Hello everyone.
I can’t find online a manual or a clear information on what does the “internal network bridge” switch does.
I’m using an Avantis and the dante 64x64 card.
Thanks in advance
It ties the Dante I/O card’s “control port” to the console’s built in network ports. This doesn’t pass Dante audio, but it does allow you to plug the console into a regular network that includes a computer that you wish to run Dante controller on. Prior to this being an option, you would physically have to connect the control port on the Dante card to the built in network port on the console to get this functionality. Now it does it internally so you don’t have to physically patch this anymore.
Of course there are many times when you don’t want to connect the Dante I/O card to the network your console is on. Personally I like to keep my Dante network completely separate when I can (because it ends up being more reliable and easier to troubleshoot if there is a problem), so I generally don’t want to turn the internal bridge option on. If I need to use Dante Controller software, I plug the computer into the Dante card’s network, not the network the console is on.
Long story short, I personally would recommend that you leave it turned off unless you have a specific use case that requires that it be turned on.
It connects the Dante card to the mixers network port, be careful doing that as there may be differences between how your Dante network is configured, and how any control network is, and this can cause various problems. I have first hand experience with both SQ and Avantis of these problems.
In an environment where there is an audio LAN with following:
Avantis Console w/ Dante Card
Wireless receivers
system processor
iPad for remote control
Mac Mini
What’s the best practice for setting this up so that the mac mini can run A&H director, Shure Wireless Workbench, Dante Controller, Dante Virtual Soundcard?
Right now things tend to work part of the time but not completely stable. Console and other audio devices plugged into a switch. MacMini ethernet port into the Dante card, bridge mode ON.
I’m wondering if this all should work if configured properly, or would a second ethernet adapter for the macmini be advised so that the Dante Audio and general LAN don’t use the same network interface on the mac? Or would even moving the non-Dante to use the WLAN interface be an improvement. With multiple interfaces I assume different subnets would be needed as well which is also added complexity.
I think you are on the right track…
I would connect all of the Dante equipment together. If I needed to use a switch, pretty much any “dumb” switch will work as long as it doesn’t have energy efficient modes (EEE) that can’t be turned off. (I have yet to find a dumb switch that hasn’t worked in out situation).
You would then need to have a second network interface on the Mac. We use a USB network adapter on our computers and use this USB network adapter to connect the computer to the Dante network.
Please note, you don’t have to connect the computer to both the regular Dante port (that pass Dante audio) and the Dante Control network port on the Avantis card. The Dante Control port on the Avantis Dante card is basically just a third network plug - except that it doesn’t pass Dante audio so you can’t use it to connect three Dante devices to the card itself.
Hopefully that makes sense.
PS - as far as the different subnets are concerned, you are correct. But I would generally put all the Dante device on DHCP and even if there is no DHCP server on the isolated Dante network (because there is no reason to add a router to the Dante network IMHO), things will still work. All of those devices will set a network address in the 169.254.X.X subnet (which is the failover subnet when DHCP devices can’t find a DHCP server to get an IP address from). This will automatically put those devices on a different subnet than the rest of your network.