EXBOX.RAV – The compact ST2110-30 / AES67 / Ravenna route to MADI

Compact and affordable, EXBOX.RAV integrates MADI-equipped devices and systems with ST2110, AES67 or Ravenna IP infrastructures and links.

In the now-familiar 1U 3rd rack-width EXBOX format, EXBOX.RAV offers the same IO as its sister Dante converter EXBOX.MD, with three MADI IO ports (BNC, SC fibre and SFP cage) and a 64ch 32-stream full-spec, Ravenna implementation. DirectOut’s Ravenna “stack” is common to that used for the PRODIGY 128ch RAV.IO and RAV.SRC.IO modules; the latter, as its title indicates, features DirectOut’s new HD-SRC sample-rate conversion.

In addition to providing 1:1 MADI-to-Ravenna conversion, EXBOX.RAV also functions as a full 256 x 256 router controlled by globcon, connecting channels of the three MADI ports and the 64ch Ravenna IO.

A choice of MADI port styles and 4-way IP Switch

Widely regarded as a reference implementation against which other products are measured, DirectOut’s Ravenna/AES67/ST2110-30/-31 “stack” now includes NMOS. NMOS is the standard for establishing network connections or dynamically managing AoIP streams under the control of hardware or virtualised NMOS management servers and facility control systems.

DirectOut products successfully deploy this implementation across a wide range of applications including Remote Production audio; baseband-to-IP audio integration in large broadcast systems; long-distance audio links for sports broadcast production; static international audio tie-lines and 4-wire connections for IP comms.

The EXBOX.RAV is designed to service integrations in smaller static systems or portable applications, where the 128ch and 256ch capacities of the other DirectOut Ravenna products are not required.

Redundancy and Resilience

EXBOX.RAV also features additional resilience capabilities to the standard ST2022-7 network stream redundancy of the Ravenna/AES67/ST2110-30/-31 stack.

EARS redundancy-changeover switches seamlessly between MADI and Ravenna input ports or two groups of Ravenna channels on the loss of the embedded BLDS signal or pilot tone caused by a source device or connection glitch or failure. In live music or theatrical audio systems, EARS changeover is the standard protection against the failure or disconnection of dual-redundant pair of playback or processing systems.

The globcon control app enables changeover control and source selection from external control devices, systems, MIDI or keyboard shortcuts.

FastSRC for the Ravenna port rounds off the EXBOX.RAV capability, a low latency (<0.15msec) life-saver sample-rate converter that protects against the temporary loss of lock or sample-rate drift between the baseband MADI and AoIP domains.

The EXBOX standard dual-redundant power supply connections plus PoE powering via Ethernet Port 1 are included to provide the usual power-resilience and flexibility.