Anyone running Unity over Dante for IFB on a 4‑mic morning show — i’m rebuilding our 7 a.m. call‑in block and need clean producer→host cues and a separate phones PL for the board op without the 150–200 ms I’m seeing on Unity+iPad; HelixNet felt tighter in a test, but I’d rather keep it AoIP — what’s been stable for your teams?
We saw the same “150–200 ms” on Unity+iPad until we ditched Wi‑Fi and hard‑wired the iPad with a USB‑C Ethernet dongle, then set the Unity client to Low Latency with a 5 ms buffer; on a QoS’d Dante VLAN that got producer→host cues to about 60–70 ms — HelixNet still wins if you need <50. @OP are your tablets on Wi‑Fi and is the Unity server on the same switch as the console?
For your 7 a.m. call‑in block, the only way I’ve killed Unity+iPad lag was moving talent off iOS: Mac mini running Unity Desktop + Dante Virtual Soundcard feeding Studio Technologies Model 372 beltpacks for IFB, keep Unity for PL; on a QoS’d VLAN it’s stayed <50 ms. iOS client buffering/AGC just adds mush — — HelixNet is tighter, but this keeps it AoIP; ref: https://studio-tech.com/products/model-372/. Are you marking DSCP and isolating Unity traffic from Dante PTP?
If you stick with Unity, set the room codec to PCM (no Opus), disable FEC, and keep everything at 48 kHz; that alone took us from ‘150–200 ms’ to about 35 ms LAN roundtrip on producer→host, with a second room feeding the phones PL over Dante. Are your switches doing QoS/DSCP 46 and a dedicated VLAN during the 7 a.m — block, @blake_johns? If it still drifts, a small Studio Technologies 5422A Dante intercom keeps it AoIP and feels HelixNet-tight.
Unity/DVS on its own Dante VLAN; prioritize PTP/audio — our “7 a.m. call-in” cues tightened. Are your switches QoS/IGMP tuned?
But skip Unity for in-room IFB and spin up a Studio Technologies Dante party-line — 5422A + 374 beltpacks kept our 7 a.m. block under about 10 ms, with clean “producer→host cues” and a separate phones PL for the board op. If you’re stuck on Unity, hardwire the iPad via Ethernet and set the client buffer to Low to keep it tight: https://studio-tech.com/products/model-5422a-dante-intercom-engine/.
We cut the lag by hard‑wiring the iPads: USB‑C‑to‑Ethernet and wired cans; ‘Bluetooth alone was about 120 ms’ for us, and once we ditched it Unity over Dante sat around 30–40 ms with solid cues. If you need tablets roaming, a tiny dedicated 5 GHz AP helps but it’s still not as snappy as copper. Are your hosts on Bluetooth buds by any chance?
Biggest win for us was moving Unity Server off a VM and onto a local box with a Dante PCIe card at 48k; that alone knocked about 30–50 ms versus DVS, and keeping server + core on the same switch kept cues under about 40 ms. Where’s your server living now — if it’s “VM + DVS,” that combo was our lag monster.