> On Sep 30, 2006, at 12:37 PM, Nick Batzdorf wrote: >> The issue that stopped me from going farther with AUNetsend/Receive >> is latency - it's not workable. This is a holy grail, of course; >> audio-over-ethernet on Mac is just not a happening thing yet - unless >> something new has come out that I haven't heard about. >> > > On 01.10.2006, at 04:39, Otto Gygax wrote: > I'm curious to know if these tests have been done over gigabit > ethernet? Maybe more an issue of the protocol than of the nominal speed. The ethernet protocol has no fixed timeslices or such. If a data block wants to travel over ethernet it sticks its head out, looks to the left and right and if it sees a free space among the other data it quickly jumps out and swims with the stream. Its following brothers and sisters get somehow organized behind the leader. If you try audio over ethernet you will see a certain amount of steady latency which does not change during one travel session. But the latency won't be the same the next time because the time when the first bits can take off differs. I am not really sure but I doubt that faster ethernet will change that situation. Maybe a much faster version but a 10 times faster net will not result in a 10 times better performance. There is still the protocol. Some time ago I played a lot with WormHole (early version) and got latencies between 1,200 and 2500 samples. Haven't tried with the new version yet which is supposed to be faster. But the real problem is that audio stream and ethernet are not synchronized. You can never tell when exactly your data leaves your machine. I guess AUNetSend/ Receive has to cook with the same water. As I tried that system I managed to record via ethernet as I had to switch to a Powerbook G4 but wanted to keep my Delta card in the old G3. That worked, I could use the audio card of another computer (!) but it was no fun. I ran Tracktion on the G3, which recorded and sent the data instantly via WormHole to the Powerbook. But I had always to maintain a parallel click track and align the recorded track manually. Cannot recommend that. Honestly, I am not sure if audio over ethernat has a future. Ethernet was never thought for that kind of stuff. If we had a kind of fast "token ring" network i.e. or a dedicated protocol for audio (I think Yamaha tried that) then yes. But with our usual networks it is currently just an interesting experiment. ___ Peter Ostry