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Was recently approached with this solution to replace ISDN for remotes. Does anyone have an opinion or experience using a system that sends realtime audio over the web for remote broadcasts? The main concerns are connectivity, ease of use, alternate transfer systems for backup,pots, ISDN option etc. Compatibilty with the on-site Internet service and network roadblocks could be an issue. Is WI-fi a good reliable option in a large metro area, with rough terrain, to send this type of information?
I use shoutcast when doing live remotes from night clubs. My setup consists of Yamaha mixer, feeding dbx compressor/limiter, feeding M-audio FastTrack Pro sound card. Then the audio goes into Shoutcast DSP source plugin for Winamp, which feeds a computer in our studio over internet. I tried using nearby unsecured wifi access points, with the help of an external dish antenna and 4 watt wifi amplifier, but the stability was bad. Also, someone who owns that access point might just pull the plug in the middle of your broadcast, and you're screwed... I use dedicated DSL now, installed in the nightclub. All the data path is hardwired. I've streamed for 8 hours non-stop without a single ran out buffer. Perfectly stable. The sound quality was set to 128 kbps HE-AAC Stereo. Sounds better than Telos ISDN i've used for FM stations.
The only catch is the delay. Sometimes its around 2-3 seconds, sometimes 30. ISDN is definitely much more stable than this, but this is a whole lot cheaper than using ISDN. But internet remotes can be done, very stable and very cheap.
Depending on how much bandwidth you have at your disposal I would use AAC+ also. Frequently I've been stuck with slow cellular or just plain dialup which only can take about 24kbps if you push it... At that rate the only thing that sounds decent is AAC+ in mono.
depending on your budget, i would strongly consider comrex access or tieline commander.a pair will run you around 5200.00.also barix is coming out with a broadcast quality audio over ip in apr 07.should run around 2500.oo for a pair.
If you are going Barix, the current Instreamer/Exstreamer boxes are very good. The encoding is much better than Shoutcast. Still the same latency issues....
Wi-fi is "iffy" at best with both Comrex and Tieline boxes. Despite the hype, that technology is not quite there yet in most typical radio remote situations. The Tieline provides a simultaneous POTS connection. But if you're going to have to have a POTS line anyway, you might as well use a POTS codec like the Zephyr Xport.
Does anyone have a good suggestion on a way, either hardware or software (on the encodiing computer) to get fast AGC to level the audio from a mixer before it gets encoded? Our studio feed can have a level that is variable - the main air processor/stereo encoder takes care of this prior to the exciter for our over the air signal, but we don't have such a device (and don't want to spend $2K for one at the studio) between the main studio mixer and the encoding computer that puts the audio on the Internet.
Aphex compellors are great as pre-processors... If you look on ebay, you should have no trouble getting a 320A for less than $350.00. I'd stay away from the (cheap) Behringer alternatives.
any Xport users out there? What's the best settings for remote
voice with POTS connection. What are you using the Xport to
do.... any issues with loss of connection? what is causing this?
Other advise for Telos Xport?
We frequently use the XPort in POTS mode, always connecting back to an ISDN Zephyr XStream. Works great, the only issue we have had, was not the XPort's fault....
At one site (A hurry up-borrow-phone-line deal) We were told that this would be a dedicated phone line while we were there....but nobody told the guy that had this line at his desk, so everytime he picked the phone up...it killed our remote. Of course this started happening after we got on the air, up until airtime it was fine...of course. Thems the rules.
We have had cases where we simply kept redialing until we got a "good line". This seems to help in a lot of cases.
If I recall, the Xport does AACLD Mono64 both ways in POTS mode, which an Xstream handles fine.
We are now using the Tieline equipment with Spint Rev A broadband card in a special linksys router, plugged into the ethernet jack on the Tieline. Works great for us in the Sacramento market. You can find out about Sprint coverage in your area from thier web site. Flat $50/month fee for broadband service, about $400 or so for the broadband card and the special router. The router also has spare ethernet ports as well as wireless, if you need that as well. I can't say enough great things about the Sprint stuff, as well as the Tieline gear. We originally tried verizon V-cast broadband with the tieline, but verizon has way too much latency in thier internet backbone to work reliably with very low delay streaming audio. They used to be OK, so I hear, but I think maybe Verizon has oversold the bandwidth with thier recent "V-cast" promotions.
Sprint is upgrading the older Rev 0 data to the new Rev A all over the country. They did the upgrade here in sacramento a couple of months ago. Let's us do remotes from all over the place.
ty said:
Was recently approached with this solution to replace ISDN for remotes. Does anyone have an opinion or experience using a system that sends realtime audio over the web for remote broadcasts? The main concerns are connectivity, ease of use, alternate transfer systems for backup,pots, ISDN option etc. Compatibilty with the on-site Internet service and network roadblocks could be an issue. Is WI-fi a good reliable option in a large metro area, with rough terrain, to send this type of information?
We use Barix extreamers for backup on our receive side on WJCF and the Network Feed to our Full Power and LPFM's. Like a regular computer to feed with. Plug in's for compression and eq come with Free Windows Media Encoder 9. And you can track who is on and off with Monitor Panel. Groan.
The Instreamer is here next to me. Working on a WIFI backup to our transmitter. No licensing, no fees.
The Barix Exstreamer "Harris Master Link IP" receive box is under $200. No dropouts even on the rattiest DSL line. Requires a download to do wma or mp3 files. My drawback is the rca jacks to feed audio but have gotten over it. Use it in a high AM rf field and expected many problems. None.
Complaint : Easy to steal. Too small.
This is too good to believe. Go to their website and check it out.
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