Barix used for Remotes

[Chuck]

So, you want FmExtra and don't want to pay for it???

There are a lot of things I would like....

At its original price, I was ready to buy FMeXtra a few years ago. I even had a demo of it at the station. It worked well. You can check my old posts from about three or four years ago, if you have any doubt that I was enthusiastically supporting FMeXtra. Unfortunately, they had a death wish, and pretty well went off the radar, as did the price.

The unit I saw was little more than a Dell Computer with a home-brew sound card that had a BNC output instead of the usual array of mini plugs. Of course the software was the key ingredient. It seems to me that something similar could be done with a much simpler box, such as a Barix based design. After all, you can do the same thing with a PC as you can with a Barix, but the Barix is a much more elegant solution to a single problem - streaming audio. It's generally cheaper, smaller, uses less power and has no moving parts to wear out. Those features make it worth buying. I have about a half dozen of them in service right now.

Maybe FMeXtra and Barix should get together. It could be a good combination.

 

[ChiefEngineer]

No, they should stay away from each other. FMExtra is limited by their deal with Ibiquity.

If Barix could provide an encoder that can feed an SCA it would have no need for Extra. This is better than Extra and based on their new Reflector service this could really go places.

We don't want Extra paying for it or not. A nuetered hardware software combination not broadcast friendly these days. Had great potentialo.

Barix is a better product with less hassles. They just need to provide a one way service w no handshaking. Using the rj 45 out and in to hook up to the encoder and decoder sending to an audio device like an sca is a great possibility.

 

[Doctor_Technical]

Barix ... just need(s) to provide a one way service w no handshaking

If only to put a literal point on this one detail: it does.

I've tested my pair of 100's on the satellite system on which we deliver alerting data (can't get more one-way than that). With some setup help from Dana, we passed audio just fine.

The "gotcha" lies in what modulates the r.f. carrier -- Barix just encodes the audio into an IP stream -- and *that's* the real magic of the FMeXtra encoder: converting the digital audio data stream into something that is "modulatable".

Did some searching just now on the phrase "data radio modem" and turned up some interesting results.

BTW: I also had a chance to test an FMeXtra system on a station with two existing subcarriers (RDS at 57 kHz and Radio Reading at 67 kHz). Worked great.

 

[jrietschel]

Hi Guys,

the question if an IP stream can be sent via an SCA channel also popped up in our support group (probably triggered by this forum discussion).
I have written a small wiki article about what/why/what not, here is the link:

http://wiki.barix.com/index.php5/Can_i_distribute_IP_Audio_over_a_SCA_channel_with_an_Instreamer_%3F

For those not wanting to read the full article, here is the quick 3-sentence answer:
An SCA channel can in theory really be used to route IP (network) traffic, unidirectional only, but the achievable effective bitrate will be likely lower than that of a traditional phone line (9600,19200, maybe, with some luck, 28.800 baud), which is not enough to carry an MP3 stream with IP overhead.
Specialized lowest-bitrate voice codecs (like GSM, used in cellphones) might be suitable to encode an audio signal and send it through such a channel, but the quality will be lower than directly feeding the analog audio signal into the SCA channel ..
An SCA channel is, though, suitable to carry control/closures, even via IP equipment (such as our Barionet). Within limits.

Greetings

Johannes

 

[RolfTaylor]

This is exactly why FMExtra was a very early licensee of AAC HE.

Hi Guys,

the question if an IP stream can be sent via an SCA channel also popped up in our support group (probably triggered by this forum discussion).
<SNIP>
For those not wanting to read the full article, here is the quick 3-sentence answer:

An SCA channel can in theory really be used to route IP (network) traffic, unidirectional only, but the achievable effective bitrate will be likely lower than that of a traditional phone line (9600,19200, maybe, with some luck, 28.800 baud), which is not enough to carry an MP3 stream with IP overhead.
Specialized lowest-bitrate voice codecs (like GSM, used in cellphones) might be suitable to encode an audio signal and send it through such a channel, but the quality will be lower than directly feeding the analog audio signal into the SCA channel ..
<SNIP>
Greetings

Johannes

 

[LA_Guy]

Thanks all for your replies!

Dana, for these remotes, how do bidirectional remotes perform? That is, a feed from the remote and talkbalk/cue from the studio. Also, how do these perform with 3G routers in the field.

Thanks....

Except for pristine Internet connections, Bi-directional is variable due to latency. I've successfully used the Annuncicom for bi-directional operation using the ABCL full duplex Intercom firmware. I usually use u Law compression (g.711) due to its reasonable bandwidth requirements.
The quality with 3G mostly depends on how good the 3G connection is. People have to realize that streaming is different from browsing the web, which is a non-real time event. Streaming IS a real time event, so ANY packet loss WILL affect the connection! Look at IP transmission the same way you'd look at transmission through a wire-cut the wire and the transmission STOPS!

 

[LA_Guy]

what we ran into on running a larger buffer on the barix is that when there is a dropout, it would go silent for several seconds while it brought the buffer back up to a certain level vs. a few 10ths of a second with a smaller buffer.

We have gone to skype for our sports broadcasts that are on unknown connections. Works great so far, even in the backwoods of MS.

Skype works well, but it works because it is on a DISTRIBUTED network-one with about 15 million users online at any given time. Skype uses a distributed peer to peer network (not unlike Bit torrent) in that while you are on a Skype call, it's being completed through others' computers and bandwidth-and other callers are also using YOUR bandwidth to help complete their calls. The pure mass of millions of nodes is why it works so well. Forget about provacy though-Skype can easily be hacked. Never say anything on Skype that you wouldn't yell through a megaphone at rush hour in a major intersection. That said, I use Skype all the time.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Interesting. I didn't know they were using peer-to-peer sharing tech. That's a smart design.