All About Adaptive Audio Streaming

Streaming for broadcast is a hot topic right now. Consumer convenience prompted online video services such as YouTube and Netflix to offer Adaptive Multirate Video Streaming, and audio-only streaming providers—especially radio stations—are just recently able to offer the same convenience to their online listeners. Adaptive streaming is actually simple and inexpensive to implement, but it is a bit different from traditional online streaming. Here, we do a Q&A with Telos Alliance Director of Streaming Ioan Rus to help define the tech behind Adaptive Streaming and illustrate how both broadcasters and listeners come out ahead with Adaptive.

Topics: Streaming Audio

NuTone 2067B-2068B Transistor Radio-Intercom System 

Radios come in all shapes and sizes, and this column seeks out some of the forgotten and unusual examples. Previous installments have examined farm radios, unlikely portables and early clock radios. This time around, we'll look at the NuTone 2067B transistor radio intercom system. It dates to 1965, when home radio-intercoms were something of a status symbol in larger houses.

Topics: Vintage Radio Technology, Vintage Electronics

TWiRT 304 - Why, Yes, it's WiFi

Chris Tobin joins us with a full hour live, remote broadcast from a park in Newark, New Jersey,  and he’s not using his telco carrier’s data!  It’s just another way that Chris is demonstrating that broadcast engineers can get it done for remote WiFi.  Chris reveals his methods and secrets on this episode of TWiRT!

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

Links from the show:

Ubiquiti NanoStationM  

Vintage Audio: Wollensak 1500 Series Tape Recorders

Anyone who worked for the high school AV club or college media services department in the late ‘60s or 1970s remembers the Wollensak 1500 series reel-to-reel recorders. Along with the RCA hand-threaded 16 mm projectors, they were the bread and butter of instructional media. The hallmark of these devices was their ease of use and indestructible design. Get ready for a flashback to your adolescence, when all you needed to know about tape recorders was 'PLAY-RECORD-STOP', as we peer beneath that white and chrome exterior of Wollensak 1500 tape recorders.

Topics: Vintage Radio Technology

Audio Processing as a Weapon

One of the newest members of the Telos Alliance family is Brian Kerkan, who came on board in March as North American Manager for Radio Processing Sales. Brian brings with him a background in broadcast engineering in both radio and television, including as Director of Engineering for Saga Communications, and a strategic approach to audio processing, his primary area of expertise. In his new role he will provide guidance to clients looking to get the most out of their Omnia Audio processors.

Beyond 8x2: Axia xNode Matrix Mixer Launches!

Go beyond the numbers with the Axia xNode Matrix Mixer, available now via the latest completely free v2.0 software update. This powerful new feature unlocks endless mixing flexibility and allows broadcast engineers to use their Axia xNodes to create mixes without the need for a dedicated studio mixer / switching system. Here, we caught up with Product Manager Milos Nemcik to get the DL . . .  

TWiRT 303 - Hey, We Found Chris Tarr!

What’s an engineer to do when the old transmitter you’re getting rid of won’t fit through the building door?  You could cut it apart with a Sawz-All, or you could break out a wall and make a bigger door.  Well, Chris Tarr used both strategies during two recent transmitter upgrades.  The Ninjaneer joins Chris Tobin and me for a TWiRT reunion episode.

Guest: Chris Tarr, Wisconsin DoE - Entercom

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

Links from the show:

Radio magazine’s story about the Cumulus NASH facility

Hardware Versus Software Streaming: Which Is Right for Your Facility?

One of the primary questions for broadcasters exploring a streaming solution early on, is: Do I go with a software-only product, a dedicated card, or a hardware appliance?

Dedicated Cards: No Way!

First off, I don't recommend dedicated cards. These are cards that you install in your PC and they provide some hardware-assisted audio processing or encoding. While they may serve a purpose for certain applications, they are often a hassle to maintain. As OS versions change, keeping drivers up to date can be a pain. And with fast multi-core CPUs found in modern PCs, dedicated cards are just not needed anymore. Enough said.

Topics: Streaming Audio

Good Things Come in 3.0

Since the introduction of Omnia.11 v 3.0 and G-Force at NAB 2016, there's been a lot of chatter - and a little confusion - in the industry as to the list of enhancements included in these packages. So perhaps we need to clarify what’s going on. For starters, it's that word - packages; Omnia.11 v 3.0 and G-Force are two distinct items. To help clear things up, we went right to the man behind both v 3.0 and G-Force, Telos Alliance Senior Algorithm Developer Cornelius Gould.

Topics: Omnia Audio

TWiRT 302 - Virtual Machine Tech and Radio

Virtual Machines have been used in computer data centers and corporate IT systems since the late 1990’s, with popularity skyrocketing in the past 5 to 8 years.  Today’s VM technology is allowing broadcasters to run several automation and production systems on virtual computers - on hardware that’s fully redundant.  Dave Turner from ENCO joins us to tell us how this all works.

Guest: Dave Turner, Executive Vice-President - ENCO Systems

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

Links from the show:

What is a Virtual Machine?

What is Microsoft’s Hyper-V?

“Best Practices for Virtualization of Broadcast Automation” (ENCO white paper)