Remotes with no op - does it work?

[Randy Lahey]

First I should mention we're using Scott AS32. For remotes we use tie-lines. I believe the plan is to program the computer to at a specific time, play an on location bumber, then it opens up the pot for a minute, and after a minute it fires the next event and cuts the tieline. It sounds good in theory, but do any of you have experience with this and what problems if any have you run into.

I know of a cluster with the same equipment as us that has been doing this for a while, which is why my company thinks we should be doing it too. The difference is the other company still has ops in the studio. They basically pay people (not much mind you) to sit in the studio and watch tv, and are there in case something goes wrong. My company is doing this as a cost cutting measure, and on weekends won't have anybody in the building, let alone in the studio.

I think this is a recipe for disaster but I may be wrong.

Thoughts?

Randy Lahey.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I've done remotes in every way possible. Board opping them myself, doing the remote with a board op, doing them without a board op.

The only "disaster" I've run into is when the talent isn't quite done in 60 seconds, so "I'm Steven Miles for WQQQ" becomes "I'm St." or if the talent is finished in 57 seconds, you're stuck with :03 dead space.

We've always used a Marti for remotes, but the equipment doesn't really matter.

Just get the talent to pay careful attention to the stopwatch and everything should be OK.

 

[DudeFan]

Why not just remote into the audio workstation over broadband wireless Internet? That way your talent can fire the events in real time as if they were in the studio?

 

[bilco]

You are using tieline, which have the capability to send a contact closure from the remote to the studio. I'm not familiar with your automation, but most can be set to go to the next evet, (open a pot) and wait for an end of message closure. That way you won't have to worry about timing the remote exactly. I've very rarely seen remote talent who could do a consistently good job of that. I once set up a Harris system 90 to do just what I said above, and used the 25 Hz tone from the Marti transmitter to trigger the end of message. The engineering worked, the talent sometimes did. Good luck.
Bill

 

[boiseengineer]

Run the remote through a Scott switcher channel, schedule it as an AT (AT: it’s like an AX but you can specify an expiration time). The TieLine closure goes to a pip assigned as that AT events’ EOM.
In the log precede the AT event with a TO remote intro/bed with its EOM at the beginning of the music that starts the AT event. Music bed’s recorded low and will play under the remote so something is on the air if the jock misses the break.

Use a secure VPN (Cisco, etc.) into your network if you're going to use something like TightVNC or other remote desktop program.

 

[Randy Lahey]

Thanks guys. I'll admit I don't know exactly what you're saying as I'm not an engineer but I do get the jist of it. I'm sure our engineer would understand. From what I can tell you guys think it's not a bad idea and should run smoothly.

One problem I do have is getting on the network via the internet, as being a small market station who has remotes in "remote" locations, alot of time we have no internet available.

Also, Assuming we don't have internet. What would happen if we are broadcasting a hockey game and it goes into overtime? We've used up all of our spots and if we hit next even again it'll go into a song. Normally our op would pull up some of the spots to play again or maybe PSAs but this could be a problem.

Randy.

 

[jonbruce]

A station in the Palm Springs market in the early 1990's using one of the systems available at that time, I forget which one, did remotes w/o an operator at the studio using a 60 second window. As mentioned on previous posts the key is the jock on site must have perfect timing. As far as play by play, since there is no way knowing in advance how long the event will last I can't see how it could be run without an op. However, Skyview out of Phoenix, Az has a system we at KPSI use, involving a 2nd automation system for The L.A. Angels and Lakers. Using tones it overrides our Scott 32, runs the game with local spots etc and then tones it back to Scott which all the time has beend running underneath "thinking" it is on the air. When we run the Dodgers and other sporting events we are forced to use board op's at min. wage.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I've known stations to use DTMF tones from a telephone to automate sporting events. It can be done. The talent just has to know that if it does into OT, they can't take any more breaks.

Another possibility is using two closures. One fires the next event. The second kills will fire the game close and kill any content in between the current location and the close. This way, you could schedule like 3 minutes of PSAs or other filler content at the end of the game to allow more breaks if it runs long or into OT.

I've never used SS32, so I'm not sure if this is possible. If memory serves, AudioVault has this feature.

 

[Chuck]

If you are willing to forgo the high tech methods audio, simple works just fine. There are a variety of dial up remote boxes that use DTMF. The CircuitWerkes DR-10 comes to mind, but Broadcast Tools and others have similar products. The down side is the audio will come via POTS.

The dial up device is connected between the console and the rest of your air chain. When the remote operator dials in and enters his access code, he can take control of program audio whenever is desired. This disconnects the console, and puts the remote on the air, just upstream of our EAS box. This audio is compressed and EQ'd to make it sound as decent as possible. We record an intro to the event, which plays on schedule on our automation. It lists sponsors, event info, etc. At the end of the intro we add about 30 seconds of dead air. The automation plays the intro, and the remote person enters a code on cue. He has 30 seconds to go on the air live. With a little practice, this can actually be very tight, at least tight enough that the average listener would never know the difference.

The DR-10 has several sets of relay contacts, so you can use one to re-start the automation, if that is an option on your system. Otherwise, at the end of the event, the remote person enters a code, and it reconnects to the automation in progress. This does not have to sound awful. Using a variety of remote desktop software, the remote announcer can control the automation via the Internet, so it sounds almost as good as having a live person at the studio. If no Internet access is available at the remote site, then he just "crashes" into it. Even that is not as bad as it sounds. Usually we end with a pre-recorded legal ID from the remote site. Coming from voice into a song is not wonderful, but the truth of the matter is not many people are listening at that time. Listeners who like our sports remotes tend to tune out during a post game wrap up. Our music listeners are long gone, but will come back after the sports remote.

It isn't elegant, but it works. BTW, I've never had anyone complain about the audio quality of a remote via POTS. Sure, I hate it, but our listeners seem to think that is what makes it a "remote." If it sounded too good, they might think we were trying to put one over on them. This probably wouldn't make it i a top 10 market, but it works fine here in the back-water.

 

[boiseengineer]

Add something like the Circuitwerkes SILENCER Muted 50 MS Audio Delay and the touch tones are not broadcast. If your talent can stand the delay echo effect.

 

[Chuck]

Add something like the Circuitwerkes SILENCER Muted 50 MS Audio Delay and the touch tones are not broadcast. If your talent can stand the delay echo effect.

Ours has the sinencer option. The talent has never complained about the delay. It has worked fine for several years.

 

[techie2]

I've known stations to use DTMF tones from a telephone to automate sporting events. It can be done. The talent just has to know that if it does into OT, they can't take any more breaks.

Another possibility is using two closures. One fires the next event. The second kills will fire the game close and kill any content in between the current location and the close. This way, you could schedule like 3 minutes of PSAs or other filler content at the end of the game to allow more breaks if it runs long or into OT.

I've never used SS32, so I'm not sure if this is possible. If memory serves, AudioVault has this feature.

Dial-up remote control systems can work really well for this sort of thing.

When our LPFM first started out, we didn't have a studio to work from and were 100% automated from the transmitter site. For games, someone would drive up to the transmitter site and patch in a phone line by hand using a Telos hybrid. Everything had to stay live from the remote site until things were done...needless to say, this wasn't such a good arrangement.

I interfaced a DR-10 similar to what Chuck has to the automation computer using a Measurement Computing USB interface and hacked together a program to trigger macros on the computer from the contact closures on the DR-10. I installed a separate freeware cart player (CartMax) to fire the opens and closers and rotate the underwriting spots. This worked fairly well once I worked out all the bugs in my software and got it stable, and took care of someone having to drive to the TX site. I did find that the Circuitwerkes DTMF decoding wasn't 100% reliable.

Now that we have a studio and a Marti system, I made some changes to put the dial-up remote after the console feed but before the EAS, add capability to switch in the Marti receiver output, and changed to using Winamp to rotate the underwriting spots automatically. I also replaced the DR-10 with a Sine Systems DAI-1, which I've found to be much more flexible in programming and free of false DTMF tripping.

Our guys dial in for their sports remotes, enter a security code, and get program audio fed back through the phone. They can enter a DTMF code to tell the automation to stop the music after the current track. Once the music stops, they can press a button to fire the open cart, and then choose one button to put the POTS line on the air, or another to put the Marti receiver on the air. They also have a button that takes POTS/Marti audio off the air and starts the spots. The spots will rotate automatically until that button is pressed again to tell the system to stop after the currently playing spot. At the end of the broadcast, they can start the closer cart, and then restart the music, all from the phone keypad.

To do a live remote, we use the same buttons on the phone, we just swap out what's loaded in CartMax to replace the game open/close carts with a jingle to start the remote. Now that we have the studio though, we often just have one of the volunteer jocks come in and do a live shift and bring the Marti in via the board since that's more engaging than babysitting a sports remote.

We do have a delay board in our Sine Systems box. That does mean we have the 50ms delay on our POTS remotes (and of course more on cell remotes). However, Marti remotes don't have any delay.

 

[Chuck]

I have experienced similar problems with the DR-10 and decoding DTMF tones. It seems the cure is very simple. Just make sure the remote site’s microphones are turned off when using the touch-tone pad. Almost every live sporting event these days is saturated with very loud music, crowd noise and PA announcements. All that high level audio causes the DR-10 to either miscue or not work at all.

We've found out (the hard way) that muting the talent mics before entering the code makes it very reliable. None-the-less, I'll check out the Sine Systems box. Next fall promises to be even busier than this year was.

 

[techie2]

I have experienced similar problems with the DR-10 and decoding DTMF tones. It seems the cure is very simple. Just make sure the remote site’s microphones are turned off when using the touch-tone pad. Almost every live sporting event these days is saturated with very loud music, crowd noise and PA announcements. All that high level audio causes the DR-10 to either miscue or not work at all.

We've found out (the hard way) that muting the talent mics before entering the code makes it very reliable. None-the-less, I'll check out the Sine Systems box. Next fall promises to be even busier than this year was.

What type of remote mixer are you using? The JK Audio devices (RemoteMix Sport, etc.) mute the mic audio automatically when a button on the dial pad is pressed.

Aside from problems with DTMF recognition, I also had some issues with false-tripping during the live play-by-play due to crowd noises and so on. I tried setting the DR-10 anti-falsing jumper to "max delay" but it still had some problems. The Sine units have the anti-falsing delay as a programmable register setting with a number of different delay lengths. I had to set ours to require around 1/3 second of tone to avoid false DTMF detections.

One problem with doing an unattended remote with a switcher setup like we have is that you can't use a music bed since it swaps away from the automation output to put the phone line on the air. For sports we use a quick liner to come out of breaks, but we can't use bumper music either because it makes a hard switch.

 

[Chuck]

We've been using a Conex FJ-700, which I'm not wild about. You have to lug around a regular phone to do the interface. The good news is it also will interface with a cell phone. Maybe for next fall, we'll buy a JK Audio Remote Mix 4. It looks like it would do well.

I've had issues with the DR-10 making some "Beep-Beep" tones on the air during the game broadcast. I'm guessing that it is triggering off of extraneous noise at the remote site. It can get very noisy at a football or basketball game. So far, it hasn't logged us out, but I imagine it is just a matter of time before it does.

We run all the spots ,intros, station ID’s and bumper music from the remote. They are stored in a laptop using some freeware called "Jingle Palette" to play them back. While not Hi-Fi, they are acceptable quality. We even run music beds and sound effects under part of the game commentary. It really helps keep things interesting, and actually sounds OK even on a POTS line. If we get stuck having to use a cell phone, we try to keep the music content to a minimum. We’ve only had a couple of instances where we couldn’t get a POTS line, so it hasn’t been enough of an issue to cost listeners.

 

[techie2]

We are lucky to find places where we can get a POTS line during basketball season. Most of the time there is either no line available, or they want to charge an arm and a leg to use it. We end up with a lot of cell phone remotes (ugh). I'm going to have to start sniffing for open Wi-fi at some of these locations. Since we wind up having to do lots of cell phone remotes, I set the system up to play the spots from the studio via remote control because they would sound hideous being fed over the cell phone.

Back to the original poster's question, I'm not sure how Scott AS32 works but I would imagine that there is some way to interface GPIO/contact closures to the system. One could provide a way to control it from the remote either using the contact closure on the Tieline, DTMF via dial-up remote control system (controlled by talent's cell phone) or remote desktop via Wi-Fi or 3G type aircard. That way the talent can at least send a "go to next event" to the automation in case the live drop runs long.

For sports, you can run unattended as well but it's more complicated. The old Smartcasters use to have a neat system where you would call up, enter a security code, and then you could call up any number of remote "templates" that would have a stored open/close and spot rotation associated with them. The system would cut away from the sat network or music-on-hard-drive when you fired the open, spots would play in an order and loop around to the top of the list when you hit the bottom, and it would switch back automatically to sat network or whatever after the closer finished playing. Our system works sort of the same way but you have to load the correct open/close and spot list before you go to the game.

 

[Chuck]

If you can get an Internet connection, why not use a remote desktop application like Go To My PC or Logmein to control the automation? They are cheap, easy to use, quite reliable and the latency is workable. Most cell phone companies have reasonable Internet access using EVDO or similar interfaces. Of course, if there is free Wi-Fi, and often there is on a school campus, then it is even easier.

 

[techie2]

If you can get an Internet connection, why not use a remote desktop application like Go To My PC or Logmein to control the automation? They are cheap, easy to use, quite reliable and the latency is workable. Most cell phone companies have reasonable Internet access using EVDO or similar interfaces. Of course, if there is free Wi-Fi, and often there is on a school campus, then it is even easier.

Right now we don't do that because we have been trying to keep the equipment load small and simple for the less tech-savvy guys to operate. This way, they don't have to tote a laptop with them and everything they need fits inside one small case. Currently we do not have a station-owned laptop to use either. It's hard enough sometimes to get these guys to remember the backdoor phone number to the dial-up remote system, much less how to log in remotely over a computer. :

I sometimes carry a personally owned laptop to games that I cover, and we do have a remote desktop connection available (VNC through an SSH tunnel) that I use sometimes to make sure the automation is working OK or to see where we are on the music log when doing a remote.

 

[Boardengineer12]

Since we always have an operations engineer on duty at the station when broadcasting any live programming its not really an issue with us. additionally we have an engineer on site to setup & operate the equipment; all the talent has to do is talk when he is supposed to.

 

[Chuck]

Right now we don't do that because we have been trying to keep the equipment load small and simple for the less tech-savvy guys to operate. This way, they don't have to tote a laptop with them and everything they need fits inside one small case. Currently we do not have a station-owned laptop to use either. It's hard enough sometimes to get these guys to remember the backdoor phone number to the dial-up remote system, much less how to log in remotely over a computer. :

I sometimes carry a personally owned laptop to games that I cover, and we do have a remote desktop connection available (VNC through an SSH tunnel) that I use sometimes to make sure the automation is working OK or to see where we are on the music log when doing a remote.

For about $300 you can get an Acer mini laptop that is about the size of a small town phone book. They weigh in at less than two pounds, and would be all you need to use Go To My PC, LogMeIn or VNC. Actually using one of those programs is remarkably easy.