It’s not that easy, placing a product which fits most demands, and impossible to develop a product ( at a reasonable price) fitting all demands…
I think A&H has placed the ICE16 very well covering small and just quickly recordings from all mixing system delivering direct outs. ACE is only used by iLive, GLM runs a different protocol. You can use ICE16 with 3rd party mixers etc, etc.
JoeCo’s BlackBox-Recorder connect’s to Dante (64chans at a time) as well as MADI and analogue via direct outs. I don’t think A&H wants to compete with JoeCo in this small market segment.
Long Term I expect that ACE will be replaced by a protocol being compatible with DANTE, and next step will be AVB (AudioVideoBridging). As of today DAnte looks like becoming more and more market standard as Yamaha has implemented it with the new CL-Series. AVID has just implemented a AVB protocol connecting their Venue SC48 stage box.
To make a long story short, future developments in audio and video networking/connectivity will be very exciting and challenging.
Looking forward to it…
Cheers Gunter
Günter Eisbach
dL-Recording
Darmstadt / Germany