Avnu Alliance Announces Pro-AV Entry-Level Membership

The move is intended to facilitate and expand Milan certification

Reflecting the ongoing migration to networked infrastructure in the media industries, the Avnu Alliance, the trade organization that promotes the use of the AVB network-bridging protocol, will offer a new Milan Associate membership level, intended to give manufacturers of professional audio/video equipment a lower-cost path to certifying Milan endpoint devices.

Milan (media-integrated local-area network), established in 2018, is an initiative to define implementation details — media formats, clocking, redundancy, device control — and provide a certification and testing program to ensure that devices from different vendors are interoperable within common device profiles.

AVB (Audio Video Bridging) is a set of technical standards developed by the IEEE Audio Video Bridging Task Group of the IEEE 802.1 standards committee. The committee developed the original technical standards for AVB, a way to simplify audio and video streaming through the use of Ethernet connectivity.

Announced this morning, the new Milan Associate membership allows companies to join the Avnu Alliance at an entry-level membership costing $1,000 per year. Broadening the membership will enable more companies to certify that their products that use Milan-certified modules are fully tested and certified and can be marketed with the Milan-certified logo.

Milan Associate members of Avnu may submit professional-audio endpoint devices for certification testing and get access to final Milan specifications and market-requirement documents, as well as Avnu test tools for in-house Milan product testing at a reduced rate. Milan Associate members are also invited to annual member meetings and can be listed on Avnu Alliance website.

“Avnu created a mechanism to support Milan module development and certification, which will in turn make it easier for pro-audio manufacturers to add Milan to their product lines,” says Avnu Alliance President Greg Schlechter, adding that the entry-level membership will lower the threshold for companies of all sizes to certify and market Milan devices. “This is one more important step in supporting this growing, open ecosystem,” he continues. “Avnu Alliance’s Certification Task Group is also working diligently to create low-cost test tools and test plans that will streamline the path to certification and market for Milan devices. Certified modules (which will be available on the market soon), more membership options, and additional methods for testing have been common requests of the growing base of companies and people interested in Milan. We look forward to seeing the additional innovative products added to the ecosystem that this enables.”

Early this year, Avnu Alliance approved a Milan Module Certification Mechanism to allow manufacturers of professional audio/video modules to test and certify Milan modules through Avnu Alliance. By using certified Milan modules, manufacturers can quickly and easily develop professional-audio devices built on Milan, saving development time and costs.

Manufacturers interested in exploring Milan implementation and membership in Avnu Alliance can visit www.avnu.org/Milan or get in touch with [email protected] or join the Milan Forum. Details on Milan-certified module availability will be released in December. Details on the Milan Associate Membership can be found here.

Manufacturers interested in joining workgroups within Avnu to collaborate with other members and collectively define Milan requirements for the future are still welcome to join Avnu Alliance as a Promoter member to ensure that their unique development needs are met.