio File Delivery asynchronous, interruptible Streaming is higher quality, but places higher demands on the network File transfer is easy and cheap, but requires compression of the audio data for practical systems (today)

Networks that Stream

IEEE 1394 Simple, cheap, consumer-oriented Short distances (<1km) Super high performance Cobranet (Ethernet) Proprietary Expensive Pro audio applications only ATM Expensive Lack of standards for applications Optimized for wide area

Networks that transfer files

Ethernet IEEE 802.11 HomePlug HomePNA IEEE 1394

Home Networking Technologies Ethernet

Supports: Ubiquitous - 300 million Ethernet nodes worldwide! Supports speeds up to 10 Gbps CSMA/CD protocol allows asynchronous transport, breaks down during heavy networking loading Like 1394, Ethernet supports: Most physical media copper, fiber, wireless A peer to peer architecture that allows any node to communicate with any other node, without PC intervention Low cost chipsets from many silicon vendors

Home Networking Technologies Ethernet

10 Mbps 100 Mbps Gigabit 10 Gigabit

CAT UTP

100 m

100 m

100 m

no

STP / Coax

500 m

100 m

25 m

no

Multi fibre

mode

2 km

412 m (half duplex) 2 km (full duplex)

550 m

300 m

Single mode fibre

25 km

20 km

5 km

40 km

Home Networking Technologies IEEE 802.11

Wireless Ethernet Collision sensing multiple access / carrier avoidance protocol Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) security via authentication and encryption. There have been recent reports that this security has been compromised by hackers. Several Flavors:
Standard IEEE 802.11b IEEE 802.11a IEEE 802.11gOFDM IEEE 802.11gPBCC Frequency Band 2.4GHz 5.6 GHz 2.4GHz 2.4GHz Available Spectrum 83.5 MHz 300 MHz 83.5 MHz 83.5 MHz Data Rate 11 Mbps 54 Mbps 54 Mbps 33 Mbps Range & Data Rate 100 meters @ 11 Mbps 50 meters @ 9 Mbps 100 meters @ 12 Mbps 100 meters @ 11 Mbps

Home Networking Technologies HomeRF

Competes with IEEE 802.11 for wireless Ethernet applications Uses Shared Wireless Access Protocol (SWAP) Operates in 2.4 GHz band, up to 100 meters, up to 10 Mbps. Supports up to 8 simultaneous voice connections with 10 ms bounded latency. 128-bit encryption with tamper-resistant 32-bit initialization vector

Home Networking Technologies IEEE 1394

Nearly ideal for home networking Up to 400Mbps (1394a), or 3.2Gbps (1394b) Up to 63 nodes per bus, and up to 1023 buses connected via bridges (per 1394.1 standard) Isochronous transport handles up to 64 isoch streams per bus Asynchronous transport addresses up to 256 terabytes on every node Supports most physical media copper, fiber, wireless Peer to peer architecture allows any node to communicate with any other node, without PC intervention Supports international standard protocols for all relevant audio / video formats, TCP/IP, storage devices, device control, and so on. Adopted by hundreds of companies and most industry consortiums for next-generation digital appliances Low cost chipsets available from many silicon vendors

Home Networking Technologies IEEE 1394

Physical Constraints
1394b CAT-5 POF HPCF GOF STP Distanc e 100m 50m 100m 100m
4.5m

100 Mbps X X X X X

200 Mbps

400 Mbps

800 Mbps

1.6 Gbps

3.2 Gbps

* * X X X X X X X X X X

* Against the rules, but it works

Home Networking Technologies Wireless IEEE 1394

IEEE 802.11a carries 1394 isoch and async traffic Or, HiperLAN2 can be used too 54Mbps, good enough for 1 or 2 MPEG streams and lots of audio channels Currently under development, demos have been made for several years at various trade shows

Home Networking Technologies HomePNA

Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA) 4MHz 10MHz band (well above POTS) 25 devices, up to 500 feet apart, in buildings up to 10,000 square feet HPNA 1.0: Data rate up to 1 Mbps HPNA 2.0: Data rate up to 10 Mbps Interoperable with Ethernet and IEEE 802.11 / HomeRF

Home Networking Technologies HomePlug

Home Plug Alliance selected Intellon technology for HomePlug specification: Operates over regular 2 phase power circuits OFDM in the 4.3MHz 20.9MHz band. Data rate up to 10 Mbps MAC protocol is a variant of the well-known CSMA/CA protocol. Up to 256 devices can be connected in homes up to 5,000 SQFT Security is provided by encryption and signal attenuation. However, powerline technologies are often accessible to neighbors sharing the same transformer.

Which Network(s) Should I Use?

Data: Ethernet, 1394, 802.11, HomePNA, HomePlug Audio: Compressed: Ethernet, 1394, 802.11, HomePNA, HomePlug Streaming: 1394 Video: Compressed: Ethernet, 1394, 802.11, HomePNA, HomePlug Streaming: 1394

Heterogeneous Networks
No network is perfect, and no single network will win universal adoption Heterogeneous networks are comprised of two or more network technologies Bridges and gateways are crucial devices for connecting subnets
Bridges connect two or more networks running the same protocol stack (e.g. HomePNA to Ethernet) Gateways connect networks that use different protocols (e.g. Ethernet to 1394)

Heterogeneous networks allow us to add functionality to the home network incrementally

e.g. begin with an Ethernet PC LAN Add 802.11 or HomePNA to reach remote zones Add 1394 to distribute A/V Replace original Ethernet with 1394b to increase speed and QoS

Ramifications
Systems evolve from autonomous devices to communities of devices. Control becomes decentralized and migrates to the edge devices. This is a revolutionary change (not evolutionary)

Paradigm Shifts
Once there is too much information to own, we must evolve methods to access and organize it. Todays systems are equipment-centric, and very complex. Tomorrows systems need to be content-centric, and very simple. The distinction between ownership, and renting, and a service is already blurred in the video industry. Thats likely to happen in the music industry as well. Duplicating and distributing plastic disks is barbaric.

The user interface gets really cool!

Content-Based Searching
Chris Weare & Ted Tanner: Breakthroughs in machine learning, pattern recognition, and feature extraction can be applied to audio to characterize the similarity between two recordings. A neural network was trained with data from over 115,000 songs to produce a commercial system that provides over 90% success. Humans no longer need to listen to music because computers can be trained to listen for them!

Content Protection
Copy inhibit bits (SCMS) Watermarking Fingerprinting SDMI DTCP

Do any of these technologies truly work? Should we create technical solutions to legal problems, or legal solutions to technical problems?

Metadata
Elizabeth Cohen: We generate terabytes of new music data each day The machine and format I record on today wont be around in 20 years. Its important to preserve the music experience itself, not just the bitstream How do you record and regenerate an experience? Some of our audio treasures might be lost when future devices are unable to play them back. Elizabeth Cohen recommends that if a device leaves a footprint on the audio, the content must describe it via metadata.

Dont forget about the Creative Team During Encoding! Bob Clearmountain: Producing content for the Internet is not merely a file transfer process creative decisions must be made in the mastering process that ultimately affect the listening experience. The process of compressing audio for the low bandwidth of the Internet is very similar to the old days of squeezing music into a plastic groove of a vinyl LP during mastering, and that the compromises involved should be a creative process involving the creative team. Internet mix should also be considered in addition to the CD, radio, extended dance mix, and other mixes.

Most important ramification Audio Quality

Better or worse? Streaming networks promise to carry data between devices in their original format without A/D and D/A conversion. File delivery systems must compress the data. This is a violent process that significantly changes what we hear!

Compression Formats
Required for asynchronous networks MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) MPEG 2, 4, MPEG 7 AAC Windows Media Real Audio/Video Quicktime Ogg Vorbis VQF Beatnik etc.

Listening Tests
Edward II: Wicked Men Track #7: Shes Gone to California Original (44.1kHz, 16-bit) Compressed Formats
MP3 WMA 7.0 Real Audio 6.0 (AAC can not be played back due to copy protection glitch)

160Kbps
Random ordering

64Kbps
Random ordering