PCM on Barix? Or not?

[radiofish]

I have a Barix Instreamer 100 and an Extreamer 100. Selecting PCM on the Instreamer under "Audio" "Encoding + Frequency" will not play out on the Extreamer. Same with the G.711 modes. The MPEG modes seem to work fine.

Any ideas on how to get the Barix units to use PCM?

Thanks.

 

[LA_Guy]

It's being worked on...

 

[radiofish]

The Instreamer 100 has that as an option, and when set in that mode the audio can be monitored from the front headphone input. Just can't get the Exstreamer 100 to pick it up in the PCM mode, or G7.X modes, it works just fine in MP3 mode. Guess I have to call somebody in Europe for support?

Thanks for your reply.

 

[pellmell]

Since LA_Guy (Dana) is tech support for the US, it seems he's saying that there is a problem that is being addressed by the company. Considering the high levels of criticism of Barix' customer support here, maybe he should offer a more detailed explanation. I, for one, would like to hear it. To be quite candid, I spoke with BSW yesterday about buying a couple of 100s. After reading the support complaints, I'm more than a little concerned.

 

[Chuck]

Since LA_Guy (Dana) is tech support for the US,

I'm not sure that Dana is still doing that. Maybe he will clarify

I spoke with BSW yesterday about buying a couple of 100s. After reading the support complaints, I'm more than a little concerned.

I can't speak about the PCM feature, but "user friendly" is not a term I'd use in conjunction with the Barix instructions. On the other hand, once you figure them out, they are fairly easy to program, and they work very well. Once running, they are pretty much "set and forget" devices. Audio just goes from point A to point B through your network or the Internet.

I have about a half dozen of these things, which allow a very small radio station to pull off things we otherwise couldn't afford to do. I guess you could say I'm a fan. If you are flush with cash, there are other devices out there that may be simpler to use, but they seem to cost at least 3-10db more money

 

[pellmell]

Based on the limited information I've read, it seems that most of the problems people have are related to IP addresses, firewalls, and port forwarding. None of those is a problem for me. This discussion reminds me of a comment my brother made once when we were discussing Word versus Word Perfect. At the time, he was a Word user, and I was a Word Perfect user. My comment was that I could not believe how good the Word Perfect support was. You can reach someone who knows what he's talking about every time you call. He replied that he didn't want software that required a lot of tech support. He won that one.

Anyway, are you able to use PCM on your 100s?

 

[Chuck]

Anyway, are you able to use PCM on your 100s?

I've never tried...

 

[radiofish]

The bottom line for us is that we have wireless 5GHz for an STL and bandwidth is not an issue. We want to send uncompressed audio without delay or minimal delay instead of being stuck with MPEG audio and delay.

Guess I'll keep playing with the Barix boxes.

 

[Chuck]

The bottom line for us is that we have wireless 5GHz for an STL and bandwidth is not an issue. We want to send uncompressed audio without delay or minimal delay instead of being stuck with MPEG audio and delay.

Guess I'll keep playing with the Barix boxes.

I use it as a backup STL with a 5 GHz link. I just set it in the highest quality mp3 mode and went on about my business. Aside from the delay, I think it sounded better than our old analog STL. Evidentially, so did some of our listeners who actually called to say “you’re sounding better, did you get a new transmitter?" I have since replaced the old 950 MHz analog STL, and I’ll give the new one it a very slight edge over the Barix. That's mostly because there is no latency involved, but I can hear a slight difference. But that is just me, being critical. I doubt that any of our listeners ever noticed one way or the other. When I switched back to the new analog equipment, I never got any comments from listeners about a quality change.

The Barix remains in place for a backup. I would have no hesitation putting it back on the air.

 

[LA_Guy]

The PCM was added to the 3.16 Instreamer firmware mainly because many customers prefer using the 100 firmware(s) on their Exstreamer 1000s and (soon) 500s. Barix also added the capability to do relay closures at the same time. The latest Streaming Client firmware out there (v 2.17) also has the closures and can decode PCM-and the latest (AAC) Exstreamer 100 also uses the 300 IPAM

Right now the Exstreamer 1000 and 500 use the IPAM 300 module, while the Instreamer and Annuncicom use the IPAM 100 daughtercard (which does not support PCM). Just because a car is wired for WiFi does not mean that the stripped down model will have it-it simply means that the capability is there for the future.

Barix has added many value added things for free along the years. The Exstreamer not only does MP3 and MPEG2 but also AAC and WMA-and the former two were added for free.

At $395.00 list, no one else can touch the value the Instreamer 100 offers. Same is true of the Exstreamer 100 (listing at $195.00).

By the way, I still work for Barix, though more and more of the day to day customer support stuff is now being done in house by their full time employee Andrew Thomsen. Andrew is a great, smart guy who I like very much-and who does top notch customer support. As many here know, I accepted a full time job at WURD radio in Philadelphia back in June, which has put a bit of a crimp in my Barix activities. However, I still work 2-3 hours a day for Barix, mainly doing the more complicated support calls and also doing sales engineering and integration. How long will this continue? Who knows? I don't think that either me or Barix can answer that question. That said, Barix is a first class place to work for and they manufacture and sell great products that offer exceptional value.

PS: pellmell, you are correct in that fully 98.9% of the problems out there have to do with connectivity, firewalls, packet loss, etc, NOT the Barix units themselves. I just had a guy who bought six Instreamers and Exstreamers and was convinced that EVERY ONE of them was defective-and refused to work with me to try and find/fix the problem (he claimed he was an 'expert' at IT). When I told him that was almost an impossibility, he shipped them all back-and (of course) NOT ONE was defective in any way-it was HIM who was defective setting them up!! Of course, Barix had to eat these 12 units, as they can not be resold as new. That's a BIG hit for a small company to take, trust me!

 

[fl-lpfm]

Hello guys!!

I have the exstreamer and instreamer. They work very well. Dana helped us recently with our network issue and since then we haven got any issues at all.

Have anyone work with their 5ghz link? My studio is located about 7 to 9 miles away and i don't know if it will work for us.

 

[radiofish]

So if I am correct, LA_GUY is saying that eventhough I can set my Intreamer 100 to PCM (uncompressed audio) it is NOT going to work with my Barix Extreamer 100??. Meaning I have to buy at least one Barix 1000?

From the other replies above, I tried out SKYPE last night. I put it on a computer at home and another at a studio 2 hours away. INCREDIBLE! Amazing audio quality and almost ZERO DELAY! I put it on the computer with the automation system which displays over VNC in real-time. The audio arriving to me by SKYPE over 100 miles away was right in sync with the automation and cuts between songs! No delay and great quality.

Looking foward to trying this on the next remote broadcast.

I'm a bit disappointed in the Barix experience so far. If you have the $ probably a lot less stress to go with Comrex which I found to be much more simple to configure and make work, plus obviously unbeatable tech support at Comrex. Just more expensive. The Barix units I have will probably be ok for a dependable STL but I'm not confident that they are going to get the job done for the low latency that is needed for a remote broadcast.

 

[pellmell]

LA_GUY's explanation wasn't totally clear to me either, but I do think I understood that Instreamer/Exstreamer 100 pair will not do PCM. What I did not understand was whether either will do PCM. Again, I think the answer is "no" because they use the IPAM 100 cards, not the IPAM 300 card (like I know what that is!) They reused the firmware from the 1000 on the 100 to save money, which is fine except that it should be pretty easy to at least comment out the code for the PCM stuff. There are my interpretations. Corrections encouraged.

 

[gtomas]

Just more expensive.

There's an old saying "you get what you pay for" and, contrary to the popular belief these days, it's still true... More often than not.

It may be a Barix thread, but I'm not trying to knock any particular brand here. Just make a point.

People think that a product costs more just because the owner(s) want to make more money to put in their pockets. But the truth is quality costs. Quality in terms of product quality, usability, performance, technology developed, customer services offered, support, documentation, etc.

If the product is cheaper, it just may be that it's cheaper for a reason.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[jrietschel]

Hi Guys,

I found that thread and figured i should probably comment on some assumptions and information here:

1) ALL our products can be used with PCM, uncompressed. That has NOTHING to do with "IPAM-300" or "IPAM-100" inside. To be precise, for those who want to know the facts: the IPAM-300 is used in the Exstreamer-1x0,200 products, and is for decoding only, whereas the IPAM-100 module is used in the Instreamer, all Annuncicom and Exstreamer 500+1000 devices. It allows encoding and decoding.

3) You can use any of the encoding devices (Instreamer 100, Exstreamer 500 or Exstreamer 1000) on the source side, and you can use any of the decoding devices (Exstreamer 1x0, 200, 500, 1000) at the transmitter side. They ALL can run the "STL Software" we just released in a new, major upgraded version. Obviously, you won't be able to do full duplex PCM with devices which can only encode or only decode. But unidirectional PCM (uncompressed), low latency streaming is possible with all devices.

4) in Terms of "low latency", we do consider our devices quite good if you use PCM uncompressed (obviously, with MP3 encoding/decoding this is another story, due to technical reasons in the way MP3 works). You can achieve consistent low delay in the 20-40ms range (of course, you need to add your link delays). Yes, this is not 5ms .. but if you want to achieve a 5ms end-to-end delay, you need to send thousand(s) of blocks per second over the network, this will limit, severely, the network technology you can use.

5) To re-state what is implied in (3): There is a specific "STL" software package, which is pre-loaded on Exstreamer 1000 and Exstreamer 500 devices (the -500 model is essentially a lower cost -1000 device, with all the professional features, just lacking the AES/EBU interface, at a $595 list price).
This package is NOT preloaded in the Exstreamer-1x0 or 200 and Instreamer-100 devices, as their main use is outside of broadcast (in retail, paging/intercom, SIP, classroom recording etc), but it is not difficult at all to download the STL package from our website and load it onto these devices. It works, it is supported, but of course, we suggest to use the devices specifically developed for the broadcast market (Exstreamer 500 and 1000), if you can afford them, for various reasons (closures, balanced inputs and outputs, one device type, eventually, bidirectional etc). I personally think at $595 the Exstreamer 500 is a very competitive, reliable and good solution for STL applications. But of course, you decide .. you can perfectly use an Instreamer 100 and one Exstreamer 100 and get the whole PCM capable STL solution for a total list price of $590.

Cheers

Johannes Rietschel
CEO, Barix AG

 

[pellmell]

I found that thread and figured i should probably comment on some assumptions and information here:

Johannes, thanks for signing up and checking in to the thread. You seem to have a good product at a great price. However, the support issues, whether perceived or real, need to be addressed. I'm a potential customer (two installations), I have been a broadcast engineer off and on for 40 years, and I still don't know what the confusion is all about with regard to PCM on a 100. Why can't RadioFish get his to work?

Your company seems to have found good acceptance in the market place. I hope that you will come back and further answer our questions. Doing so should help sell more units.

 

[jrietschel]

I found that thread and figured i should probably comment on some assumptions and information here:

However, the support issues, whether perceived or real, need to be addressed.

... I hope that you will come back and further answer our questions. Doing so should help sell more units.

Hi Pellmell,

of course, i do get back .. and believe me, it's of course nice if we can sell more units, but my major concern here is that apparently we have customer service issues which i have been completely unaware of.
As Dana already stated earlier, the IP connectivity IS an issue, but this is not a specific issue for Barix customers. Whatever IP connected product you use, you will run into issues with dynamic IPs, firewalling etc etc, if you try to stream over the internet.
On a 5Ghz link, of course, this is all different. This should be plain simple.

So .. why are there customer issues with the Barix devices ?
I'm going to find out, hopefully:
1) i would assume that one of the reasons is that there are really MANY broadcasters using our products. Roughly a year ago, we figured (with the help of some press people) that we probably sell more units in the broadcast market than any other "STL" manufacturer .. of course, the more units, the more (quantity) complaints. And unfortunately, you almost never hear from the happy users (exceptions of course), you mainly hear from those where things don't work out. And that is, unfortunately, unavoidable.
2) There is often confusion about what setup, which software, to use with our devices. That's the downside of having a "generic" product. Our Instreamer-100/Exstreamer-100 devices have NOT been developed specifically for broadcasters or STL. They are universal, and we ship tens of thousands of them per year internationally. YES, Broadcast is an important market for us in the US, but until now it has not made sense to do specific software loads, SKU's etc for your community, it would have further complicated things. Having said that: this means that standard Exstreamer 100 and Instreamer 100 devices which you purchase do come preloaded with "universal" software which is not necessarily optimal for broadcast applications, and for sure not for a low latency STL application.
We did try to address that with a device specifically developed for the Broadcast market (Exstreamer 1000), more "pro" features, "pro" software, but also at a more "pro" pricepoint. We realize that there is a market for this (and with the Exstreamer 500 we now "try again", with a lower price point), but for many (especially non-commercial) stations, very low cost is the essence. While there have been high numbers of Exstreamer 1000's being sold in large broadcast projects (there will be a press release soon about a major one), still many broadcasters purchase the "low end" (not in terms of performance or reliability, but price) standard products. Which come with, as stated, "generic" software. Which is generic in the sense that it can be used for many applications, and has many parameters to change/set etc, but does not use "broadcast speak", and is "not easy to setup".

3) We do have specific "STL" firmware, and (coincidence ...) two days ago we announced and made available a major upgrade of that software. It has been specifically developed for the broadcaster, is/should be easy to use, provides the PCM functionality, even bidirectional (under certain conditions), and can also be used for internet streaming.
But again - if you use the "low cost" devices, you have to take that effort to go to our website, download it, and install it into the devices (by uploading a file with the browser). Exstreamer 500 and Exstreamer 1000 have it "out of the box".

To close here (and not hijack this thread too long) - i would like to encourage anyone following, who has issues with our devices, being it of whatever kind, to contact our support team, ideally by emailing "support" at barix. Support emails - in contrast to phone calls - can be tracked in a ticketing system be routed to the best possible specialist (the more you explain your issue in the email the better), and we can make sure they are answered correctly and appropriately and the information given is consistent. Of course, if you need urgent attention, calling our tollfree number is always possible and you will be helped. Before calling, though, (or emailing), it could be a good idea to check out the STL software we provide. And ANY feedback, complaints as well as praises, are very welcome ! My key interest in Barix is to make our customers happy - and i take any email sent to me personally (jr at ...) serious and as valuable input. I love the broadcast industry, this is not fishing here - one of the best experiences in my business life have been at NAB and NAB Radio shows, where, several times, broadcast engineers came up to the booth, asked for me and hugged me, thanking for the involvement and the products. THIS is what makes life worth living .. so, i want more of that
OK - so its 2:39am now here in Switzerland, time to get some sleep. Thank you for reading, your support and using our products !

Johannes