Network Media Open Specifications (NMOS)—How They Relate to Audio Networking

Presenter:
Andreas Hildebrand, ALC NetworX GmbH - Munich, Germany

With AES67, a proven and well-accepted standard for real-time transport of studio quality audio signals has found its way into nearly any networked audio product in the market. But solving interoperability issues for synchronization and transport formats does not automatically result in fully working systems when they combine devices from various brands. From an application perspective, system management and device control are also essential to system becoming “usable.”

While device control, particularly when it comes to specific features of individual devices, may remain device-specific and maybe even proprietary, it is highly desirable to include common functionality that would allow basic system management, including discovery of devices and their resources on a network and basic connection management as well. AES67 provides hints on these “upper layer” functionalities but doesn’t mandate any particular scheme.
The Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), an industry-wide organization defining business needs for interoperability of networked media systems, has identified this gap and a few years ago initiated the NMOS (Networked Media Open Specifications) project.

Meanwhile, a number of specifications have been developed that are currently adopted by a large number of manufacturers. Chief among them in addressing the basic needs beyond AES67 are IS-04 (discovery and registration) and IS-05 (connection management). This session provides an overview on these and other important NMOS specifications currently in the works and explains how they fit with AES67 to result in enhanced system-level interoperability.