5 Tips for Converting to an AoIP Studio

If you’re a general manager, considering an Audio over IP network for your facility makes sense. The technology is faster, cheaper, and better than previous methods to build broadcast facilities. By converting to AoIP, you not only tap into the power of current technology, you allow your facility to leverage the enormous universe of “off the shelf” IT devices that are used worldwide, and not just in the broadcast industry. Here are our top five considerations for general managers thinking about a move to Audio over IP. 

TWiRT 340 - War Stories with Robbie Green

Move 4 radio studios across town.  You’ve got two weeks.  Go!  Oh, and scrounge some equipment to make the STL systems work with an old T-1 circuit.  And, find some time to replace seven FM transmitters with new, solid-state units and full HD Radio. That’s the world of engineer, Robbie Green. Robbie joins Chris Tobin and Kirk Harnack on This Week in Radio Tech.

Hosts:

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

Guest:

Robbie Green - Market Chief Engineer, CBS Radio, Houston

Show Links:

Studio Technologies Model 214 Talent Console

Soundcraft Si Expression 1 audio mixer

Ethernet Private Line (Carrier Ethernet)

Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality

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