E T H E R N E T N E T W O R K S & S W I T C H E S
page 3 – 4
WheatNet-IP
/ Apr 2009
• Each Engine (e) requires 147.5Mb/s for 32 unique stereo connection streams.
• Each E-6 surface requires a 100Mb/s Ethernet connection.
• Each Surface requires an Engine (e) connected to the same GbE switch.
• Each PC driver requires 19.6Mb/s for eight Stereo outputs.
• An aggregate of eight BLADEs (64 streams) requires roughly 295Mb/s of
bandwidth when each BLADE have eight stereo connections.
The Multicast channels used by the WheatNet-IP System are as follows:
• one per audio source
• one for system announce messages
• one for metering data
• one for Logic messages
What's on the Wire?
The WheatNet-IP system uses the standard 1000BASE-T gigabit Ethernet
hardware infrastructure to distribute audio, logic, and control over copper UTP
CAT-5e or CAT-6 cable. Because the WheatNet-IP system uses a standard, non-
proprietary Ethernet network for connecting devices, the digital audio network
supports the universal suite of Ethernet protocols, including TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP,
Telnet, SNMP, RTP, IGMP, etc.
The WheatNet-IP system software utilizes RFC standards initially developed
for VoIP applications to synchronize and distribute packetized audio between
BLADEs (nodes), control surface processing, and PC's. Specifically, the Internet
Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is used to manage the distribution of
multicast audio packets, which are integral to WheatNet-IP design.
