The transition to audio over IP over the past decade has revolutionized the broadcast industry, bringing added flexibility and improving quality and options for the viewer. That progress, however, has not come without its concerns as media companies try to keep up with consumers who are viewing content on myriad devices.

In our latest free TV Tech Guide to Audio, we hope to lessen that anxiety by taking a look at how audio professionals are tapping into that flexibility that AoIP brings to our industry and the approaches taken to maximize the consumer audio experience. 

In our latest TV Tech Talk, TV Tech moderator Wes Simpson and Martin Dyster of Telos Alliance and Chistopher Kelly of Ross Video will take a deep dive into the media cloud ecosystem and how such services can optimize production techniques.

Click here to register for this free webcast.

ASHBURN, Va.—Telos Corp. today announced that Telos Secure Networks – Core Solutions has achieved Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Development V2.0 Maturity Level 3.

CMMI is a proven set of global best practices driving business performance through building and benchmarking key capabilities.

“Obtaining this milestone demonstrates our clear commitment to continuous improvement for our customers,” said Brendan Malloy, senior vice president and general manager of cyber operations and defense at Telos. “By adhering to a proven and repeatable set of best practices, this appraisal demonstrates our ability to continually drive quality, customer satisfaction, performance and value to their highest levels.”

Ace Guides, an authorized CMMI Institute service provider, performed the appraisal, the company said.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

SEATTLE—Intercom makers design all sorts of technology to let them stretch their newscast communication systems to all sorts of far flung liveshot locations, but at least they could count on the anchor talent positions to be comfortably within reach in the studio.

And then one afternoon someone ran through the newsroom shouting “social distancing!” and by 5:00, the news, sports, weather and traffic anchors were coming to you from a variety of rooms in their homes, within six feet of no one.

GOING HOME

Though there was some scrambling putting together the elements of a home studio, intercom vendors report that the systems they had installed largely were ready to go.

“While it would be fair to say we never imagined our current scenario,” said Bob Boster, Clear-Com president, “[our] Agent-IC is providing a simple yet highly effective solution to help production teams working-from-home all over the world stay connected.”

Agent-IC is designed to operate on mobile devices that run either IOS or Android, such as cell phones or tablets. “And since most people have that, they can use Agent-IC to connect back to either a matrix system of ours,” where they connect to one of Clear-Com’s IP cards, or through an appliance called LQ that can attach to somebody else’s intercom, whether it’s a matrix or otherwise.

“So we had that capability already, and a lot of people were using it,” Boster continued. “But until COVID-19, we just didn’t necessarily have that many situations where people had to all of a sudden put their entire staff out into home offices.”

VIRTUAL PLATFORM

Denis Castanet, director of product management for RTS reported much the same: “As a result of the current situation, remote production is part of the new normal for broadcasters everywhere.” The company’s VLink communication solution for RTS intercom matrix systems has become a go-to during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the software-based virtual intercom platform allowing broadcast professionals to work remotely.

VLink enables remote users to interface with their RTS intercom matrices over IP using a simple application, allowing a new degree of control and flexibility from anywhere in the world. “VLink is designed to make this process as seamless as possible,” Castanet added, “and, judging by the recent increase we’ve seen in software licenses, it’s becoming a key tool for organizations across the globe.”

ALL IP

Telos’ Infinity is the company’s best solution for communicating during at home broadcasts, according to Martin Dyster, vice president of business development for Telos’ TV Solutions Group.

“Telos Infinity is a pure IP intercom system that is built without a central matrix,” he said. “It operates using IP connectivity, AS67 connectivity, natively.

“This allows simple conversations from point A to point B, party lines and conferences, ISPs, group communications, all those kinds of things that you would expect,” Dyster continued. “The Telos Infinity natively allows that to happen within a local area network. The remote at-home anchor can have a belt pack or panel. The audio runs on the OPUS codec, which provides high quality audio, even over less than ideal Internet, including the anchor’s home WiFi.”

EASY TO CONNECT

Getting the intercom to a news talent’s in-home anchor desk is easy, according to Rick Seegull, manager of systems consulting for Riedel.

“Let’s say something just happened five minutes ago, and the newscaster can’t get to the studio; they can call in and get an extension,” he said. “Basically it’s a phone extension, but it’s within the system, and then it can be routed, joined in, or brought in as a mixed minus, an IFB, however you want to do it.

We also have Connect IT, that can connect anywhere from two to eight panels, and basically you take their panel from the control room, a spare panel, and connect it to their home network,” he said. “That panel will show up just like it was at the office studio. So everything they had on the panel at the station, in the control room, they’ll have in their house.”

Riedel’s Virtual Control Panel (VCP) can run on iOS, Android or PC.

PERMANENT CHANGES

Gary Rosen, vice president of global sales for Pliant Technology in Auburn, Ala., said the company’s intercoms “are used on all sorts of “casting:” narrow cast, web cast, broadcast, SKYPE, whatever. These weren’t productions that used to use intercoms, because it was so expensive.” 

Pliant leveraged technology created for its CrewCom wireless intercom system to develop “MicroCom,” a 900-MHz, full-duplex wireless intercom system that puts an emphasis on cost effectiveness and simplicity of setup and operation.

Rosen predicts that even when the pandemic and its six feet of social distancing is over with, communicating won’t be quite the same.

“If I’m standing close to somebody, there’s been a tendency for me to walk over and whisper a piece of information to them,” he said. “Now, whispering from just a few inches away is probably not something that’s going to happen anymore. I’ll be whispering from 30 feet away.”

NEW YORK—New York Digital is a provider of media production and distribution for the U.S. and Brazil. Recently, we worked closely with The Telos Alliance and Visom Digital to spec the Telos Infinity IP Intercom system for this year’s Lollapalooza Brazil in São Paolo, April 5-7, helping the event attain seamless communications on a matrix-free IP backbone.

Globosat—a division of Rede Globo, the largest broadcaster in Latin America—needed to tie all the stages and production center of Lollapalooza Brazil together. We consulted with Globosat’s lead engineer, Fabio Costa de Almeida, to specify the Telos Infinity as the principal interface between various and disparate systems, pulling together communication sources from across the entire event into the Infinity ecosystem.

MATRIX-FREE DESIGN STREAMLINES PRODUCTION

I chose Infinity for its matrix-free design, giving the event’s producers more flexibility to add expansion panels easily and on the fly while taking up less space in the truck. We needed a compact solution that could be controlled remotely and changed instantaneously. While matrix technology does let you make changes remotely, you need a lot of space for the racks and peripherals. In this case, we had only 1RU worth of equipment, including a half-rack Axia xSwitch and a half-rack Telos Alliance Mixed Signal xNode. This was the only equipment in the van; everything else was remoted to other places.

We set up the Infinity system with partylines for Lollapalooza’s on-air directors and producers, for clear and instantaneous communication with the event’s stages. The Infinity equipment was very resilient, even when the temperature in the truck went up to 120 degrees.

ZERO LEARNING CURVE

I had to leave the concert for several days so it was important for me to be able to set up the system easily, then instruct the chief and communications engineers on how to operate it in my absence. I taught them how to launch the Infinity Dashboard software, how to manipulate the system and turn it on and off.

One of the most common questions was “How do I add an expansion panel?” You simply take a cable, plug it into the switch, plug it into the head, allow a few seconds for the new piece of equipment to be recognized and you’re ready to go; no need to add a card or expansion slot.

LABELING SAVES THE DAY

Small details like how Infinity panels are labeled proved to be lifesavers for the team. The color-coded switches allow you to color the panels by groups—we had a group for director, lighting, stage and production, all with different colors.

Text labeling was very easy to read—we had two crew members named Rodrigo, and we never got them confused. Labeling is extremely important because the people using the system may not have a lot of technical aptitude and they need to make snap decisions and push buttons very quickly. You can program the buttons all from the Dashboard GUI, too, so it’s easy.

Will I use the Infinity IP intercom system again? Absolutely—installation is minimal and because it’s all IP-based, it’s very “plug-and-play” with none of the problems associated with matrix systems. That’s a very big plus.

Danny Littwin is the Emmy and Grammy-award winning director of New York Digital, which provides production and technical management, space segment sales and facilitates television production in Brazil and U.S. Littwin can be contacted atadmin@newyorkdigital.com.br.

For more information on Telos, visitwww.telosalliance.com.

SOUTHFIELD, MI–ENCO, a provider of automated workflow and instant playout solutions for radio, television and commercial AV systems, has appointed broadcast industry veteran John Casey as Director of Sales, effective immediately. Reporting to ENCO President Ken Frommert, John will focus specifically on domestic business development across new customers and existing accounts.

John’s broadcast roots run deep, with nearly 30 years of combined experience as a leading broadcast industry publisher and sales and marketing executive. He spent the last 20 years with NewBay Media (recently acquired by Future plc), where he spent the majority of his time leading Radio World Newspaper to record revenues over many consecutive years as Publisher. He was subsequently named Group Publisher of the Media, Entertainment and Technology sector at Future plc immediately following its NewBay Media acquisition.

Prior to his highly successful two-decade run in publishing, John held key sales and marketing roles at Denon Electronics and later Telos Systems, where he served as VP Sales and Marketing. 

"John’s wealth of industry experience and customer-first mentality comes to ENCO at a time of worldwide growth for the company, and having him help to lead the charge in sales across the United States is sure to bring ENCO’s name to many new customers from north to south, east to west,” said Frommert.

AMSTERDAM—Pixar’s “Toy Story” character Buzz Lightyear is famous for saying “To infinity and beyond,” and if the Telos Alliance TV Solutions Group has its way broadcasters too will be uttering something similar when deploying an intercom and planning for contribution audio.

At IBC 2017, the company introduced the Telos Infinity IP intercom that it hopes marks the next logical step beyond traditional matrix switching technology.

Telos Infinity transports both voice communications and contribution audio on a single IT backbone, the company said. Relying on standards-based voice-over-IP and Livewire+ AES67 audio-over-IP for transport, Telos Infinity is a distributed IP network solution that the company says is simple to use and “elegant” in form.

Key features include what the company calls “infinite scalability” for internal and external communications; plug-and-play device integration; and a lower total cost of ownership than traditional intercoms.

At the industry gathering in Amsterdam, TVB Europe, a sister publication of TVTechnology,honored the Telos Alliance TV Solutions Group with a Best of Show Award 2017 for the Telos Infinity IP intercom.

AMSTERDAM--Live contribution via bonded mobile IP networks has been a real paradigm shift, but how to manage network impairments (for example) when going live from crowded areas? Dejero and Newtec addressed this issue. At the IBC they are showcasing their Cellsat solution, capable of blending cellular and satellite connectivity on demand in the field. At first, CellSat manages to get the best performance from the mobile networks on site.

Any time the available bandwidth does not cope with the user’s requirements, Cellsat seamlessly combines cellular connectivity from multiple mobile network providers with Ku-band IP satellite connectivity by Intelsat, up to secure the required data-rate. As a result, CellSat users don’t have to book satellite time – it is simply available to boost bandwidth when they need, at the push of a button. Cellsat’s users can also rely on the aggregated bandwidth to improve connection reliability when broadcasting live from the field. Cellsat relies on a Newtec Dialog IP modem, configured for the CellSat service, and Dejero transmission and receiving equipment, software, connectivity services to the CellSat network, cloud management, and support.

Dejero CellSat is initially available in the United States and Canada, with roll-out to other regions planned for 2018.

As media libraries grow - and the pace of new projects and number of assets goes up - making sure that assets are inspected and tagged properly can become overwhelming to any creative team. Axle ai promises to change the way those things are done. Cloud-deployed multiple video analysis engines allow sophisticated automatic tagging of video and instant visual search. Any time a new content is available, media is analyzed, compared to a vast image recognition database, and tagged, saving the great amounts of time required to manually tag media and enabling search based on characters, words, logos, locations and other highly specific visual information.

Automatic video analysis on ingest and proxy generating uses sophisticated AI technology to instantly find and tag objects in the frame, all keyed to the timeline code. Thanks to powerful context matching, finding every instance of an object as easy as dragging a marquee around any object on the screen and hitting 'search'. Every video clip that matches is presented, automatically keyed to relevant timeline section, with no user action required. According to Axle, even complex images with thousands of objects are easily analyzed with a wide range of applicable tags: - not just 'crowd' but 'festival' and 'tourist destination' keywords as well.

Part of the new series of Telos Infinity solutions, the Telos Infinity IP Intercom converges voice communication and contribution audio on a single IT backbone employing the latest standards-based VoIP and Livewire+ AES67 AoIP transport to provide dedicated features and functionality without compromise or limitations. More than just a talkback system, Infinity IP can replace legacy matrix technology with an advanced, distributed IP network solution that provides superior functionality in a simplified and effective layout.

Matrix-free design allows plug-and-play networked hardware and software devices to be added to the system as part of a planned ad-hoc change without ever worrying that you might exceed the number of available ports on a matrix. Telos says the introduction of the new Infinity IP Intercom represents “a quantum leap in scalability, ease of integration, efficiency and total cost of ownership”. Infinity IP natively supports Livewire+ AES67, then it can seamlessly connect with AoIP products from Telos as well as those from other supporting manufacturers.

Telos Infinity IP Intercom easily integrates into existing analog, AES, SDI, and MADI systems using Telos Alliance xNode baseband-to-IP interfaces and other AES67 partner devices.

Canon is introducing the EOS C200, their new compact 4K Cinema EOS camera, featuring Canon’s 4K Super 35mm CMOS sensor. Its effective pixel count of 8.85MP and the newly developed Dual DIGIC DV6 image processor allow in-camera recording of 4K UHD/50P MP4, 4K DCI RAW and continuous 120fps High Frame Rate (HFR) in Full HD without crop. As the first Cinema EOS camera to support the new RAW recording format – Cinema RAW Light – the EOS C200 provides the same flexibility in color grading as Cinema RAW, in a smaller file size.

Supporting up to 15-stops of dynamic range with Cinema RAW Light , the EOS C200 is perfect for capturing highlight and shadow details. The EOS C200 features an advanced AF system that provides reliability and accuracy also when shooting 4K. The ISO range of 100 to 102,400 guarantees excellent performance, even in difficult lighting conditions, while the built-in optical ND filters of up to 10 stops provide further flexibility and convenience. Built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity allows for browser remote control and the ability to transfer files via FTP, whilst the camera’s compatibility options mean new and existing accessories can be used, including Canon’s electronic viewfinder - the EVF-V70.

The IBC Show runs through Tuesday, Sept. 19 at the RAI in Amsterdam.