Dante Via is software developed by Audinate that delivers routing of computer-based audio, allowing a range of applications and devices to be networked and interconnected.
Reviewed by Federico Hugo Petrone, senior systems engineer at WSDG (Walters-Storyk Design Group)
Where have you used this product?
I installed it on both my home computer and my work computer and tested the connectivity between them.
Obviously the idea behind the product is to allow the different applications to talk directly within a Dante network, so I tried to test that functionality to the maximum with different configurations. Because of my job, I’m used to trying to find issues on the devices I test. In this case, using the Dante Via software package, I put every option I could find to extremes, such as sending a single DAW audio output from a computer through as much Dante channels as possible to be recorded on a second computer as single audio streams, and it worked well.
Why did you choose this product?
I didn’t choose the product specifically, but was asked to test it in January 2016 before it was released to the world. I was a Beta tester of the product and used it over a period of 20 days or so.
What do you like about it?
I think it’s a very innovative way of connecting audio between two devices. The concept behind it is very good, especially the way I can just get one stream of audio of one particular application within my computer, which may seem not very useful at first, but it is amazing how many applications you find for a new tool once you have it. I remember in the old days when I worked in a radio station you had to take the unbalanced analogue output of the computer, most usually through a 1/8-in connector in order to broadcast someone speaking through Skype, for example. With Dante Via, you only need to assign Skype a Dante Channel output and its audio stream is already on the network for anyone to use, with identical quality as the source, while also using the same computer to perform other audio tasks through separate Dante channels.
What would you change?
I did have some technical issues with the copy I tested, my computer stalled a couple of times during install and certain audio applications required tweaking on the settings to be functional again. The installer is also somewhat complicated; it had many different and convoluted steps. So if I had to change something, I would change the installation process and make it more straightforward.
I would also update its compatibility with other software that was already in my computer, but considering that I tested a beta version of the software, I am confident that most bugs will be solved eventually.