How much latency do you see in announcements?

[arboleda]

From the moment I hit "Execute" in the Composer announcement agent to when I hear the audio file begin to play, I see the following times. Each time is an average of five tests.

Test A - 15 zones including rooms that also have a local amp: 3.28 seconds

Test B - 1 zone where there is also a local amp: 3.1 seconds

Test C - 1 zone where there is just in-ceiling speakers, no local amp: 3.06 seconds

Director is running on an HC1000 v3.

The physical path is: HC300 (older, not the new rev) -> C4 16-channel audio matrix -> C4 8-channel amps -> In-ceiling speakers

The C4 amps have their inputs locked and the audio endpoint 1 for these rooms is the matrix (the volume for audio endpoint 1 is the c4 amps). EDIT: The announcement is configured with discrete volumes for each room. If you've used the announcement agent you'll know what I mean.

Anyone else ever bother to measure these, do you see similar times to what I see? For many announcements the latency doesn't matter. However things like doorbells would really benefit from lower latency.

The fact that test C has nearly the same as test A suggests that the latency doesn't come from the switching on the matrix. To me it suggests that there's latency in starting the .wav file on the HC300.

Anyone discover secrets on lowering this latency?

[pstuart]

How big is the wav file?

Try optimizing the wav file and see if that helps.

My guess is it has to load and process the wav, then send it out the audio path. At the same time, it needs to switch on the amps.

I'm sure there are some built in delays during that switching / power on stage and then the wav file processing.

My latency is less than a second or two, never really noticed. If someone pushes the doorbell, all my zones announce, "doorbell".

But my wav files are tiny, mono 22khz files with no compression.

[alanchow]

The latency is out of the controller doesn't matter if director is a HC1000 or just a HC300. I haven't actually tested this on a HC800/HC250 yet so i can't confirm if it will be any faster on those processors.

[tebery]

Not any noticeable speed improvement going from a 1000 to a 800 in my situation.

[CFUG]

3 seconds is a little long. I tested a variety here and all rolled-out after about 1 second. That was with the new Turbo-Encabulator installed on the rack 800.

[neeshu]

We have the same type of setup and it takes ~3sec as well. We go from an HC1000 to 16c c4 audio matrix to amps to speakers. I always thought the 3sec was a but long as well.

[Cyknight]

Well you're missing a step as the 1000 doesn't have audio outputs..

That said, speed for this will also be very dependant on network speed and quality.

This is alll the more true if there are several controllers feeding audio, as well as speakerpoints etc.

The system will manage an output delay based on network latency to the slowest device to respond, even if that device is not to be used for a specific "execution". As such a poor network design or even one bad piece of networling gear can cause mayor delays.