Just curious if anyone has ideas on using these devices for distribution of a network. Need to get from one studio to 20 affiliates. Has anyone had any luck utilizing these devices without any major latency issues (remote triggers, tones, etc.)? Does it play nicely with any automation systems? Any help is greatly appreciated!
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Barix InStreamer and ExStreamer question...
- Thread starter edarmsttrong
- Start date
my only experience so far with the exstreamer 1000, which is what you would need to send contact closures along with the audio... was not so good. we were trying to use it for a single point to point for STL, was unreliable and would not no matter what we tried run 32khz PCM. it would do 24 and 44.1 but refused to do 32 or 48. Barix was not much help, Dana emailed me several firmware files to try and none of them would work.
now if you are just trying to send out compressed audio to multiple locations, I believe you can run the regular instreamer firmware on them and run the streaming client on the receiving end and that might work great as thats the software on the instreamer and exstreamer 100 which we are using for STL to our AM transmitter, to bring audio in from a remote show across town, and a 3rd pair we are using to bring 2 rpu channels back to the studio.
all 3 pairs of those work great. the only other thing I can think of is a limitation on the number of clients you can have streaming off one encoder. i believe it is 6. I will look into that. Something else to consider is that even the instreamer and exstreamer 100 units are capable of sending rs232 data across the link, but that would require some outboard box that takes rs232 and gives you contact closures.
how many contact closures do you need now, and how many might you need in the future? will 4 be enough? what about bandwidth? What programming are you sending out? talk? music?
if you were to just do a standard shoutcast server on your end and have a barix box to receive the audio that would support as many streams as you have the bandwidth to provide, or pay for hosting of, then you still have the problem of contact closures. I will look tomorrow at the brand of these boxes we got for a telephone system project that transport 8 contact closures over ethernet, the only requirement is that you have a static ip address on the receiving end to send the closures to. the device that receives the contact closure on your end has an unlimited number of devices you can send the closures to, all you have to do is specify an ip address to send it to. The only issue I see with that is the contact closures would only be limited by the latency from you to the receiving end, while the audio will be delayed 30+ seconds.
Email [email protected] he will probably be able to answer more questions about their equipment but i'm pretty sure there is a low limit on the number of simultaneous streams.
I'll post the model numbers of the devices for doing contacts over ethernet tomorrow.
now if you are just trying to send out compressed audio to multiple locations, I believe you can run the regular instreamer firmware on them and run the streaming client on the receiving end and that might work great as thats the software on the instreamer and exstreamer 100 which we are using for STL to our AM transmitter, to bring audio in from a remote show across town, and a 3rd pair we are using to bring 2 rpu channels back to the studio.
all 3 pairs of those work great. the only other thing I can think of is a limitation on the number of clients you can have streaming off one encoder. i believe it is 6. I will look into that. Something else to consider is that even the instreamer and exstreamer 100 units are capable of sending rs232 data across the link, but that would require some outboard box that takes rs232 and gives you contact closures.
how many contact closures do you need now, and how many might you need in the future? will 4 be enough? what about bandwidth? What programming are you sending out? talk? music?
if you were to just do a standard shoutcast server on your end and have a barix box to receive the audio that would support as many streams as you have the bandwidth to provide, or pay for hosting of, then you still have the problem of contact closures. I will look tomorrow at the brand of these boxes we got for a telephone system project that transport 8 contact closures over ethernet, the only requirement is that you have a static ip address on the receiving end to send the closures to. the device that receives the contact closure on your end has an unlimited number of devices you can send the closures to, all you have to do is specify an ip address to send it to. The only issue I see with that is the contact closures would only be limited by the latency from you to the receiving end, while the audio will be delayed 30+ seconds.
Email [email protected] he will probably be able to answer more questions about their equipment but i'm pretty sure there is a low limit on the number of simultaneous streams.
I'll post the model numbers of the devices for doing contacts over ethernet tomorrow.
Thanks for the info.
The situation is this:
My client has a statewide sports talkshow with 20 affiliates. He wants to ditch the satellite distro at the end of the contract, and considered Barix equipment.
My main concern was delayed audio, affecting the automation systems at the stations down the line. If there is a delay, is it consistent?
The other- What is the audio quality really like?
It seemed to me, that to use a Barix to feed multiple sites, a Shoutcast Server was necessary. My experience with Shoutcast is major delay (Approx. 40-50 seconds), and inconsistent delay lengths.
I've had a conversation with Barix since I posted, and was told with an Exstreamer 1000, the delay would be lower with uncompressed audio, which required upwards of a T1 line. Fromt the studio to the ISP, this is not a problem. It also needs to run at 48khz...
The closures are not important, as the net uses DTMF tones (I am not a fan, but the client doesn't seem to mind) to trigger spot breaks and the like...
The situation is this:
My client has a statewide sports talkshow with 20 affiliates. He wants to ditch the satellite distro at the end of the contract, and considered Barix equipment.
My main concern was delayed audio, affecting the automation systems at the stations down the line. If there is a delay, is it consistent?
The other- What is the audio quality really like?
It seemed to me, that to use a Barix to feed multiple sites, a Shoutcast Server was necessary. My experience with Shoutcast is major delay (Approx. 40-50 seconds), and inconsistent delay lengths.
I've had a conversation with Barix since I posted, and was told with an Exstreamer 1000, the delay would be lower with uncompressed audio, which required upwards of a T1 line. Fromt the studio to the ISP, this is not a problem. It also needs to run at 48khz...
The closures are not important, as the net uses DTMF tones (I am not a fan, but the client doesn't seem to mind) to trigger spot breaks and the like...
if you use barix, uncompressed is out of the question for going to 20 affiliates. that "upwards of t1" would be per affiliate. we're seeing about 3/10 sec on the barix pair bringing audio from a remote show into the studio. if you are using DTMF tones then no need for the exstreamer 1000.
Look at the comrex bric link for the sending end. it can do mp3 and aac with pretty low delay and is capable of sending to up to around 40 clients simultaneously. Last I looked they were around $1500 each. then you could send the affiliates inexpensive exstreamer 100s or 110s if you want to give them a lcd display that shows the stream name and such. i'm still doing some research, I'll post what I find.
http://comrex.com/products/briclink.htm
check with BSW for the comrex box and the exstreamer 100/110. I've found them to beat everyone else hands down on the price.
I've not yet tried the comrex units, but I am on the waiting list for a demo pair, we are going to attempt to use them for STL over a T1
on the barix link we have from our remote show, quality is perfect. it sounds better than just about anything coming in off satellite. I have a dbx 266xl aheah of the encoder set up for fast attack slow release to level things out which works great. if audio quality is really a concern you might want to look into a box from tc electronic, they have several compressor/limiters that are all dsp based and multiband instead of wideband like the dbx, which is an analog box. we are running the barix units at 128k, which is 44.1 mono with the quality control at about 8 out of 10. the barix is a vbr only encoder, there is no provision to set a fixed bitrate it will vary a bit.\
I know I jumped around a bit there, if you have any more questions, post back here i'll try to help. What state is this taking place in? I'm down in Mississippi..
Look at the comrex bric link for the sending end. it can do mp3 and aac with pretty low delay and is capable of sending to up to around 40 clients simultaneously. Last I looked they were around $1500 each. then you could send the affiliates inexpensive exstreamer 100s or 110s if you want to give them a lcd display that shows the stream name and such. i'm still doing some research, I'll post what I find.
http://comrex.com/products/briclink.htm
check with BSW for the comrex box and the exstreamer 100/110. I've found them to beat everyone else hands down on the price.
I've not yet tried the comrex units, but I am on the waiting list for a demo pair, we are going to attempt to use them for STL over a T1
on the barix link we have from our remote show, quality is perfect. it sounds better than just about anything coming in off satellite. I have a dbx 266xl aheah of the encoder set up for fast attack slow release to level things out which works great. if audio quality is really a concern you might want to look into a box from tc electronic, they have several compressor/limiters that are all dsp based and multiband instead of wideband like the dbx, which is an analog box. we are running the barix units at 128k, which is 44.1 mono with the quality control at about 8 out of 10. the barix is a vbr only encoder, there is no provision to set a fixed bitrate it will vary a bit.\
I know I jumped around a bit there, if you have any more questions, post back here i'll try to help. What state is this taking place in? I'm down in Mississippi..
R
RolfTaylor
Guest
Goran,
thanks for the lead-in
Just a few points and a link:
The enhanced apt-X algorithm has an algorithmic delay of 10-15 msec. Less delay means more buffering while keeping within the delay budget.
The MPEG AAC-ELD has at least 50 msec algorithmic delay, I think it is closer to 100 msecs, but I am not sure exactly.
enhanced apt-X is extremely cascadable and very high quality. On a typical MPEG algorithm 75% to 90% (depending on the compression ratio, of course) lost raw information. e-apt-X loses less than 10%. And each additional pass loses less information which is not the case with MPEG.
Our hardware codecs have been tested to be very stable over time - typically less than plus or minus 2msec
Our hardware codecs have the same plus or minus </= 2 msec delay connection to connection. With MPEG is you disconnect and reconnect the delay generally varies.
APT codecs support IP Multicast. If you get a multicast enabled network this will save on bandwidth. Ask you Telco/IP provider about MPLS and Metro-Ethernet VPNs. Be sure to ask about their Service Level Agreement (SLA) which states the degree of reliability guaranteed.
You might find our primer useful: http://www.aptx.com/Admin/Editor/Assets/PDF/IP Audio Networking.pdf
For more about both the Hardware and Algorithm see: www.aptx.com
Best regards
Rolf Taylor
Applications/Support Engineer
APT an Audemat Company
www.audemat.com
thanks for the lead-in
Just a few points and a link:
The enhanced apt-X algorithm has an algorithmic delay of 10-15 msec. Less delay means more buffering while keeping within the delay budget.
The MPEG AAC-ELD has at least 50 msec algorithmic delay, I think it is closer to 100 msecs, but I am not sure exactly.
enhanced apt-X is extremely cascadable and very high quality. On a typical MPEG algorithm 75% to 90% (depending on the compression ratio, of course) lost raw information. e-apt-X loses less than 10%. And each additional pass loses less information which is not the case with MPEG.
Our hardware codecs have been tested to be very stable over time - typically less than plus or minus 2msec
Our hardware codecs have the same plus or minus </= 2 msec delay connection to connection. With MPEG is you disconnect and reconnect the delay generally varies.
APT codecs support IP Multicast. If you get a multicast enabled network this will save on bandwidth. Ask you Telco/IP provider about MPLS and Metro-Ethernet VPNs. Be sure to ask about their Service Level Agreement (SLA) which states the degree of reliability guaranteed.
You might find our primer useful: http://www.aptx.com/Admin/Editor/Assets/PDF/IP Audio Networking.pdf
For more about both the Hardware and Algorithm see: www.aptx.com
Best regards
Rolf Taylor
Applications/Support Engineer
APT an Audemat Company
www.audemat.com
Goran Tomas said:
Make that Apt X as cheap as an exstreamer and we can look at it. Most people don't have the funds.
We have been using the Barix for our State Networks in Indiana for several years.
We use music. You are talking audio. Why are you looking at such a high bandwidth? Use an ogg vorbis mp3 stream and be done with it. Use a lower stream rate and the delay will be minimal. Since you are using dtmf the tones will fire when they fire. I don't think you will ever see no delay however. You can always use a dtmf filter btw whch has an ever slight delay and never ehar the tones. Hams have been using these for years. These were also used on the Gary Burbank Show which fed dtmf for breaks.
Any ideas from anyone on a zero delay Barix feed? We would love to have the Barix do this in some situations, even at reduced bandwidth.
We have been using the Barix for our State Networks in Indiana for several years.
We use music. You are talking audio. Why are you looking at such a high bandwidth? Use an ogg vorbis mp3 stream and be done with it. Use a lower stream rate and the delay will be minimal. Since you are using dtmf the tones will fire when they fire. I don't think you will ever see no delay however. You can always use a dtmf filter btw whch has an ever slight delay and never ehar the tones. Hams have been using these for years. These were also used on the Gary Burbank Show which fed dtmf for breaks.
Any ideas from anyone on a zero delay Barix feed? We would love to have the Barix do this in some situations, even at reduced bandwidth.
ChiefEngineer said:
I worked on a college, low-power, non-commercial, non-profitable radio station. In other words, where money is as scarce as it gets.
My experience there for over 11 years, has been that funding is not really a problem. Rather, what people want to spend money on, what they consider important and what quality standards do they aspire to. Unfortunately, a lot of the stations seems to have adopted the "it's good enough" and "no one will really notice" attitude, when it comes to purchasing professional equipment and audio quality of their broadcast. Unfortunately, you can hear that today as you "browse" across the dial in most markets.
But in my experience, it's an attitude issue, not really a money issue.
Regards,
Goran Tomas
- Status