Audio Monitoring Within the Transition to AoIP

As signal chains have become increasingly complex, the challenges involved in managing and monitoring these paths have multiplied exponentially. Over the past few decades, we've migrated from handling a single channel of content using composite video and analog audio pairs, to elaborate multi-channel facilities routing HD video with embedded audio over SDI or in many cases discrete AES pairs. These audio signals are often a mix of 5.1 and stereo programs and in many cases encoded to or decoded from Dolby® at some point in the chain.

25-Seven Launches TVC-15 Broadcast Audio Watermarking Monitor

The Telos Alliance this week announced the launch of the 25-Seven TVC-15 Broadcast Watermark Analyzer & Monitor, the first modulation monitor for watermarking. With TVC-15, radio stations in electronically measured markets can now monitor how each element in their programming supports audio watermarking.

Measurements happen in real time, without the need of a watermark encoder. Every 400 milliseconds, TVC-15 detects watermarks in any audio you feed it. This could be your own station's audio, or that of a competing station in your market. You can monitor any source, live or recorded.

TWiRT 339 - Securing What Matters

More hackers, more breaches, more ways for broadcast engineers to have a really bad day! Chris Tobin relates what can happen and the steps you need to take to patch your IT security holes. Plus, Les Kutasi joins us with news from Kathrein and the world of broadband antennas.

Hosts:

Chris Tobin, IP-Solutionist
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting

Show Links:

Shields UP! Internet Port Test (Click on Services, then Shields UP!)

IT Security podcast, “Security Now”

A Primer on Encryption for Policymakers (and a quick read for all of us)

VPN Technology Primer

Kathrein USA information

Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality

Saving Sounds from the Dumpster

As the Twentieth Century is rapidly receding in the rear-view mirror, historians, archivists and collectors furiously gather artifacts and documents before they all disappear. Forgotten by many, but not all, are the soundscapes of the past; both technological and natural in origin.

If you've worked in radio long enough, you already know something about changing soundscapes. The clattering of a teletype machine in the newsroom, the sound of records and reel tapes being cued and the once per second chunk-chunk-chunk of the Western Union master clock as it counts down the time remaining till the next hourly newscast, are all gone but not forgotten.

Topics: Broadcast History, audio

Help Your Audio Find its Path with Pathfinder Core PRO Routing Control! 

The Telos Alliance announced this week that we are now shipping the Axia Pathfinder Core PRO Routing Control and Facility Management Appliance. So what is Axia Pathfinder Core PRO? It's everything Axia learned in the 10 years since launching the Pathfinder family of software wrapped up in one appliance that frees you from your PC while providing sophisticated, yet streamlined controls.

Need to know more? Find the path to more detailed information right here with these quick FAQs. 

TWiRT 338 - The Standard that Stuck - with Richard Burden 

Cassette tapes. 8-Track. Digital Cassettes. FM-QUAD. AM Stereo. Reel-to-reel.  Audio standards come and go, but Multiplex FM Stereo lives on and is nearly 60 years old! Richard Burden extensively tested our FM Stereo system when it was just a proposal. Dick joins me to chat about that and more on TWiRT!

Host:

Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting

Guest:

Richard Burden, Principal - Burden Associates

Show Links:

Stereo Multiplexing for Dummies

FM Stereo at Wikipedia

Travelers Information Service

Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality

5 Advantages of Switching to a Broadcast VoIP Phone System

We live in an increasingly digital and largely networked world. It’s no accident that AoIP is taking radio and TV by storm: the economies of scale, ease of use, and return on investment are undeniable. Traditional POTS and ISDN phone services are steadily being supplanted by SIP- and VoIP-based methods at the service-provider level. ISDN is already unavailable for many new installations, and POTS is moving that way now. A SIP/VoIP phone system offers digital phone services that cost less, sound better, and are more easily managed than traditional services.

Topics: voip phone system, broadcast voip, sip, voip phones

The Quest for the Perfect Control Room

The arrangement of equipment in radio studio control rooms was often the result of a tussle between programmers and engineers. In one extreme, the control room may have been a dream for jocks to operate, but a nightmare for techs to service. Too far the other way, and you had a setup that could be easily serviced, but required an octopus to operate. Most were a compromise (although some would be better termed a stalemate).

Topics: Radio History, Studio Technology, Broadcast Engineering

TWiRT 337 - Predicting Headphone Sound Quality with Sean Olive

How many times have you bought headphones or earbuds, only to be disappointed with their audio quality? Or maybe you were pleasantly surprised! Sean Olive is the Acoustic Research Fellow at HARMAN International. He’s doing headphone qualitative measurements that mean something, both for consumers and for manufacturers, toward better audio from our wearables.

Hosts:

Chris Tobin, IP-Solutionist 

Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting

Guest:

Sean Olive, Acoustic Research Fellow at HARMAN International

Show Links:

Sean Olive’s Blog, with links to articles and research

KZ ATE KZ-ATE Dynamic Balanced Armature IEMS In Ear HIFI Monitors

AKG N60 Noise Canceling Headphone

Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality

Radio Magazine: Frank Foti on Audio Processing for Broadcast Streaming

When it comes to broadcast streaming, there is a big difference between audio processing for streaming and audio processing for over-the-air. In the February 2017 issue of Radio magazine, Doug Irwin interviewed Frank Foti, along with other audio-processing experts, on how to process audio for broadcast streaming properly, asking them about the design differences between over-the-air processors and those designed for streaming media.

Topics: Omnia Audio, Telos Systems, broadcast streaming, Z/IPStream X/2, Z/IPStream 9X/2