UK - Eikon Group specialises in mastering, localising, and distributing digital entertainment content. With offices in London, Los Angeles, and Sydney, it operates 24/7. Given the vast amounts of digital video content coming in and out and being archived, there's a massive amount of traffic across their network.
Eikon’s London office has three theatres, six media suites, and two theatrical media suites, all of which are in constant use. The 37 Dante-enabled devices in the office were originally on a single VLAN, but as the business evolved, subscription management became problematic. Patrick Roche, senior media systems engineer, was brought on board to streamline their processes. The studio used a Q-SYS Core 500i just for cinema routing in the main theatre, and Roche realised it was massively underutilised.
“The driving force for implementing Dante Director was for the API integration to help simplify and automate subscription management,” said Roche. “I started implementing streaming Dante in and out of the Q-SYS Core, and I also built iPad interfaces to use in the media suites and theatres where staff could easily choose or switch their sources. Press one button on the iPad, and it'll tell the Blackmagic Design video router what to do. It also makes an API call to Dante Director, which changes the audio subscriptions.”
Dante Director works closely with Dante Controller to provide AV management capabilities. After initial setup, users can remotely launch and use Dante Controller from any internet connection without requiring direct local access to the network. With Dante Director, administrators can manage multiple AV networks from a single web dashboard, providing faster response times, increased flexibility, and better peace of mind through real-time monitoring.
The Dante Managed API, included free with Dante Director, allows IT and AV admins to build custom interfaces for easy end-user control of complex setup configurations. Eikon’s workflow includes switching the audio feeds from individual mixing rooms to larger theatre spaces for surround-sound testing and mixing in an appropriate environment. The new ease and reliability of audio routing with the API through Dante Director helps Eikon avoid downtime and focus on the core challenges of producing a top-notch final product for its customers.
“Staff were sceptical of the iPads at first because they thought, oh, I'd rather have a volume knob than a slider on an iPad,” said Roche. “Now, they absolutely love them because they make equipment changes a lot simpler.
“Now, with the API calls via Dante Director, we have just the necessary subscriptions, so there's far less traffic on the network. If I'm honest, I’ve almost done myself out of a job because it's working so well.”
