Live from NAB 2015
We’re live from Central Hall - the Broadcast Electronics booth - at NAB 2015! A Who’s Who cast of radio celebrities joins us including Scott Fybush, Joost Bloemen, Greg Shay, Frank Foti, Jim Backus, Joe Talbot, and Jim Roberts. And don’t miss the final 8 minutes! You won’t get fooled again!
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Read the Transcript!
Kirk: This Week in Radio Tech, Episode 254 is brought to you by the new Omnia.7 FM, HD, and streaming audio processor with Undo technology. By Lawo and the crystalCLEAR virtual radio console. CrystalCLEAR: it's the radio console with a multi-touch touch screen interface.
And by the Telos Alliance with Livewire+. Livewire+ brings 15 years of AoIP development and practice, along with AES67 compatibility.
We're live from the central hall, the Broadcast Electronics booth at NAB 2015. It's home [sounds like 00:00:32] to a cast of radio celebrities, including Scott Fybush, Joost Bloemen, Greg Shay, Frank Foti, Jim Backus [sic], Joe Talbot, and Jim Roberts [sounds like 00:00:41].
And don't miss the final eight minutes. You won't get fooled again.
Chris: NAB 2015, This Week in Radio Tech. Timing issues with your HD 6? Check out Inovonics. They have some cool stuff.
And if you're looking at FM antenna systems and changing stuff out for the new weather, well, there's ERI, Shively Labs, Jampro, Dielectric. Maybe you're looking to get ready for the outside broadcast season. Comrex has something for you. So does Tieline, APT, and a few others.
And for those of you who migrated to IP, it's AES67 you should be aware of. Interoperability. And for the AM broadcasters who are now looking at their tuning houses, check out with Kintronics. They have some stuff you may be interested in knowing, and they can also help you out.
And for those of you who like drones and aerial shots of your town, that can be found here too at NAB.
So let's get on with the show, This Week in Radio Tech.
Kirk: Wow, what an intro. Chris Tobin, thank you so much for putting that together.
Chris: That was a video produced with Videolicious Software from the StartUp Loft.
Kirk: What a name, "Videolicious."
Chris: Yeah. The staff is pretty, you know, easy on the eyes.
Kirk: Yeah, okay.
Chris: How about that? But at the StartUp Loft at NAB, here at the NAB. So it's a start-up group. I'm not sure where they're based out of. But it's pretty cool software. And I think you can find it, Videolicious.com, I think it is.
Kirk: And as you alluded to, we are at the NAB. We're at the NAB show for 2015. We do this crazy thing every year, with over 100,000 people attending. It's about, what, the second largest convention in Las Vegas?
Chris: Yes, I'm told the second largest, yes.
Kirk: Second only to what, CES?
Chris: CES or the AVNs, one of the two.
Kirk: Oh. So we're here at NAB. It's the last day. In fact, this is the last hour of the NAB show. We've been here... some of us have been here for a week or more.
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: From the perspective of engineers. By the way, this is This Week in Radio Tech. Hi, I'm Kirk Harnack. This is Chris Tobin.
Chris: Hi.
Kirk: And we're at the... we're on the show floor in the central hall. We're at the booth of Broadcast Electronics. And we're going to be thanking them and telling you about a couple of new things and technologies that they have here at the NAB Show.
We're right across the street from the Telos Alliance booth, and have... you stick around, because we've got a treat for you coming up in about 50 minutes from now. It's the way we always close the NAB show, and it's amazing.
Plus we've got lined up, a bunch of great guests for you, including... Scott Fybush is here, and Don Backus is here. Also Jim Roberts from BE is here. We're going to grab a few people from...
Oh, and Jesus is here. Jesus, come here. How are you?
Jesus: Hi. [inaudible 00:03:04]
Kirk: In case you've never met the man, this is my friend Jesus. Hi, Jesus.
Jesus: Hi. How are you?
Kirk: It's good to see you.
Jesus: Good to see you, too.
Kirk: Glad you're here.
Jesus: Yeah.
Kirk: Yeah.
Jesus: Yeah.
Kirk: You been doing any water/wine tricks, or what?
Jesus: Yeah, still doing that.
Kirk: Oh, good.
Jesus: Yeah.
Kirk: Oh, good deal. All right.
Jesus: Yeah. All Vegas, the Hoover Dam all turned into wine, yeah? Everybody is drunk.
Kirk: All right.
Jesus: Yeah.
Kirk: Yeah. What's that? Did you show it?
Chris: [inaudible 00:03:24] I didn't want [inaudible 00:03:26]
Kirk: Oh, yeah. Jesus. Yeah.
All right. Good to see you, man.
Jesus: Thank you.
Kirk: Hey, and send some of your friends by.
Jesus: Sure.
Kirk: Okay. All right.
So I guess, hey, we've got to pay for the show a little bit. Our show is brought to you in part by our friends at Lawo. L-A-W-O.com, Lawo.com and Lawo is the maker of the crystalCLEAR audio console system. This is a virtual audio console.
Now, Lawo, you may know, makes all kinds of audio consoles, from really big consoles for remote sound and TV trucks and installed sound systems, arenas and television production facilities. They also make a smaller line of consoles called the Crystal series, and this is the crystalCLEAR. It's a virtual audio console.
It has a one rack unit, DSP unit that goes in it. That's where your audio comes in and goes out. That's also where the RAVENNA and AES67 ethernet connection is. So it's also an audio over IP console.
And then the surface of the console is not a physical knobs and buttons surface. It's a computer touchscreen with a... it's a multi-touch. You can put 10 fingers on it at once, if you're that coordinated, and... I can't even do 10 real buttons at once. And... I have trouble with 10 fingers at once.
But you can run the volumes, the faders up and down, push buttons. You can... the cool thing about being a virtual console is that every button is contextual. So if you push a button, you don't get a bunch of options that have nothing to do with what you want to do. You only get the options that have directly to do with that operation.
So I encourage you to check it out. By the way, our sponsor will be a little bit shorter on this show. Lawo, L-A-W-O.com. Look for the radio consoles, and look for crystalCLEAR console.
By the way, we've been telling you that a year ago at this show, they introduced that console, and Mike Dosch has done a beautiful video demonstrating it. We hope that Mike will be by our show today to tell us a bit more about it and what they have new at Lawo. L-A-W-O, Lawo.com.
All right, Chris. Here at the show, we've got a bunch of people to talk to.
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: Do you have any highlights you want to bring up first, or shall we get right into it?
Chris: Let's get into talking with our guests.
Kirk: All right. I want to tell you, we're at the Broadcast Electronics booth. And we've known BE for years. Back earlier in my career from cart machines, audio consoles, transmitters. I got into transmitters.
Chris: Transmitters, yes.
Kirk: I've owned, I still own, one of their AM transmitters. It's just beautiful. It just runs and runs.
Chris: Yeah.
Kirk: And I've never had the pleasure of owning one of their FM transmitters, but they actually brought one here.
Chris: I've worked on many FM BEs, yeah.
Kirk: Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. The old... the two transmitters I have worked on...
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: ...and they were interesting, because instead of a quarter wave cavity, they had a...
Chris: Half.
Kirk: …half wave cavity, which made the mechanics interesting and simpler, I think.
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: Yeah.
Chris: And tuning was much easier, and...
Kirk: Yeah.
Chris: ...circulating currents was better, more efficient.
Kirk: And they tended not to go bang like some...
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: Like some transmitters.
But now that we're kind of getting out of the tube era, we have more and more higher power transmitters that are solid state.
Chris: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Kirk: And can you guys pick this thing up right here? We've got an exciter here from BE, and Jim Roberts is going to come over here and... Jim, you're not entirely an RF guy, are you?
Jim: No, I'm the product manager for a software line, for AudioVAULT and TRE and that line.
Kirk: Got you. Well, we'll be sure and talk to you about that. And so us RF experts will take a look at the transmitter.
This thing, it's STX 500.
Jim: Right.
Kirk: That would mean 500 watts?
Jim: Watts, yeah.
Kirk: Watts, yes. Okay. And let's have a... it's some fans on the front with the air filters to pull the air in. And I wish you guys could ship these with a plexiglass cover. Wouldn't that be cool?
Jim: Kind of cuts down on air flow.
Kirk: Yeah. It looks like we have a power supply here.
Jim: Right.
Kirk: And then... looks like a control area, and we have...
Chris: Looks like a power control [sounds like 00:07:10]
Kirk: Oh, and back here's all the excitation, modulation. Is this a digital exciter with a numerically controlled oscillator?
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Kirk: Okay.
Don: Also does baseband 192.
Kirk: Yeah.
Don: And this is the same module that we have in the STX LP 1, 2, 3, and 5 kilowatt transmitters. So this is a design that is the combination controller and exciter in the same card.
Kirk: You know, that's comforting to know that this is proven digital technology. It's not a science experiment.
Don: Absolutely. And this, this is a palette, the same palette that we're using in the new 10 kilowatt SDX transmitter that we're showing here for the first time ever. So this is a very proven palette. We've got a bunch of these in the field, zero failures so far.
Kirk: That is awesome. I love the design that you guys have, that has inputs for, of course, composite baseband. On the back, you can't see it right here, but on the back, it's got left and right analog inputs, if you want to use that, or an AES digital input.
And you said it would do up to AES192.
Don: Yes.
Kirk: Which is this new pseudo, I mean, de facto standard that several processor companies are using to get multiplex baseband over a digital AES. So it's a perfect, you know, rendition of the baseband signal, digitally.
Don: IP connectivity, as well, so you can get into it with an SNMP.
Kirk: Wow.
Don: And it's a wonderful device. And it also acts as the controller for the new 10,000 Watt transmitter, because it connects to that... it has a cam bus and that transmitter, which... I don't know what a cam bus is.
Kirk: Let's do a little dance here, because Don's just barely off camera. Let's get Don in camera to talk about...
Don: I have a face for radio.
Kirk: Don and I have been friends for years and years and years.
Don: Yes.
Kirk: And it's great to see you.
Don: Good to see you, sir. Always not a broadcast show until I see Kirk.
Kirk: Thanks. You were alluding... or talking about the new 10,000 watt transmitter.
Don: Right.
Kirk: And this is... it's a rack mount design. It's kind of big. It's 22...
Don: Twenty-two rack units, but it's 10,000 watts.
Kirk: And this is what I like about it, there's a ton of redundancy.
Don: There's an enormous amount.
Kirk: Why don't tell us a bit about this transmitter?
Don: Well, the transmitter... like I said, it doesn't have a controller in and of itself. We use the exciter for the controller. And that allows you to get into all the guts, all the innards, all the readings, and maintain everything that's going on, and be able to monitor everything.
You take off the front, and there are four RF modules, and they're hot swappable. They can be removed on the fly. Each one of the modules has four of those RF palettes inside it.
Then at the bottom, we have some power supplies. One would be nice. Two would be good. We have space for eight, and if one of them fails, the others just pick up a little bit.
Kirk: I saw the transmitter, like, comes with seven.
Don: It comes with seven, right.
Kirk: But you could have another one.
Don: Right. There's an extra spare in there. So the idea is that if anything should fail, it fails gracefully. If one of the full modules goes out, it goes down to only 7,500 watts, so you're only losing 25% if you knock a full quarter of it out. There's no performance penalty there.
It's a 22 rack unit size, and we're really excited about it, as very efficient, and we think it's going to be incredibly reliable.
Kirk: I'm sure that the transmitter has what I'm going to ask you about, but I want to give an example because not all of our viewers are RF engineers, so sometimes we go back and explain something kind of from the beginning.
This last winter, a lot of radio stations in the South suffered with a ton of icing on their antennas. So I happen to have some stations that don't have automatic... you know, VSWR foldback. They were... they had VSWR cutoff.
Don: Yeah.
Kirk: They shut the transmitter off the air. We had one station off the air for a day and a half, and that was sad. But tell me about automatic foldback, and what that can... How that can help a station stay on the air.
Don: Well, being a sales guy, I can tell you that... thanks. You know, it's designed to be in a situation where it fails gracefully, and should something like that happen, it's not a catastrophic failure. It cuts back the power so not so much power is going out to the antenna, not so much power reflects back to the transmitter, so that it stays on the air, albeit at a lower power. But again, it stays on the air, and that's the most important thing, and without damage.
Kirk: And virtually every modern transmitter has this.
Don: Yeah.
Kirk: But I wanted to mention it because it affected people this past winter and early spring.
Don: [inaudible 00:11:25] Absolutely. It's an important feature to have, and not just in the South. It happens, you know, up North in Michigan and Illinois where BE's located, so...
Kirk: I'd ask if you'd take a transmitter trade-in on this, but you wouldn't want this old transmitter.
Don: I don't know, this one's got a glass top, so it doesn't really work, so... and we do have an AM over here that's actually totally empty, so maybe we can work on something.
Kirk: Speaking of, we brought some show and tell here, friends. This is, wait a minute. I've never gotten to do this before. Can I...
Don: [inaudible 00:11:58]
Kirk: Balance a... Whoa.
Okay, if you've been in broadcasting very long, you know this is a Marti remote RPU transmitter, right? This is when you go to the ball game, you go to the car lot, you go to the grocery store and do your live broadcast with it. You see it has RF out coming out the back. Typically these will be 160 MHz, 450 MHz band.
Don: Yeah.
Kirk: This is how we – this used to be our only choice for doing remotes. And you know what? It's still a viable choice.
Don: Yes.
Kirk: And it doesn't cost you per minute, per mile, per installation. You just bring this and the antenna, you transmit back to the station's receiver antenna. So... and this one's a show and tell model.
Don: Yeah, this one's, see, this one's almost filled with helium.
Kirk: Now, here's what I didn't know... and maybe Jim Roberts, maybe you'd like to come back in and fill me in here. I didn't know that the Marti brand was still going, and BE... I mean, I knew BE bought Marti a long time ago, and I knew that you... but you still have this wonderful brand going on.
Jim: For sure. It's a strong brand for us worldwide. We sell a lot of Martis.
Don: And not just with RPUs, but STLs, as well. Because there are still many instances where it's the best choice.
Kirk: Oh yeah. All of my stations are still using 950 MHz STLs.
Don: We have so many choices out there, it's nice to have one that – it's a traditional choice, but again, it works. It just works.
Kirk: Jim, can you talk to me about a couple other products you have here in the booth. We did a show of TWiRT where we talked the whole show about Commotion. And tell me... give me the elevator speech on Commotion.
Jim: We like to think of Commotion as a screen for radio. So everything that happens on the air also has a visual representation in your app. So not only when you play a song does the artist information, tour schedule, video show up in the app, but you have communication between the station and listeners and listener to listener, as well as bringing in all your social media feed.
So if somebody tweets about the station, that shows up in the communication stream, as well. And then we can link visual elements to every audio element, if you wish. So when you play an advertisement, there can be a coupon code or something that represents that in the stream.
Kirk: Now, one thing that's a bit confusing to me about all the different social media platforms available to broadcasters now is how do they play together? Is Commotion something that can live with, say, the Next Radio idea?
Jim: Yeah. We have an API on Commotion that we can use to implement it into other apps if somebody wants. So we can take it to their other app, and possibly Next Radio at some point.
So it's very flexible. You know, we can do different things with it. It has a web module, as well, so you can have it on your website. It doesn't have to be a mobile app. We have HTML5 pages that represent the same content. So you can move it around from place to place.
Kirk: Got you. So if my station has committed to do some Next Radio things, I can add the features of Commotion to that.
Jim: Right, right.
Kirk: For social interaction.
Jim: Yes. Assuming Next Radio would allow us to do that integration, we could, yes.
Kirk: Okay. Got you.
Now, if I have a Commotion app, if I have a station app from Commotion on my phone, can I communicate with the station? Can I text, or text to other listeners?
Jim: Yes. You can comment to other listeners, you can comment to the station. But the station has a dashboard where they can moderate that conversation. So if there's troublemakers, they can obviously ban those or delete messages. But it's a real-time communication between the station and listeners, and listeners to listeners.
Kirk: Chris is on the ban list at several stations.
Chris: Yes, that's true.
Kirk: Troublemaker. All right, cool. Jim, what else would you like to tell us about? There was Commotion and the transmitters.
Jim: We've got a brand-new version of AudioVAULT.
Kirk: Oh.
Jim: We've updated our satellite support. It's got a great interface. We've added something we call Perfect Timing that will use a combination of squeeze and stretch, autofill and autodrop to keep your station on time, all the time. And we've added integration with MusicMaster's Nexus server. So AudioVAULT now communicates with MusicMaster in real-time.
So you can click on the AudioVAULT screen and say, "I need to add a song here," and MusicMaster will return songs to AudioVAULT that fit all of your rules. So you don't have to put in a song that may break a rule, or... and you can add fill songs, as well, and you don't have to schedule drop songs anymore. You come up short at the end of the hour, AudioVAULT will automatically go ask MusicMaster for a song to fill out the hour.
Kirk: So when I was on the air live, my go-to song for a short fill-in was some Beatles song or "King Tut" by Steve Martin, right?
Jim: Right.
Kirk: I'm taking that MusicMaster would be aware of a larger library of short songs.
Jim: Right.
Kirk: And those would be presented to me through the interface of AudioVAULT.
Jim: Correct. Correct. And you don't have to be there.
Kirk: Oh.
Jim: So if nobody's in the studio, AudioVAULT will, on its own, say, "Hey, I don't have enough music for this hour" and go ask MusicMaster for something to play.
Kirk: How cool is that? Awesome. Anything else you'd like to tell us about? We have, of course, there's NewsBoss is in here, Sterlitz...
Jim: We've got Stirlitz is in here, NewsBoss, we've got our lower-end automation system, Xpresso, is in the booth, as well. It's lower price point, a little smaller feature set, but still a robust system. You can do voice tracking with it, and hotkeys, and all of that.
Kirk: Awesome. Jim, thank you so much. And I want to thank you, Jim, and BE for the bandwidth. Bandwidth is really hard to come by here in the hall unless you're really rich. And I don't know what these guys are doing, but they've got bandwidth that nobody else seems to get. So thanks very much for...
Jim: No problem.
Kirk: ...providing that to us. It's really appreciated.
Jim Roberts and Don Backus of BE are here. And Chris Tobin, come on back in. We've got Scott Fybush coming up in just a minute or two. You were running around the hall here talking to a lot of friends, customers, vendors.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Kirk: Anything you want to share with us initially, here? What kind of impressed upon you?
Chris: Nothing stood out. Except for the drones flying overhead, but...
Kirk: Tell me about those.
Chris: Drones everywhere.
Kirk: Yeah.
Chris: There are drones on tethered poles.
Kirk: Okay.
Chris: So you don't let it fly everywhere. It just sort of stays in your bubble. And the ones that fly above your head and all around.
There are several types that apparently are designed to just crash. If they do, they break apart so they're safer.
Kirk: Really?
Chris: Yeah. I was like, okay.
Kirk: I need that.
Chris: Yeah. We all do, don't we? It was just interesting. And I'm not going to name brand names, but some of the drones are now being designed in such a way that their weight to thrust balance... I mean, they're really getting into the science of aviation. And one of the manufacturers are showing the drone flying in a 50 mile an hour wind...
Kirk: Whoa.
Chris: ...because of the way they balance the weight, you know, they put the weight distribution on the chassis. So between the battery, the camera, and everything else. I was like, "Okay, this is getting crazy."
But, you know, it's... the hard part is, though, I still believe if you're going to do drones or UAVs, whatever you're going to call it, you really need to focus on the safety, and make sure whoever's controlling it, it doesn't have to be a pilot per se, but at least gets the idea behind what goes on, because it's really-, once that's up in the air, there's no safety. You could really hurt somebody, or create some trouble.
Kirk: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: But, I mean, that was great stuff. The other thing, too, is a lot of folks now using IP everywhere. There are these cameras now that you can just plug into an IP spigot, and with the Dante and RAVENNA, and actually, Livewire as well, and Wheatnet, you can just plug stuff in and create all kinds of networks.
It was the wildest thing walking around talking to folks, and listening to conversations, how people are migrating from their traditional, call it copper point to point, to a distributed system all over ethernet. I thought that was pretty cool.
Kirk: Behind us, actually, here in the hall, are some guys who... I happened to have a meeting with them yesterday. They took some Axia Livewire hardware interfacing...
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Kirk: ...redesigned it onto a smaller board. Because Axia, some years ago, made a reference design...
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: ...that manufacturers could use to put Livewire in otherwise non-Linux, non-operating system products. And these guys from Australia, one guy in particular, redesigned it into a little bitty card.
Chris: Oh, wow.
Kirk: And it's got audio and GPIO, all involved. It boots up in just a few seconds. And it's getting to the point where, it wouldn't surprise me if, in a year or two, we're going to see microphones that have just an AES67 plug. Power over ethernet. You could take this... you could take a mic...
Chris: Yeah.
Kirk: ...plug it into your station network, anywhere in the station, and bam, it appears, and bring it up on a console somewhere.
Chris: Well, I think Audio-Technica has a Dante-enabled microphone...
Kirk: Ah, okay. Yeah.
Chris: ...that you can do that. So if you have a Dante network, you just plug right in and go.
Kirk: And Dante's been under development, I think, more focused on tiny chips and integration.
Chris: Yes. Yeah.
Kirk: For that hardware integration.
Chris: Yeah. There's a lot of stuff with Dante and Ravenna, the two protocols, I guess you'd call them, are out there. But the form factor you're speaking of, I believe Audio-Technica already has a plug-in.
Kirk: You were talking about drones a moment ago. Before the show started, we actually took a camera over to one of the drone manufacturers.
Chris: Oh.
Kirk: And we spoke with their sales manager, and he gave us some really interesting ideas. So a couple of thoughts about what's coming up in the future. There are some drones out that'll fly for over an hour.
Chris: Wow.
Kirk: With an 18x optical zoom lens, and auto-tracking to where... well, they don't have RFID-type tags yet. But if you're the controller of the...
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: If you've got the controller, you can go anywhere, and the drone will follow you, or the drone will precede you.
Chris: Oh, wow. Well, in the outdoor pavilion...
Kirk: Yeah.
Chris: ...I'll point the other way. There's a robotic little Jeep. You know, a little... whatever you want to call it. The camera mount on it.
Kirk: Yeah.
Chris: And you can control it. I took a video of it, but you won't be able to see it very well on the phone. You hold the controller in your hands.
Kirk: Okay.
Chris: Look at the screen.
Kirk: Yeah.
Chris: And as you move, the vehicle, the little ATV, turns in the same direction.
Kirk: Oh my goodness.
Chris: Yeah. So I'm watching this guy go around in a circle, a figure-8, and he's just moving around. And if you do this, you know, you raise your hands, the camera looks up.
Kirk: Oh. I thought maybe the Jeep did a wheelie.
Chris: No, but I'm sure if you worked hard enough, you could make... it was bouncing. But it was pretty cool. The guy went 20, 30 feet away.
Kirk: On a future TWiRT show, we're going to show this interview with one of the drone manufacturers. And I asked them, "Do you have a navigation mode for the drone where you can put it maybe 30 feet from a tower, and tell it to just go up. Don't go closer to the tower or farther from the tower. Don't go left or right, in or out. Just go up parallel with the tower." And he said, "Yeah, we can do that."
Chris: Oh, yeah.
Kirk: I like that.
Chris: Military stuff does that already.
Kirk: Yeah.
Chris: If you take... now you'll be taking snapshots with Google Earth, put it into a chip, put it on the drone, and it'll just go around your neighborhood.
Kirk: Oh, gee.
Chris: Yes, exactly.
Kirk: It could be a little creepy.
Chris: Not a little. It is creepy. Let's be honest, it's creepy. But it'll happen.
Kirk: Jesus, did you have something to tell us.
Jesus: This was another show, was very amazing.
Kirk: Yeah?
Jesus: And especially the Telos, because we have... we use that kind of family. Because if you get the customer, we can walk around anywhere, and Telos has been very good in the lunch, also.
Kirk: The lunch. Lunch, yes. He comes here from India to thank us for the lunch.
Jesus: Yeah. So we can drive... it looks like he has his own booth, so we can drive the customer crew. We have good access. And Mr. Kirk Harnack has been amazing help for us.
Kirk: Well, thank you.
Chris: Oh, you got the check.
Kirk: You got the check.
Hey, our show is... by the way, you're watching This Week in Radio Tech. We are live at the NAB 2015. We're in the central hall, and we're at the booth of Broadcast Electronics. They graciously gave us some space and some valuable bandwidth to do the show.
Hey, we've got a few more guests here coming through in a few minutes. But... and, in fact, Scott Fybush is on deck. He's swinging the bat. He's got the weights on it. He'll be out here in just a minute.
Our show is brought to you in part by the Telos VX. You know what? We ought to get Joe to tell you about the VX.
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: Joe.
Chris: Come hither.
Kirk: Why would I do a VX commercial myself when the father of the VX... or at least the grandson of the VX. I guess Steve Church is the father of the VX, yeah.
Joe: Absolutely, he is, yes.
Kirk: So you're kind of the grandson of the VX.
Joe: I'm caretaker, yeah.
Kirk: A caretaker. All right. The executor.
Joe: Yeah. Well, yeah.
Kirk: So this is Joe Talbot, and he's been on the show a few times before. And Joe knows all about telephony, going back to the early days of exchanges with operators and things like that. He's very old, actually.
Joe: I am. I'm old.
Kirk: Yeah. And... but getting him... you know what? I was at a meeting today with a group of engineers.
Joe: Right?
Kirk: And I asked them, "How many of you guys are using Voice over IP, maybe even a Telos VX, at your station?" Now, these were engineers for big cluster stations.
Joe: Right?
Kirk: Over half of them raised their hand, they're using VX.
Joe: We've been doing a pretty good job, I guess, then.
Kirk: We're doing a pretty good job.
Joe: Oh, that's great.
Kirk: So tell us a bit... give us the elevator speech about VX, and then tell us what's new here at the show.
Joe: Okay. Well, let's see. VX basically is an engine, and the engine connects to your SIP provider, or your PBX, or whatever.
Kirk: Yeah.
Joe: And then there's also the audio that comes out Livewire. So if you've got audio, or probably Axia consoles, it's really simple. You just buy the engine, plug the phones in, program it, and it works.
Kirk: Now, I want to conceptualize this a little bit more.
Joe: Right.
Kirk: The VX has basically two ethernet ports.
Joe: Correct.
Kirk: And on one side is the telephone world in the format of SIP.
Joe: Right.
Kirk: And if your phone lines don't come in SIP, you can convert them. Your PBX can convert them.
Joe: Right.
Kirk: An Asterisk box could convert them. Or you could bring... you could say, "You know what? I'm tired of the POTS world. I'm going to order VoIP from a provider."
Joe: Right.
Kirk: And so then what comes out of this engine is audio that's as good as you can possibly make it. It's got Omnia processing on it.
Joe: Yes. It's great.
Kirk: It's fully... it's hybridized such that you don't get return audio coming back in. The audio's as good in every way as we can possibly make it.
Now, what's between the "gazinta" and the "gozouta"?
Joe: A whole bunch of really great software.
Kirk: Okay.
Joe: It's all... you know, everything's virtualized, so it's a great piece of software.
Kirk: And the ability to, I guess, take these lines and put them into groups, and then send those groups, defined studios. That's... you mentioned software. This is kind of what the box does. It lets you define a broadcast phone system within the box.
Joe: Right. I mean, if you have a backup studio... let's say your main studio fails and you've got a talk show going on. You can move them down the hall at the push of a button. It's really very simple.
Kirk: And all the phone lines...
Joe: Just follow the calls. Yeah. Right. The calls don't even drop, so it's...
Kirk: Wow.
Joe: Yeah.
Kirk: Okay.
Joe: Run down the hall, push the button, you're back on.
Kirk: Wow.
Joe: Yeah.
Kirk: And I guess we could name... who are some big broadcasters or shows using this?
Joe: Well, we have all of the three-letter networks.
Kirk: Okay.
Joe: And, you know, groups.
Kirk: And some of them, you're talking about television here.
Joe: Yes, some of them.
Kirk: Yeah.
Joe: And they've been...
Kirk: There's a four-letter sports group that they...
Joe: There is, and... right, that they're very happy.
Kirk: And there's a five-letter pseudo public broadcaster named CSPAN that's using it.
Joe: They are.
Kirk: Great.
Joe: And they came to us because they were having problems with the other system, having problems when they had high volume.
Kirk: Oh.
Joe: And we're doing great with that, and it's all SIP. And they've been kind of a tester for some of the things for high-volume SIP, and it's been perfect.
Kirk: Broadcasters will have questions about high-volume, like choke circuits. And we're not going to go through that right now. But if people have questions or problems, or are getting negative feedback from their phone company about moving choke circuits, using choke circuits, whatever, getting them into the 21st century, you can help them out with answers.
Joe: We know all the tricks. Yeah, call us up. We'll talk about your situation and find a way to do it. We know some pretty clever ways to deal with that stuff.
Kirk: All right. Oh, now, and what's new at the show? Now, hey... I guess the cable's too short to bring over here.
Joe: Oh, what's that? Oh...
Kirk: The cable on that thing is too short to bring it over here.
Joe: It wouldn't light up. Well, if you've got a VX phone system, or you need a 1-by-6 or anything, there's now a console drop-in. I know you've got the controls for the system within your console.
Kirk: So even if you don't have an Axia console...
Joe: Right.
Kirk: You've got a Wheatstone, an SAS console, maybe even an old PR&E console. But you want a brand-new phone system and the way to control it right there in front of you.
Joe: Right. It's there. I can bring it over if you'd like.
Kirk: Oh, sure. Go get it.
Joe: All right.
Kirk: Cool.
Chris: Speaking of things that I saw on the floor, you know how 8451 Belden cable is common through every radio station.
Kirk: Sure, sure.
Chris: Now it would seem to be fiber.
Kirk: Fiber?
Chris: Everybody's just using fiber. Yeah.
Kirk: [inaudible 00:27:45] I heard they have connectors that almost just snap on.
Chris: Yes. Yes.
Kirk: And our good friend Mogan David said, "You've got to be kidding me. I spent 45 minutes putting each one of these connectors on..."
Chris: He's one of the guys that does the fiber works, that's why.
Frank: No, I'm... hello, my name is Mr. Photobomb.
Kirk: Mr. Photobomb.
Frank: No, Mr. Photobomb. Yes, yes. I have to say, this [inaudible 00:28:06] business, I know this young man all along who had in Las Vegas...
Chris: [inaudible 00:28:14]
Frank: You don't come out to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Green like that.
Chris: That's right.
Frank: Kirk.
Kirk: Yes, sir.
Frank: You're my brother, and I love you.
Kirk: I love you, too, Frank.
Frank: But don't ever take sides against the family again.
The previous was brought to you by Agumba from Cleveland. So I'll let you get back to your discussion that was happening.
Kirk: And viewers of the show need to stay tuned for at least the next 22 minutes to see the next thing happening, right?
Chris: Yeah. Yes.
Frank: Okay.
Kirk: Yeah. Yeah.
Frank: All right. Yeah, we're bringing Pete in from Tampa last night, so...
Kirk: Whoo.
Frank: For those of you out there, thank you for letting me photobomb.
Kirk: That was a Telos CEO, Frank Foti, and, you know, inventor of the Omnia line of processors.
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: Okay, what have we got here?
Joe: Okay, all your phone lines. Drop, hold, make calls with this. Busy out the lines. Everything you can do from a V-set, you can do right from here.
Kirk: That's awesome.
Joe: And it's...
Kirk: Power over ethernet.
Joe: ...power over ethernet. Just plug it in, that's it.
Kirk: And shipping soon?
Joe: I'd say this summer.
Kirk: This summer.
Joe: Yeah. Looking good.
Kirk: Yeah.
Joe: We're going to beta test it, make sure everything's good. But looking good.
Kirk: And a lot of folks... you know, they need this on their console.
Joe: Yes.
Kirk: Because if they've got to place the phone too far left or right, it's a pain.
Joe: Right. I like to put these in between a couple of faders. Fader 1, Fader 2.
Kirk: Ah.
Joe: And this'll take up basically two spaces on a console.
Kirk: And no matter what brand of console you have, your console manufacturer can take this electronics...
Joe: And put it in there.
Kirk: ...punch a hole in the right metal so it matches the rest of your console.
Joe: Make it purdy.
Kirk: Yeah, make it purdy.
Joe: Right, right.
Kirk: Joe, thank you so much, man.
Joe: Thanks a lot, Kirk.
Kirk: I appreciate it so much. Take care.
All right, that's Joe Talbot with Telos. And, like I said, the guy knows everything about telephony. If you need to handle phone calls at your center, broadcast center, get in touch with us and talk to Joe.
All right, are we ready to Fybush?
Chris: Fybush time.
Kirk: Okay.
Chris: Absolutely.
Kirk: I have a Lake Mead emergency, and I need some water from Lake Mead, so I'm going to go do that. Let's bring Scott Fybush in. Come on in, man. Let's see. Why don't you... here. Step over there.
Scott: There we go.
Kirk: Oh, here we go. I'll get out of the way.
Scott: All right. I'm glad we're getting you out of the frame, because I'm not well enough dressed to be in the same frame with you.
Kirk: Okay. I'll be right back in a minute, guys.
Chris: Mind your earpiece.
Kirk: I'd better undo this.
Chris: That's fine.
Kirk: Okay.
Chris: I'll use it to hear Andrew. All right.
Scott: All righty.
Chris: Well, we have Scott Fybush. Scott... for those of you who don't know who he is, Scott's going to tell you what he's all about. It's usually calendars, transmitter sites, pictures, and lots of radio history, and that's what I'll start off with.
Scott: The last of the calendars just got given away about half an hour ago. So I should have brought one with me to hold up. But yeah, I do the annual tower site calendar, I do tower site of the week at Fybush.com, Northeast Radio Watch, and I do some writing for a number of trade periodicals including "Radio World" and "Current" and... too many different hats to wear.
Chris: Many, many hats. So...
Scott: I need to clone myself.
Chris: We tried cloning in my household, and it didn't work. The clones quit, so I'm stuck with myself.
So, 2015 NAB. What did you see, what did you think of? Anything that stood out? Did you come out here with a mission, or just the usual, "Let me see what I can write about" type of thing?
Scott: These guys back here made a little bit of news at this show that we should probably talk about that.
Chris: Oh, you're pointing to the Telos Alliance? And what news did they bring?
Scott: I am. This would be the Voltair, which stirred some discussions, some lawyers got involved at one point here. This is the device that is supposed to pre-process audio before it goes into the PPM so that the PPM can have something to work with to better provide some masking so it can do more watermarking, so that the PPM receivers have a better chance of actually registering audience.
Chris: Right. Yes, that did create a stir. I know it was the MRC and Nielsen and everybody got involved, and I think, you know, if you've listened to it and you see it, the Voltair is a pretty cool box. Is that Geoff Steadman's group that did that?
Scott: I believe so.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: And Gary Blesser.
Chris: Gary Blesser, who I talked to this morning, yes.
Scott: I sat in on his white paper, and it was a lot of... it was up here. Which for me is not difficult, to get over my head. But nevertheless, it's pretty remarkable.
I think what he's doing, one of the challenges to this... I was talking about this over breakfast this morning. We don't really know everything that's going on in there. You know, very sort of reverse-engineered, okay, what audio allows the PPM to actually mask properly, what doesn't. But ultimately, we don't really know. You know, we plug these boxes in, we plug in the encoders, we have no way of measuring, okay, is data being encoded here properly? Are we getting a fair shake at getting this listenership measured?
Chris: Well, some people would say, "Well, what's the big deal, and why would we encroach on, say, a company's intellectual property by reverse engineering?" I would think, I know, I heard this from several folks this week at a couple breakfasts, as well.
The problem is, we're relying on this technology, this device, to dictate our revenue streams. So, you know, you want to make sure you're maximizing everything you can, and if you have a black box in the audio chain, and that black box can dictate whether you, say, win or fail... you know, it's like, we need to know more.
That's exactly what Gary's paper was about. That's what the Voltair is trying to offer up. And I'm sure there'll be plenty of other people want to get in on the game, or maybe make comments.
But I think, take that approach. If I'm a radio broadcaster, whether it be a network, whether a single station, and I'm participating in PPM, I think I have the right, or at least the ability... the right to know, the right to have access to what exactly is going on so I get the most out of it.
Because at the end of the day, if I don't get the proper PPM results, I don't get the advertising. I don't get the dollars. I'm out of business. And if it's because the black box wasn't revealed enough to be able to say, "Yeah, you do need to do this. Yes, you do need... you should do this," that's not right.
I think an even playing field is probably what I'm trying to get at.
Scott: And here we are trusting another black box, essentially, to fix the problems with the first black box. We don't know what's in the second black box completely, either, because these guys aren't going to tell us every little bit of magic that goes in under the hood.
Chris: Oh yes, yeah, I'm not saying that, you know, the Voltair developers, designers, are free of opinion or criticism. I'm just saying that overall, the bigger picture, we should be all questioning, and there should... never stop questioning what's going on.
Because I don't... I've worked for many a broadcast group that lived and died by the PPM. And, you know, if you're going to put that much into it, I think you have the right to say, "Hey, guys, somebody, what's going on?" And if this can help improve it, we should do it.
Scott: As an engineer, you want to know what's actually happening in your audio chain. You want to know exactly what's between the microphone and the transmitter. And now you don't.
Chris: Well, I recall in the early days, the PPM at the stations I worked at, we received many a call from the folks at Aubertron at the time saying, "Hey, listen. This box, this technology's level-dependent. You have to always make sure a certain number of dBM is coming into the box."
And all of us in the engineering division were like, "What do you mean by a certain level? We all operate plus 4 dBM. It's, you know, 0 dB +4, standard industry." Yes, but the box actually operated +8. Okay, but nobody's doing +8.
So there we are putting things in front, behind, and all around. This is several years ago. But you have to think to yourself, what is going on here?
So Voltair, I think, is bringing that sort of questioning, curiosity to the forefront. Yes, there's some fanfare involved. Yes, there's probably a lot of handwaving. But I think that's required.
Scott: We'll be talking about that more. I think this was certainly the show of the drone, without a doubt. And I actually... one of the assignments I had coming here is write a story for Radio World about radio and drones.
And at first you think, what's a drone going to do for radio? But it does, actually. There were a number of radio stations that are hopping to get on this to do remote traffic reporting, to bring out streaming video and news stories more effectively.
I was talking with the guys from Saber Towers. They are raring to go. One of them's a pilot. He said as soon as they can start using a drone for tower inspections. Much cheaper and safer sometimes than sending a guy up there if something's wrong. Why not?
Chris: Yeah. I agree, absolutely. As long as... I just want to... I just hope people are serious about the operation and protocols that should be put in place.
Scott: Yeah. One of the drone guys I talked to over there, he says, "I never want to fly over anything that I wouldn't be comfortable crashing into."
Chris: That's probably the best statement. I like that. That's good.
Scott: And of course, this was also the year of the windstorm.
Chris: Yes, it is.
Kirk: Here?
Scott: Here.
Kirk: Windstorm we had here? Yeah.
Scott: That Tuesday night windstorm.
Kirk: Yeah.
Scott: You can hear, I think we're all kind of hoarse still.
Kirk: Good thing I picked Monday night to jump off the strat.
Scott: There you go.
Kirk: If it was Tuesday night, it wouldn't have worked.
Scott: Better you than me. Better you than me Kirk.
Kirk: Well, thanks, Scott. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.
Scott: My pleasure. Always a pleasure. We've got, what, 10 more minutes till the big noise back here?
Kirk: Is that... oh yeah, only 10 minutes. Okay, all right.
Chris: Ten minutes to go.
Kirk: We're going to have you on a whole show, you know.
Scott: Absolutely.
Kirk: Okay? And share some more pictures of transmitter sites and studios.
Scott: I've got a new HD camera now, so I'm not going to be 4 x 3 anymore.
Kirk: I think that your next catalog, instead of... your calendar, instead of being the standard format, ought to be, like, this long and this wide.
Scott: We thought about it.
Kirk: Yeah?
Scott: We thought I'd use some of the really tall towers.
Kirk: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: That could work. And the printers...
Kirk: Or, you know what'd be great? Got a little kind of a sexy thing here. You have a little fold-out, you know, for the really tall towers.
Scott: Well, we do. We do the centerfold at the end of the year.
Kirk: Okay, okay.
Scott: You know, for the big ones.
Kirk: Okay. Good deal. Good to see you, man.
Scott: Thanks, Kirk.
Kirk: Take care.
Scott: We'll do it again.
Chris: Thanks, Scott.
Kirk: So we've got our next guest is going to be a bit of a technical discussion.
Chris: Technical discussion.
Kirk: Yeah. Where'd he go? There he is, Greg Shay. Hey, Brian.
Chris: Come on over.
Kirk: Tell you what? I'm going to talk to Greg's son, so you and Greg chat just for a minute about AES67. This is the digital technology that's going to be, you know, the standard that people are doing their AoIP to. And so Greg, tell us... give us the two and a half minute talk about AES67.
Greg: Okay. And the camera is there?
Kirk: Yeah, it's right there. The green dot right there.
Greg: Okay. The green dot right there.
Kirk: Hey, thousands of people. Hello.
Greg: Now, have you talked about it some? Or is this...
Chris: Not yet. This is your first chance. Yes.
Greg: This subject? Okay.
So, a year and a half ago, AES67, which is the new interoperability standard for audio over IP, which is audio over networks, issued... but that's only the beginning of it being adopted. What we've been watching as the number of manufacturers have announced that they will use it, and that number is over 300 manufacturers.
Chris: Nice.
Greg: So we had the first Plugfest last October in Munich, which was the first opportunity for manufacturers to actually get together, try their stuff, and see if it actually works. There were 15 vendors, and basically, the results were very good. Thirteen out of fifteen pretty much worked.
Chris: Very nice.
Greg: So that's really encouraging for a new standard. Planning on being another Plugfest in North America toward the end of the summer.
Chris: Now, is there any place that our viewers, listeners, can search out the documents, find out how the Plugfest results, or that material? Is that stuff still confidential?
Greg: Well, I'll tell you, the results of the Plugfest, and we decided going in to let the engineers work, and not make it a marketing event and that. So it pretty much was kept under wraps.
Chris: So now that it's completed...
Greg: Still.
Chris: Still?
Greg: Yeah. So...
Chris: The reason I ask is, me being a person that does work with AoIP, I'd be curious to see which feature sets are interoperable between the boxes I have. So I was... and I'm sure that not everything works, but I'd be curious.
Greg: Yeah. What the focus of the Plugfest was the... Let me explain. AES67 is a protocol that has many options and can do different things. But there is a carefully defined set that everybody must do, and that's how things are interoperable. So that...
Chris: That's set... that information is available.
Greg: That's in the standard.
Chris: That's in the standard. Perfect.
Greg: Yeah. So that's basically what the Plugfest tried.
Chris: Right.
Greg: It didn't try a bunch of the options.
Chris: Oh, okay. So just the mandatory stuff.
Greg: The mandatory stuff, yeah.
Chris: Thirteen out of fifteen seemed to pass.
Greg: Right, right.
Chris: That's good. That's very good.
Greg: So this is a key time in the adoption of a standard, because what you really want manufacturers to actually follow through and deliver it...
Chris: Right.
Greg: ...not just give it lip service. So I pointed out to the APRE, the public radio engineers...
Chris: Yup.
Greg: ...session - conference, that customers have a role, basically, to push on the vendors and make sure they follow through. If they promise they will, make sure they do. Make sure they go to the Plugfest. Keep asking them. In other words, customers like standards...
Chris: Right.
Greg: ...because that gives them some independence between vendors, and make the best choice.
Chris: Sure.
Greg: Vendors kind of like monopolies, because they can get more money, right?
Chris: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Greg: So it has to come from the user community, from the customers.
Chris: Right. Basically from the pocketbook of the customers.
Greg: Right. So encourage your vendors, tell them, "Hey, I'm going to be buying AES67, and I expect you to have it and follow through on it."
Chris: Now, the Plugfest, did folks like Comrex, Wheatstone, yourself, Telos, and, say, APT, were they there? Were they part of that Plugfest?
Greg: See, we're not even really talking about who was there and who was not there.
Chris: Okay. The reason I asked was because people always want to know who's...
Greg: Right.
Chris: If they have the products already in-house, gee, are they participating...
Greg: Right. I know.
Chris: ...in supporting somebody who is or is not?
Greg: It's just out of respect for letting... not turning it into...
Chris: Okay.
Greg: ...shaming or anything like that.
Chris: That's fine.
Greg: Right.
Chris: No, I understand.
Greg: But that's the point, yes.
Chris: I get it. I understand.
Greg: Each and every one of those vendors that you named who have said they're going to do AES67, hey, expect them to do it, you know?
Chris: Right.
Greg: A vendor who is really interested in the customer... and we know that business is better when customers are happy, and the whole idea of a standard is that you make the pie bigger, everybody gets more pie.
Chris: Right. Right.
Greg: So if you're really dedicated to that, you won't have any motivation to act like there's a problem with the standard.
Chris: Right.
Greg: Or any reason to try to promote your own proprietary standard... proprietary solution over the standard. So if you hear vendors saying that, they're kind of not getting with the program, you know?
Chris: Right, right. Exactly, exactly.
Greg: So it's been interesting, you know? It's a non-technical part of the standards process. And I know just in my career, you know, using standards, I never really realized all the stuff that kind of goes on.
Chris: [inaudible 00:42:41] Yes.
Greg: Yeah. So it kind of takes on a life of its own.
Chris: Sure.
Greg: Because you write the standard, it's a piece of paper. You get the inertia going, and it comes from the user community pushing on the vendors, and it's really quite a dramatic thing with a life of its own.
Chris: Yeah. Well, you know, that's similar to what the NPR stations do with NPR Network, NPR National, NPR Last [sounds like 00:43:04]. You know, the public community, the public radio community, push in that direction the same way. They come up with their standards internally. So this is a similar thing. This is great.
Greg: And it's been, actually, really fun to see finally, as this has happening, as this AES67 is taking on this life, to know that something that, you know, we at Telos started almost 15 years ago, it was 15 years ago, it takes that long, you know?
Chris: Oh yes. Yes.
Greg: Here we finally helped it along and promoted it, and standard process, and it's like, it takes a long time to...
Chris: Yeah.
Greg: ...actually change the way... but it's fundamentally changing the way that the audio industry works.
Chris: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. Well, thank you very much. I think they're getting ready for your...
Greg: Yeah.
Chris: ...big showdown.
Greg: All right.
Chris: Thanks, Greg.
Greg: Thank you.
Chris: That was Greg Shay with Telos.
Kirk: Thank you, Greg. Appreciate it.
Chris: This Week in Radio Tech is on location here at NAB 2015.
Kirk: And we've got a guest on who I've been looking forward to having on a long time. Come on over, Joost, Florence. Come on.
Chris: Hello.
Florence: Hi, I'm Florence. Nice to meet you.
Kirk: So come on into the camera shot. We have the Joost Bloemen and his wife Florence. They're from Holland. And on the show, you may have heard us talking about some software called Luci Live. And Luci Live is software that runs on your phone or your tablet, and there's a studio version, as well.
And the Luci Live software is basically an easy to use but powerful and reliable audio codec. And you can use it to talk to a device back at the studio, whether they're studio software, or whether it's a Telos Zip 1, so you can do remote broadcasts.
Now, I just gave the little elevator speech. Joost, you're the developer of the software, and Florence, you are doing what?
Florence: Marketing and sales. Yeah. What would you like to know? You fairly explained it really... yeah, good.
Kirk: Sorry. So...
Florence: So it's a... we also recently developed an app which is called Luci Live for All. And it's a custom-made product which can be used by broadcasters for people who would like to come in live to the studio that just have to press one button. It's really user-friendly. It's not as extensive as the Luci Live version. You only have one button. But people can download it for free from the internet. And, well, they go live on the radio.
And at the broadcaster's end, yeah, that's the one.
Joost: [inaudible 00:45:37]
Florence: Yeah.
Joost: This is for the NOS in the Netherlands. This is for the NOS in the Netherlands. They... this is available on the public app store. Everybody can download it. With the touch of one button, they can go connect to the studio and go online if they...
Florence: Everybody... reporters, civilians, politicians, anybody who likes to go live, they can use Luci Live Lite. And it's for iOS platform, it's for Android platform, as well. It's custom-made, so you can have your own logo inserted in there. So it's really a very nice extra app we're launching, or we have launched already. A couple of major broadcasters are using it already, and they... well, they are fairly enthusiastic about it, so...
Kirk: And what's amazing to me is the simplicity... oh, you have video, too.
Joost: Yes.
Kirk: Tell us about the video.
Joost: Exactly. Since December, we have live streaming video for iPhone, including simultaneous recording of the video.
Kirk: Wow.
Joost: So you can stream live from the field, and if anything happens, you can still... you still have your recording available on your iPhone.
Kirk: Wow.
Joost: So...
Kirk: You can... if the transmission was interrupted...
Joost: Yes.
Kirk: ...you could still send the file?
Joost: Yes. You'll never lose your material.
Kirk: That seems a bit like... well, okay, it... lately in the news have been the applications Meerkat and Periscope.
Joost: Right.
Kirk: And, but this is for professional use.
Joost: Professional use. This has HD video.
Kirk: Ah.
Joost: With 4 MB per second. You can set the bitrate to lower rates. But this streams HD video from your iPhone to any decoder in the studio.
Kirk: Cool.
Florence: Maybe a last thing to add to our company story is that we'd like to be compatible to all codecs, like Telos and like Comrex and others. But also newsroom systems, we've got a lot of newsroom systems added to our features so, well, this really... for easy use for... to make people more... the threshold lower to use Luci and, well, to be sure that you can choose your own package, and you're not only dedicated to Luci Live from Technica Del Arte, but you can use all other material with it. So that's basically it.
Joost: Yes.
Kirk: Well, I've used the software myself, and I absolutely love it. Of course, Telos has been encouraging people to get it, too. What was the last thing you wanted to say about this?
Joost: This is the customized app for all the German broadcasters...
Kirk: Okay.
Joost: ...organized within the ARD. And this... we add the logo, we add the colors, we add some specific functionality they want. But we can do...
Florence: We changed the language, as well. It's all in German.
Joost: So we do this specifically on request for big broadcasters like BBC, ARD, Radio France, RAI in Italy. They all love Luci.
Kirk: Tell me the website where... more information.
Joost: WWW.Luci.eu.
Kirk: Okay.
Joost: Or LuciLive.com.
Kirk: Or LuciLive.com, either way.
Joost: Yes.
Kirk: And people can go ahead and if... go to the app store for the iOS version?
Joost: Yeah. Exactly, yeah. It's a...
Florence: And for the other platforms, you can download it via the internet. You can buy it via our web-store. So, yeah. Yeah.
Kirk: Florence, thank you very much for coming.
Florence: Thank you very much, Kirk, for...
Kirk: Thank you for making him behave.
Florence: [inaudible 00:48:59]
Joost: I'm going to Las Vegas now.
Kirk: Joost, thank you very much. Take care. Good to see you guys. Okay. Bye-bye.
So here we are at NAB, at the central hall. We're right across from the Telos booth. Hello, you've got your guitar. I've got to check out, see if I can get mine. You want to... tell you what. We haven't done a commercial for Fusion yet. You want to tell the folks about the Fusion console while I go get my shades?
Chris: I'll try my best, yeah.
Kirk: Okay. Well, you... it's AoIP console, does lots of cool stuff. All right, I'll be right back.
Chris: All righty.
Kirk: You can wear the glasses while you're do that if you want.
Chris: Yeah, [inaudible 00:49:37]. Lot of celebrities.
All right, This Week in Radio Tech. I'm Chris Tobin. And, you know, the Fusion console, Telos Axia audio, is something you may not realize. It's very simple. It's a simple... the simplest thing about it is you plug in an RJ45, you plug it into another RJ45, another switch, couple of peripheral devices, and all of a sudden now you have a working studio.
You have mix-minus on each fader. You have each... or I should say mix-minus on each source. Faders are actually dumb faders. They have nothing to do with the device itself until you program them.
Oh, programming. Very straightforward. Web browser access. Or you could use iProfile to control your entire network and have fun. Or you could have some, you know, laboring jockey like this guy, try and help you put together an Axia system and console wiring. It's very straightforward. But then again, the RJ45s these days are difficult to work with.
Or you can get some guy with a pink guitar. Wow, you don't want pink guitars in your studio, I should say.
So Fusion console, Axia audio, is something you should really consider. Why? AoIP is real straightforward to use. You can't go wrong with it. Really, it's all about the switches, wiring, and your ability to be creative. Imagination makes the Axia audio systems come to life, and your imagination should be challenged.
Just as this gentleman here with a pink guitar is challenged to try and play. I prefer something in red and black. That's probably more suitable for a rock and roll option.
Fusion consoles, Axia audio, check it out. Telos Alliance has it all for you.
Kirk: I...
Chris: Yes?
Kirk: I thought that with the glasses on, nobody would know who I am.
Chris: Right. Clark Kent.
Kirk: Was I mistaken?
Chris: Clark Kent you're not.
Kirk: Thank you for being here on the show with me.
Chris: Well, you're welcome. Anytime.
Kirk: And I think what we're going to do to close out the show...
Chris: Yes.
Kirk: We're going to shut up, and we're going to just leave the camera pointed in this direction. The party is going to move around.
Chris: Oh.
Kirk: And Frank hopefully will make another appearance.
Chris: Flash mobs. Flash mobs.
Kirk: Yeah. And we're just going to get out of the way, and we'll just close out. Andrew, the show's over when the song's over.
Chris: ...song's over.
Kirk: Thanks for watching This Week in Radio Tech. We'll see you again next week. Stick around.
Chris: Cheers, all.
Kirk: Set that somewhere. Good.
[music playing in background]
[music 00:51:43 through 00:52:14]
Kirk: Hey, Don. [inaudible 00:52:20]
Should we be moving our mouths?
Don: [inaudible 00:52:36]
[music 00:52:38 through 00:53:51]
Kirk: Look into the camera.
Woman: Are we live?
Kirk: Yeah.
Woman: Oh shit.
[music 00:53:55 through 00:54:42]
Kirk: And all the way from New Zealand.
[music 00:54:44 through 00:54:56]
Woman: [inaudible 00:00:54:57]
[music 00:54:59 through 00:55:34]
Woman: Yeah. [inaudible 00:55:35] Whoo.
Kirk: Yeah. While you're surfing.
[music 00:55:43 through 00:55:56]
Woman: [inaudible 00:00:55:57]
Man: [inaudible 00:00:56:04]
Woman: Yeah. [inaudible 00:00:56:10]
Man: Wow.
[music 00:56:13 through 00:56:30]
Woman: [inaudible 00:56:31] Okay. Bye [inaudible 00:56:34]
Kirk: [inaudible 00:56:35]
Woman: Okay.
[music 00:56:40 through 00:56:58]
Man: Okay.
Kirk: Chris.
Chris: Let's go.
Kirk: Yeah. You and John.
Chris: Why not?
Kirk: And now the inimitable John [inaudible 00:57:04]. Hi, John. Here comes your solo.
John: Let's go.
[music 00:57:07 through 00:57:25]
Woman: [inaudible 00:57:26]
John: Come on, [inaudible 00:57:30].
Man: [inaudible 00:57:31]
[music 00:57:32 through 00:57:51]
Man: [inaudible 00:57:52]
John: Absolutely.
[music 00:57:58 through 00:58:11]
John: Here you are, sir.
Kirk: Hey, hey.
John: Take it over.
Kirk: Well, look inside his jacket. Look what I found. Oh...
[cheering and applause]
Kirk: Oh, sorry.
[music]
Chris: That concludes This Week in Radio Tech from NAB 2015 Las Vegas. See you on the next episode of TWiRT.
Telos Alliance has led the audio industry’s innovation in Broadcast Audio, Digital Mixing & Mastering, Audio Processors & Compression, Broadcast Mixing Consoles, Audio Interfaces, AoIP & VoIP for over three decades. The Telos Alliance family of products include Telos® Systems, Omnia® Audio, Axia® Audio, Linear Acoustic®, 25-Seven® Systems, Minnetonka™ Audio and Jünger Audio. Covering all ranges of Audio Applications for Radio & Television from Telos Infinity IP Intercom Systems, Jünger Audio AIXpressor Audio Processor, Omnia 11 Radio Processors, Axia Networked Quasar Broadcast Mixing Consoles and Linear Acoustic AMS Audio Quality Loudness Monitoring and 25-Seven TVC-15 Watermark Analyzer & Monitor. Telos Alliance offers audio solutions for any and every Radio, Television, Live Events, Podcast & Live Streaming Studio With Telos Alliance “Broadcast Without Limits.”