Leverage video for auto electronics design

“Where is the V in AVB?” asked a thread in the Audio/Video Bridging (AVB) LinkedIn group. This caught my eye. While it is a popular and growing product in Synopsys' Ethernet portfolio, it’s critical to understand how customers choose to use it. AVB products using Ethernet are popping up in a range of applications, and the automotive market is one area of development.

Yes, the “V” is in there, too.

It is worth taking a step back to understand some of the market dynamics of networking AVB.

• First, what is the AVB “standard"?
• Is the lack of a defined standard something that consumers should care about?
• What are the financial impacts to AVB for providers of products using an IEEE 802.1 compliant network to distribute audio and video?

This article will expand on these points, and explain why AVB is gaining traction in many markets, and first may be your automobile.

Standard details

The AVB standard is actually a series of different IEEE standards that impact IEEE 802.1 networks, which include Ethernet networks. They impact the architecture, link level security, inter networking, and network bridging and Layer 2 management of IEEE 802.1 networks. AVB was added to support multimedia networking by adding quality-of-service (QOS) features to support streaming traffic. The different IEEE standards making up the AVB standard include:

• IEEE 802.1AS-2011, Timing and Synchronization for Time-Sensitive Applications in Bridged Local Area Networks
• IEEE 802.1Qav, Forwarding and Queuing Enhancements for Time-Sensitive Streams
• IEEE 802.1Qat-2010, Virtual Bridged Local Area Network Amendment 14: Stream Reservation Protocol (SRP)
• IEEE 1588-2008, which is not  part of what we refer to as AVB, provides a standard for a precision clock synchronization protocol for networked measurement and control systems and is required in AVB networked devices

There are other groups active in the IEEE, focused on Ethernet AVB and Ethernet automotive applications as well, including a study group on reduced twisted pair Gigabit Ethernet (RTPGE). But these four will give you a good start on understanding what an AVB enabled network is.

Why is this important, and why would consumers care? The answer is simple. Standards like AVB allow for interoperability, which gives consumers a much wider range of products to select from.

Open is key

Consider a streaming audio product for your home. I purchased a Sonos system for my home several years ago. This system uses my wireless home network to make music stored on my media server available in any room in my home with a Sonos device. Each room can be individually controlled or linked together from the media center or a remote control unit. As a consumer, I am very happy with this system: it was easy to set up and does not require networking expertise to maintain and support.

When I migrated to a new hardware platform for my media server, the system “just worked” after installing the software. However, the system uses a proprietary protocol to communicate across my wireless network.  I am not able to add a product from another company into my home audio network because it would not be compatible.  Meaning, if I want to expand the audio cloud, or add video, I need to go back to Sonos to get components, or replace every component in my audio network with products from another company, or, the worst option, have multiple networked systems working individually.

Clearly companies like Sonos, Apple, Microsoft, or any other company shipping products for consumers wants you to buy more of their products, and by using a proprietary format, they force you to either change everything or stay with them.  I am faced with dilemma as I look to expand my home audio/video network capabilities.