How To Set Up Telos VX with WheatNet-IP Using AES67

How To Set Up Telos VX with WheatNet-IP Using AES67

Prerequisites

You will need:
  1. A Precision Timing Protocol (PTP) v2 clock source on your WNIP Local Area Network. Both the blades and the VoIP phone hybrid need to sync to this clock, and they do not generate it. There are numerous PTP clock generators on the market from companies such as Sonifex.
  2. A license in WheatNet Navigator to enable the PTP clock function. When you go to the Info tab in Navigator and set the external timing source to PTP-AES67 in the Clock Master Info section, you will be prompted to obtain the license key. Send the license seed to activation@wheatstone.com and the support department will send you a key to paste into thebox to activate the feature. There is no charge for this license key.
  3. The Telos VX and WheatNet-IP systems must both be set to the same sample rate.

Special Network Switch Settings for Telos

Telos enables QoS tagging on its packets by default, and this is a setting that users cannot easily change
in the field.

This tag adds extra bytes to the packet, which breaks compatibility with WheatNet-IP blades. You must
add a command to your Cisco switch to filter out the tag.

You will be editing only the access port on the switch that is connected to the Telox VX appliance. Telnet
into the switch and log in.

Type enable and hit enter to elevate your administration level in the switch. This will put you at a
switchname# prompt.

Enter the configuration mode by typing config t. Hit enter.

Then type the following commands and hit enter when finished with each line:

interface GigabitEthernet 0/x (x= the Ethernet port the VX is connected to*)
switchport voice vlan dot1p
end

write memory

Once this is enabled, the QoS tags coming from the VX will be filtered out and the WheatNet-IP blades
will be able to receive the audio coming from the phone hybrid.

*On stacked switches, the port may be identified differently, such as 1/x instead of 0/x. Do a show
running-config to see how your switch is addressed.

Lock The Blades to PTP


When your WheatNet-IP system has locked to the PTP clock, the PTP Status indicator will turn green.
Info
The Domain setting is usually left at the default of 0. Some networks may require adjusting this setting for the WNIP network to see the PTP clock.
Once your Telos VX is on the WNIP LAN and can lock to the PTP clock, the VX and your Clock Master Blade will be locked to the same clock source and the rest of your Blades will be locked to the Clock Master Blade’s metronome, so everything will be time aligned.

Key Concepts

AES67 is at its core a timing protocol – it is a way to ensure that Audio over IP equipment from different manufacturers will send packets at the same rate and in a common format. There is no common discovery protocol, therefore it is necessary to manually enter the following information and enter it on both ends of the wire:
  1. The multicast address of the audio stream
  2. The UDP port of the audio stream
  3. The packet rate
  4. The payload type
You will enter the information of the Telos VX outputs into Navigator as sources, and you will enter the information from Navigator for the WheatNet sources that will feed the phone system as inputs to the VX.

In WheatNet IP, we refer to the packet rate by its speed. The default rate is .25 ms. In the VX, you are given the choices of either Standard Stereo or AES67 Multicast. The Telos Standard Stereo packet rate is 5 ms and the AES67 Multicast packet rate is 1 ms. Therefore, we should use 1 millisecond packets on each end.

If You Have Blade 3

If you have a Blade 3 system, you will need to turn off at least one utility mixer on any blade to turn it into an AES67 translation blade. Go to the Blade Admin tab and choose AES67 1ms support. Each blade set for AES67 1ms Support will create up to 8 1ms streams from any 8 sources on the system.

If You Have Blade 4

Blade 4 systems are capable of creating 1ms translations without turning off a utility mixer.

Create The Outputs To The Phone System

Each studio will need to send a mix minus or bus minus as well as a program on hold feed, which is usually the Program Out of the console or other pre-delay on air feed.

We will need to create 1 ms streams for these WheatNet sources, and we recommend using a utility mixer to assist in this process. This will give you the flexibility to change the routes to the phone system within Navigator either manually or via Salvos, plus it will convert the mono mix minus stream that is created by many consoles to a stereo one, which is required to connect to the VX.
  1. Route the mix minus or bus minus you wish to feed to the phone hybrid to utility mixer input 1.
    Turn its B volume slider down and keep the A volume slider up. Turn the input on.
  2. Route the music on hold source (program) to utility mixer input 2. Turn its A volume slider down
    and keep the B volume slider up. Turn the input on.
  3. Turn on the A and B master faders.
  4. Rename the A and B outputs of the utility mixer as desired on the Sources tab of the blade.
  5. While editing each source, check the box to turn on 1ms AES 67 support.
Info
When you check the box, you will get a pop-up window that displays the port number and packet type. The port number displayed will be the WNIP default port of 50100. This is the UDP port that we will transmit upon. You can keep this setting or you can change it to the Telos default port number of 5004. It works either way, as long as the port numbers match here and on the VX.
Click Finish. When you click Finish, the system will create the new 1ms multicast address. (If you look at Stream Info before clicking Finish there won't be an address filled in yet!)
Now, edit it again and go to Stream Info.

Make a note of the multicast address and port number for each source. You will enter this into the Telos VX.

We can now go to the web browser and log into the Telos VX.

In the Studios page, after adding the Channels (there is one channel per hybrid, so if you will have one phone fader on the console, you will add one; for 2 console faders, add 2.
Under Display name, enter a friendly name for the audio so you can identify it, like Studio A Caller 1.

In the Output field, you will enter the multicast address of the audio coming from the caller. We will
discuss setting this address in the next section.

Turn on the switch for Manual Backfeed/Input and enter the Mutlicast IP address and UDP port that you
just wrote down from Navigator, separating them with a colon. For example, 239.192.220.40:50100.


Select the AES67 Multicast stream type for both the output stream and the input stream.
Warning
Note: If you do not enter the UDP port address, the Telos will assume port 5004. If you kept the default WheatNet-IP UDP port of 50100 when you created the 1ms stream in Navigator, you should enter the port number as pictured above.

In the Program On Hold field, enter the multicast IP and UDP port number of the audio source you set up in Navigator. For example, 239.192.193.155:50100.

Create The Outputs From The Phone System To WheatNet-IP

You will need to create a unique multicast IP address for each phone hybrid in the Telos (the output field
in the previous section). Any valid multicast IP address will do as long as it does not conflict with the
range that Wheatnet IP dynamically assigns. The range of addresses we use is defined on the Info tab of
Navigator. The default is 239.192.192.0 and above. The valid range of multicast addresses used for local
networks is 239.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255, so you could choose something between 239.0.0.0 and
239.192.191.254 and not conflict with the WheatNet-IP address pool.

Since different manufacturers will use different portions of that wide range of possible addresses, it is
best to plan out your addressing scheme, so as you add more AES67 devices you don’t overlap. Keep a
spreadsheet that you can refer to as you add new equipment in the future.

If you only enter the multicast IP address into the output field of the VX, Telos will default to UDP port 5004.

Enter The Telos Stream Information Into Navigator

First, create an AES-67 device in Navigator.
In Navigator, click on the Devices tab, then click on the AES-67 Devices Tab. Click Add.


Enter the name of the device (Telos VX).

For IP Address, enter the address of the VX (not multicast).

For Host Blade, select the blade in the system where you want Navigator to place these sources.
Choose something that makes sense to you. For example, if this equipment is for one particular studio, you might place it on a blade in that room. Or, if it's going to serve many rooms, you might choose a host in the rack room. Pick a blade that will be easy for you to find. We're not routing the data through the blade, it's just a place for us to hang the sources in the Crosspoint grid.

Click OK.

Now, click on the AES-67 device you just created in Navigator and go to the Sources tab.



Info
While there is a Destinations tab for the AES-67 device, we will not use that. We will only use the Sources.

Let's go back to the web browser for the Telos VX. Under the Information section is Streams. Click there to open its menu.

Inputs (which is what is coming from Wheatstone are displayed on the left and Outputs (which is the information we want because it’s what’s coming from the VX) is displayed on the right.

You will want the Multicast IP Address and the UDP port number (which is displayed following the colon after the IP address. In the screenshot above, Stream 0 is 239.192.207.1 and the port is 5004 (which is the Telos default port).

Back in Navigator, we're at the AES67 device and on the Sources tab. Click Add.

Name the source. This is what will appear on the console. Then click on the Stream Info tab.

Enter the multicast address and port number and set the packet timing to 1ms. The Payload Type should
be set to 96. Click Ok, then click Finish.

The source may now be routed to a console and you can test audio in both directions. Repeat the process with the remaining hybrids.


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