More than ever, technology suppliers in 2026 are meeting media entities where they live and work, with a hybrid, flexible and often invisible ecosystem.

Audio infrastructure manufacturers and providers agree that while the “sound” still must be perfect, the exact location of the gear no longer matters.

“We are not moving towards a future where the physical location of the audio suite doesn’t matter anymore,” said Calrec Director of Product Management Henry Goodman. “We’re already there.”

WHO, HOW AND WHERE

While the “where” has shifted, the “who” remains the foundation of the broadcast. Humans are still largely mixing and shaping program output. “But how and where they do all this has changed beyond recognition,” Goodman said.

The show’s exhibit floor offers ample evidence for television, radio and streaming contexts.

Wheatstone is showcasing its VMX virtual mixing platform, which can serve as a single mixing backend for multiple consoles or surfaces, at its booth.

Marketing Director Dee McVicker said the cost benefits from virtualization are a focal point. “Not to mention removing the massive physical limitations of the studio as we know it,” she said.

For manufacturers, the challenge is ensuring that as consoles move from isolated desks to complex networks — whether on-site, on edge or in the cloud — the engineer’s experience remains intuitive.

Solid State Logic intends to decouple the “big console” experience from the giant desk. Berny Carpenter, SSL’s broadcast product manager, said that through the company’s Virtual Tempest Engine, the software can be deployed across public clouds or private data centers.

Does this flexibility mean that mixing can be performed truly anywhere? Wheatstone’s McVicker offered a nuanced take.

“We’re not taking away from the tactile feel of a fixed console, yet we’re not limiting you to that or where you might be mixing at the moment,” she said.

Goodman too said Calrec’s approach is to provide the “big console” experience in a portable package.

FIXED HARDWARE TO MOBILE APPS

In the West Hall, Lawo is preaching a philosophy of agility through its HOME Apps platform. The concept is a departure from the “one box for each task” style of broadcasting.

For a media outlet using a generic commercial off-the-shelf server, Lawo believes the platform is ideal for managing a succession of workflows, allowing a broadcaster to decide on Monday that it’s an audio mixer and on Tuesday that it’s a multiviewer by switching containerized microservices.

“Hardware infrastructure no longer dictates workflows: Workflows now define the agile processing stack,” said Wolfgang Huber, Lawo’s public relations manager.

According to Huber, that kind of agility is important in mobile production trucks, where every inch of rack space and watt of power counts.

Wheatstone’s VML, an HTML5-based virtual console, can be accessed through a web browser, offering mixing on a laptop, tablet, smartphone or desktop. “You have a lot of flexibility to set up remote broadcasts, temporary studios in a disaster situation or even add on a permanent production studio,” McVicker said.

BY YOUR SIDE

But how does an engineer harness all of the power available now, particularly from AI and automation?

At Telos Alliance, AI is framed as a “mixing assistant riding shotgun,” said Clark Novak, its marketing content manager.

Telos’ flexAI platform utilizes the Jünger Audio Intelligent Companion, an AI-powered automixer.

Novak explained that flexAI pushes background noise down while keeping dialogue consistent, allowing the engineer to focus on the overall mix while the platform handles “small corrective moves.”

SSL offers a similar philosophy with its System T Dialogue Automix. Carpenter said that the system focuses on the active speaker across a large number of sources to reduce crosstalk.

“It allows the operator to focus on the output, rather than reacting to who is currently speaking,” Carpenter said.

Lawo, for its part, sticks to deterministic algorithms in its KICK sports mixing technology, for example, to avoid “AI hallucinations” in high-stakes environments.

But with the platform’s close-ball mixing, which is automated based on camera tracking data, Lawo’s Huber said the technology allows the audio engineer to focus on creative storytelling rather than manual gain-riding.

But a recurring theme is that disappearance of large surfaces. For instance, Telos Alliance’s Axia Altus and Studio Essentials lines allow mixing to be controlled entirely via a web browser.

“Virtual mixing isn’t about replacing the studio,” Novak said, “it’s about expanding it to other locations.”

Wheatstone’s McVicker called it a hardware-agnostic philosophy.

As NAB Show exhibitors will demonstrate, the movement to flexibility is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Most facilities are adopting a hybrid approach — keeping hardware where tactile control is needed, but moving the “heavy lifting” to the cloud.

As Calrec’s Goodman concluded, the tools must provide the operator with the ability to adapt to demanding environments.

Whether the processing happens in a basement rack or a distant data center, the mission remains the same: clear and compelling audio.

© 2026 NAB

CLEVELAND—Broadcast audio supplier Telos Alliance will be showcasing four new products as well as upgrades to existing solutions at the 2026 NAB Show from April 18 - 22 in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, Booth #C1819.

During the show, the company will feature its portfolio of traditional hardware products alongside virtualized and software solutions.

Several brand-new products will be introduced for the very first time at this year’s show, including:

• Omnia® XII, the brand-new flagship FM/HD/DAB audio processor from Frank Foti and the Omnia team that combines all-new algorithms and Frank’s effortlessly loud and clean “Clemenza” clipper with forward-thinking I/O and features users require to support today’s workflows (https://omniaxii.com)
• Axia Pulsar, a compact new AoIP console surface with 8 motorized faders - expandable to 16 - a touchscreen monitor section, and the same top-tier audio performance as the company’s larger Quasar XR and SR consoles (https://telosalliance.com/pulsar)
• Telos Infinity IP Intercom MK2 Master, Expansion, and Desktop panels, featuring 16 bigger, brighter, easier-to-read TFT button displays (https://telosalliance.com/infinity)
• Telos Infinity VIP SE, the latest member of the growing StudioEssentials family of compact hardware products, which merges the flexibility of Infinity VIP software with the convenience of easy-to-deploy compact hardware (https://telosalliance.com/VIP)

Improvements to several of the company’s existing offerings will also be demonstrated. The Jünger Audio flexAI platform features the Jünger Audio Intelligent Assistant (JAIC) to aid in managing complex multichannel mixes in real time, and the flexAI platform is now fully deployable in the cloud (https://telosalliance.com/flexAI)

Meanwhile, the Minntonka Audio AudioTools Server automated file-based processing platform addresses one of the top issues faced by television viewers: Dialogue intelligibility. ATS can analyze audio content and, if necessary, make corrections to ensure viewers no longer struggle to hear and understand dialogue within the overall mix (https://telosalliance.com/ATS)

Partner ip-studio will showcase its STUDIO ZERO ecosystem in the Telos Alliance booth, a fully-realized, 100% virtual cloud-hosted solution first introduced at the 2023 NAB Show. STUDIO ZERO merges a suite of Telos Alliance products with ip-studio’s advanced automation and workflow management software, making practical, reliable cloud-based studios a reality (https://ip-studio.com).

More information is available at https://www.telosalliance.com/.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance today announced a software update for its Linear Acoustic AERO series television audio processors supporting the most current Nielsen watermark encoding library.

Version 3.32.47 addresses a known issue for the NAES VI (NW/N6) encoder, which will reset its timestamp on Jan. 1, 2027, causing it to report incorrect information to Nielsen.

This update applies to sold and currently supported Linear Acoustic AERO products with the Nielsen watermarking option, including AERO.100, AERO.200, AERO.1000, AERO.2000, AERO.2400 and AERO.8000. Legacy AERO processors with Nielsen encoding, including AERO.air and AERO.asi, cannot be updated to this version.

“Linear Acoustic has enjoyed a close partnership with Nielsen for nearly twenty years, and many of our customers opt to perform their Nielsen watermark encoding for audience measurement as an integral part of their television loudness processing and upmixing within our AERO products,” said Larry Schindel, Linear Acoustic product manager.

“We have been working closely with Nielsen to ensure our mutual customers have access to their latest encoding library in plenty of time to update their AERO units before the end of the year and will be providing a separate update for our Linear Acoustic LA-5300 processor this summer.”

The V3.32.47 update is available at a cost of $599 per unit. AERO.200, AERO.2400 and AERO.8000 units still under factory warranty or covered by a Telos Alliance Extended Warranty or TelosCare PLUS service agreement can be updated at no charge.

The company is also offering a trade-in credit offer. For a limited time, customers can receive a $1,000 credit toward the purchase of a new AERO.200, AERO.2400 or AERO.8000 when they trade their existing Linear Acoustic AERO.100, AERO.1000, AERO.2000, AERO.air, AEROMAX DTV, AEROMAX 5.1, AERO.one or AERO.asi.

Customers seeking the updated software should inquire with their Linear Acoustic dealer or via email.

CLEVELAND—Audio technology provider Telos Alliance has promoted Jim Armstrong to senior director of sales, U.S. and Canada.

A 20-year Telos veteran, Armstrong had most recently been the company’s director, U.S. sales. His new role expands his responsibilities to servicing customers across North America, focusing on the company’s Telos, Omnia, Axia, 25-Seven and Telos Infinity product families.

“Jim has a long track record of success and has built valuable ongoing relationships with our customers and channel partners over the years,” Telos Alliance Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Strategy Marty Sacks said. “His deep industry knowledge, strong technical skills, and lifelong passion for broadcasting make Jim the perfect choice to lead our efforts across the entirety of the U.S. and Canada.”

Armstrong has worked for several broadcast equipment manufacturers, including Burk Technology, Gentner Communications, Klotz Digital and SAS, prior to joining Telos Alliance in 2006. Before that, he worked at several Boston-area radio stations both on-air and in operations. Armstrong said his deep radio roots were established at a young age.

“Even as a kid, I knew that I wanted to work in broadcasting. Anytime we were in the car, my parents had WBZ on, and the radio was always playing in the kitchen of my Grandfather’s restaurant,” he said. “Listening to WRKO on my first transistor radio, making airchecks on a boombox in the ’80s and taking a field trip to WBCN in Boston sealed the deal, and I still love it as much now as I did back then.”

Armstrong can be reached at Jim.Armstrong@telosalliance.com.

CLEVELAND—Cam Eicher has been promoted to executive vice president of audio production at broadcast audio firm Telos Alliance.

The newly created role calls for Eicher to leverage his more than 35 years of broadcast experience, his deep understanding of customer needs and his strong industry relationships to bring a more unified Telos product portfolio to market more quickly and ensure a cohesive and consistent user experience across products and brand families, the company said.

“The medium we historically refer to as ‘radio’ is so much more than a tuner picking up an over-the-air AM or FM signal,” Eicher said. “Today’s audience chooses the content they want to hear and how they want to hear it, whether that means a radio, their smartphone or their car’s dashboard. Telos Alliance is uniquely positioned to provide content creators with an ecosystem of products that seamlessly work together to meet those needs.”

Telos said Eicher’s advancement reinforces its commitment to evolving alongside the broadcast industry and providing clients with the products and solutions needed to create the best possible content for their audience, no matter where and how they listen.

Executives were unanimous in choosing Eicher for this role, said Telos Alliance CEO Scott Stiefel.

“We knew we needed a leader with the vision, experience, and authority to bring all of the company’s resources together to support this mission,” he said. “Cam’s understanding of our changing industry, his passion for audio technology, and the respect he has earned from our customers, channel partners and his Telos Alliance colleagues is unmatched. We are fortunate that the person best suited to lead us forward is already a valued and respected member of the Telos Alliance family.”

TVU Networks has launched TVU MediaMesh, designed for cloud-based live production.

Traditional live production, whether on-site or remote, has long been constrained by fixed infrastructure, dedicated equipment, and rigid routing, limiting both scale and flexibility. Currently only about 1% of live productions have fully migrated to the cloud due to the complexities of connecting sources, routing signals and integrating multiple applications.

TVU MediaMesh addresses these challenges by introducing global shared memory for live video, simplifying connectivity and drastically reducing configuration time, according to the company.

“MediaMesh removes the biggest obstacle to cloud adoption by making live signals instantly accessible anywhere, as easily as opening a shared file, said Mike Cronk, VP of Strategy at TVU Networks. “It gives teams the freedom to produce from anywhere, using the tools they want without worrying about the back end.”

As the foundation that powers TVU’s SaaS applications for the world’s largest live events, from routing and AI indexing to production and playout, MediaMesh now opens its APIs, enabling customers and partners to build, innovate, and shape the future of live production.

TVU will demo MediaMesh at Stand 7.B55 at the 2025 IBC Show, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam.

The platform’s collaborative approach has already drawn industry support.

Adam Marshall, CPO at Grass Valley, said: “By integrating Grass Valley AMPP with TVU MediaMesh, we’re giving our customers the seamless workflows they’ve been asking for across our best-of-breed solutions. AMPP users can now connect to sources from multiple vendors, including TVU’s cellular backpacks, without the usual integration complexity. This deepens the collaboration our customers have been calling for.”

Additionally, Telos Alliance and Jünger Audio have agreed to integrate Telos Alliance’s portfolio of cloud‑enabled audio solutions directly into TVU Networks’ MediaMesh platform, delivering next‑generation audio capabilities for broadcasters and content creators worldwide.

Integrating Telos Alliance’s and Jünger Audio’s audio-handling tools with MediaMesh will give TVU Network clients the direct ability to automate complex audio workflows, ensure consistent, high‑quality audio and leverage AI to ease manual workloads, the companies said.

TVU MediaMesh already connects and manages production resources via a resilient, cloud‑native network. With Telos Alliance technology embedded in the platform, users will be able to access capabilities including Jünger Audio flexAI for multichannel processing and Automix, Minnetonka AudioTools Server for post‑production automation, and Linear Acoustic upmix, downmix, and loudness tools, all of which are optimized for distributed, collaborative workflows.

TVU MediaMesh is available today, including on the AWS Marketplace, enabling customers to deploy instantly.

To guide the platform’s evolution, TVU has formed a MediaMesh Advisory Board (MAB), bringing together leaders from seven major media companies and five partner organizations including Chyron, EVS, Grass Valley, Solid State Logic and Vizrt. TVU will showcase integrations from select MAB members, as well as Mediatest, Eluvio, Pixelstorm and MXL interoperability demos with Grass Valley, Riedel, Matrox and AWS.

Sports broadcasting is undergoing a profound transformation. Evolving audience expectations and technological advancements are making immersive, accessible, and personalized audio the new benchmark for fan experiences. Unlike several other iterations of early broadcast innovation, like the emergence of HD, 4K, and HDR, the technology that enables audiences to experience Next Generation Audio (NGA) is already in the hands of billions.

More than 3 billion devices, in fact, from laptops and smartphones to tablets, headphones, and home entertainment systems, are NGA-ready. Technologies like Dolby Atmos are widely available across consumer devices, yet in many cases, their full potential remains untapped by broadcasters.

Early Adopters are Pushing Audio Frontiers
Several recent deployments of NGA have demonstrated its real-world impact in live broadcast environments. Landmark trials with Serial ADM (S-ADM) and the emerging SMPTE 2110-41 standard during the Paris Games enabled France TV to deliver Dolby Atmos audio with personalized language options, all within a single bitstream.

That service remains on air today, delivering deftly personalized audio and setting an example for other broadcasters (not just in sports) eager to implement similar NGA workflows for deeper immersion and customization. Similar deployments are starting to take off in Brazil, which is rapidly adopting the ATSC 3.0 standard as a de facto broadcast delivery method.

These aren’t just technical enhancements, they’re foundational shifts enabling a range of exciting new features that enrich the viewer experience. Multilanguage support breaks down barriers, making sports accessible to a global audience. Meanwhile, enhanced accessibility via more nuanced audio description (AD) features ensures that everyone, regardless of visual impairment, can fully engage with the action without being forced to listen in mono or stereo. This means that some of the audiences set to benefit the most from NGA may be those who rely primarily, or even exclusively, on their sense of hearing.

Evolving Standards, Real-World Implications
SMPTE 2110-41 introduces a flexible way to send audio-related data, like metadata or subtitles, alongside audio and video in live IP workflows, which enables NGA to be in environments where low delay and accurate timing are crucial. Meanwhile, S-ADM, which is an open, standardized metadata format, leaps one of the final hurdles in personalized audio delivery.

Now, broadcasters can dynamically adapt the audio on a program-by-program basis. For example, a soccer match can be produced with a 5.1.4 immersive bed mix, often referred to as the “international” or “clean” feed, with multiple individual dialogs in different languages. Commercials, meanwhile, can be delivered as a standard 5.1 mix. Thanks to metadata carried with the stream, downstream receivers or decoders automatically interpret the viewer’s preferences and render the audio accordingly, ensuring a seamless and personalized listening experience.

The industry win here isn’t just technical. For the first time, major players who provide the final emission codecs have aligned behind a single, open metadata standard versus relying on proprietary solutions. This moment of convergence unlocks enormous value for broadcasters, producers, and audiences alike.

Putting Viewers in Control
Audiences now expect experiences that reflect their preferences, needs, and identities. Sports audio is beginning to lead the charge in offering choice and inclusion, setting a benchmark for other producers in live events and entertainment broadcasting. NGA-driven innovation is enabling viewers to select commentary (and even the individual commentators) in their preferred language without compromising the immersive or surround sound experience.

Alongside a host of accessibility benefits delivering better dialogue intelligibility and AD services with full surround or immersive audio, broadcasters deepen connection and elevate overall quality with more sophisticated audio that brings fans closer to the action.

Crucially, object-based audio makes this flexibility possible. Traditional 5.1 or stereo workflows constrained the number of available channels, forcing broadcasters to make hard decisions about which elements of the audio experience to prioritize. With the ongoing advancements in Next Generation Audio, content creators should be motivated to deliver multiple language tracks within the same stream, allowing for personalization at scale without compromising the artistic intent of the mix.

This freedom will power richer, more engaging, and more inclusive experiences that reflect the diversity of today’s audiences. Broadcasters who want to win the future of sports audio have it all to play for — the technology is there, it’s time to give the viewers what they deserve.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance will demonstrate new features and capabilities for its lineup of Linear Acoustic Next Generation Audio products at the 2025 NAB Show, April 5-9, in Las Vegas.

Among the new features are support for NMOS IS-04 network registration and discovery and IS-05 connection management for all NGA products, including the LA-5291 professional audio encoder, LA-5300 broadcast audio processor and UPMAX ISC immersive sound field controller, the company said.

Telos Alliance will showcase several new LA-5300 features, including Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos encoder for Atmos workflows where Dolby AC-4 is not employed, 5.1.4-to-5.1- and 2.0-channel downmixing, mono and stereo handling of SAP audio and an updated Dolby AC-4 encoder library to support M&E + D workflows, it said.

It also will highlight new upmixing to 5.1.2 and 5.1.4 for the LA-5300 and UPMAX ISC and a longer latency version of the ISC’s upmixing algorithm for transmission applications, it said.

“Sound is an essential and integral part of the overall experience for television viewers,” said Larry Schindel, Linear Acoustic product manager. “All of the capabilities afforded by Next Generation Audio, ranging from personalization options to a full Dolby Atmos immersive experience, are available to broadcasters in the portfolio of Linear Acoustic NGA products.”

The new LA-5300 Dolby AC-4 library will be available later this year, and the other new features to be shown will be available in Q2 from Linear Acoustic channel partners, it said.

See Telos Alliance at 2025 NAB Show booth N721.

More information is available on the company’s website.

In technological terms, a trend can have several different interpretations or even stages. It can be applied to an emerging audio technology that is not yet fully mature or adopted. Once uptake is underway a trend becomes current, as an increasing number of broadcasters begin to follow the initial adopters until that particular technology is firmly established in the market.

This does not happen immediately, which means an innovation can keep appearing at NAB Show for several years and seem like it is not that new at all anymore.

The reality is that implementation often takes a long time, as broadcasters’ replacement cycles or plans for new facilities come around and they get ready to install what are still the latest systems. This point is illustrated by Costa Nikols, strategy adviser for media and entertainment at Telos Alliance, who quotes Devoncroft Associates research showing that upgrading the audio infrastructure, which had been well outside the “Top 10” of broadcast priorities, was now in the “Top 5.”

Changing Priorities
“There’s a lot of investment going into improving audio quality, incorporating Next Generation Audio [NGA],” he says, referring to an umbrella term to define immersive and personalized audio experiences. “That also brings all these immersive experiences and customization and personalization features to the table, but how long is that going to take?

“I think we’re just at the beginning of something that’s going to be exciting and wonderful,” Nikols adds. “But if you look at the early adopters, it’s generally the national broadcasters that have adopted SMPTE ST 2110 and 2022-6 initially. Slowly, it will make its way out to the station groups and Tier 2 and Tier 3 broadcasters.”

The most visible NGA system is Dolby Atmos immersive audio. Atmos is specified by many of the leading streaming platforms, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, but it’s not yet a standard part of linear broadcast transmissions. But, as Nikols points out, there is a growing market for enhanced sound that goes beyond TV and into mobile and other areas.

“Around the time of last year’s NAB Show, the number of devices that supported Dolby Atmos was 1.5 billion,” he says. “The most recent figure is over 3 billion, so it pretty much doubled by the beginning of this year. But the market, as far as the content providers are concerned, is not really delivering on the capabilities of the consumer electronics that are already deployed.”

Forward-Looking Feature
Professional equipment is also ready for the wider rollout of NGA and immersive systems, with all leading mixing console manufacturers accommodating technologies such as Dolby Atmos on their new and current desks.

“Global events often incorporate NGA formats like Atmos as they tend to push the technological boundaries,” Christian Struck, senior product manager for audio infrastructure at Lawo, says. “NGA has been a topic of interest for over a decade and we have integrated these capabilities into our systems, both physical and virtual. There is a gradual increase in demand for immersive audio and it remains a forward-looking feature for people exploring advanced audio workflows. Real-time metadata transport as defined in SMPTE 2110-41 will also help push this.”

Henry Goodman, director of product management at Calrec Audio, agrees most audio consoles now on the market enable immersive mixing, but does not see it as a priority for many viewers.

“Whether the public is taking advantage [of what immersive programming is available] is still quite a big question,” he says. “And the vast majority of distributed content is still not immersive.”

A parallel situation exists with the adoption of Audio Over IP (AoIP), Goodman adds, noting that Calrec is still selling consoles that are not SMPTE ST 2110-compliant.

“AoIP is getting towards being the norm, but it’s not across the board yet,” he says. “And you’ve also got different types of AoIP. On smaller systems, people are using Dante for connectivity and while it’s IP, it’s not a 2110 infrastructure.

“For larger, major investments people are certainly building AoIP infrastructures, but there’s still some way to go [because] if you’ve got a lot of investment in baseband audio and video, it’s not a slam dunk that when you upgrade one of those studios you would necessarily choose to go IP because of the impact it has on the rest of the system,” Goodman says.

The Importance of Having an IP Backbone
Phil Owens, senior sales engineer for Wheatstone, agrees that although old technologies continue to play a part in audio installations, there is now more of a swing towards newer formats.

“While legacy equipment still needs to be incorporated, the backbone of pretty much all new systems will be IP,” he says. “The flexibility of an IP network is the primary driver for this. As full 2110 networks become more widespread, stations are adapting the IP approach even if they don’t implement 2110 right away. Having a basic IP infrastructure keeps that door open.”

IP also plays a key role in remote and distributed production, which, again, have been a consideration for over five years and, after getting a boost during the pandemic, are growing in scope and reach.

“Distributed production is not just about saving costs, it’s about utilizing the facilities that you’ve got more effectively and more efficiently,” Calrec’s Goodman observes. “And we’ve had quite a lot of discussions with broadcasters about them widening their content offering with more niche-type sports because, by looking at doing things with remote production in a more distributed way, they can then justify covering sports that they would never have been able to justify covering before.”

Lawo’s Struck agrees that the rise of remote production—or REMI (remote integration)—models are another significant trend. “These centralize resources while enabling distributed production across multiple locations,” he says. “This approach offers flexibility in how equipment is bundled and deployed. Automated productions also remain a consistent focus. They are particularly well-suited for news programs and scripted productions, though they are not applicable to more complex, dynamic productions.”

Of all current trends, artificial intelligence (AI) will have a high profile at NAB Show, with initiatives such as the PropelME startup hub, showcasing companies using the technology to change how the broadcast, media and entertainment market operates. While most on the audio side of broadcasting agree AI will make an impact on sound, the view is that—like other technologies before it—this is not happening quite yet.

“When we talk about AI, sometimes it’s just confused with automation,” Nikols says. “Automation technologies have been around for a while and they allow you to have complex workflows with lots of ‘if-then’ decisions.

“And for the most part AI is that,” he added. “But Generative AI coming into the game allows some really cool stuff to happen with auto-mixing and can determine what content really needs to come up and how to adjust for all the other different channels that don’t necessarily need to be part of the main audio all the time.”

As familiar as some—or all—of this year’s audio trends are, they are playing an important role in shaping the future of broadcasting, even if their full implementation is not happening just yet.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance announced a software update for its Axia Quasar XR and SR line of audio-over-IP (AoIP) mixing consoles and will show the offering at the 2025 NAB Show, April 5-9, in Las Vegas.

Quasar V3.2 offers several improvements for Quasar Soft, the optional HTML5 browser-based remote-control solution for XR and SR consoles. Prior to the update, control was available only with hardware surfaces, the company said.

Quasar Soft users now can use Call Control to operate their Telos VX broadcast telephone systems and Intercom Control to manage a Telos Infinity intercom system. The update also adds 32 user-programmable hot keys in the full monitor section, as well as four user-programmable hot keys on each channel strip to control external devices. The benefits also extend to Quasar Engine RPS, which uses Quasar Soft to control connected surfaces or to create a standalone mixer without the need for a hardware surface, it said.

“Our goal is to provide the same features and user experience to all Axia Quasar users whether they are mixing on a physical XR or SR console, employing Quasar Soft to control a hardware surface, or using Quasar Soft as a standalone mixer,” Telos Alliance senior product manager Luca LaRosa said.

“The Quasar V3.2 update bridges the gap between the hardware and soft surface experience, allowing customers to choose the platform that works best for them, knowing that the features and capabilities they expect will be there.”

Quasar Soft also offers new slider-type faders and dynamic scaling of the browser window, providing an improved interface and user experience with less scrolling, particularly on smaller monitors, tablets and mobile devices, it said.

The company said it expects to become available March 31 from Axia channel partners.

See Telos Alliance at 2025 NAB Show booth N721.

More information is available on the company’s website.

NEW YORK—SwXtch.io, a wholly owned subsidiary of IEX Group, said it is working with Telos Alliance to enable scalable broadcast intercom in the cloud with very low latency.

The solution provides broadcasters with the same features, functionality and mission-critical performance they are accustomed to from their on-prem environments. The swXtch.io cloudSwXtch intelligent media network will provide the multicast connectivity and elasticity required to provide clear, real-time communications across multiple teams and locations, swXtch.io said.

The first live deployment of the technical collaboration occurred this summer with coverage of a major sports event. The cloudSwXtch network served as the gateway to help live production teams from a major global broadcaster and a regional sports network use Telos Infinity VIP’s virtual intercom platform, it said.

Telos Infinity VIP eliminates the traditional intercom matrix, bringing live voice and contribution audio into the IT backbone without concern over exceeding the number of available ports. Its networked architecture allows broadcasters and content producers to recreate a multipoint on-prem intercom configuration within a virtual environment, swXtch.io said.

CloudSwXtch simplifies the connectivity of Telos Infinity VIP software panels from Europe, North America and elsewhere with the physical on-prem communications system while eliminating delays in live voice communications. The virtual panel architecture also allows production teams to support multi-language broadcasts, it said.

“cloudSwXtch’s multicast-switching capabilities, unavailable in other systems we tested, enables seamless connectivity in the cloud in ways that replicate the local area network functionality broadcasters have long relied on when using their on-prem intercom systems,” Telos Alliance Vice President of Business Development Martin Dyster said.

“Multicast connectivity sharply reduces the network traffic that results in very noticeable delay, reducing latency from up to 10 seconds to mere milliseconds and enabling real-time conversation without clipping and interruption,” Dyster added. “CloudSwXtch removes the clunky methodology that we would otherwise have to employ to make this work in a far-less-effective manner, and effectively positions Telos Infinity VIP as a truly enterprise-level virtual intercom platform.”

The companies will continue to collaborate on cloud-networking ecosystem initiatives with a focus on helping TV and radio broadcasters seamlessly extend on-prem systems to the cloud, swXtch.io said.

More information is available via the company’s website.

A reliable intercom system is the glue that holds live production together. In our latest Guide to Intercoms, we take a look at the evolution of intercom systems and how they have adapted to the challenges of today's live production environment.

Download your free guide here

CLEVELAND, Ohio—Telos Alliance will spotlight its new Media Solutions Initiative products, solutions and personnel at the 2024 NAB Show New York, Oct. 9-10, at the Javits Center in New York City.

“In today’s media environment, settling for good enough audio processing is definitely not good enough to retain your audience,” Telos Alliance M&E strategy adviser Costa Nikols said. “The audio requirement for today’s TV broadcaster isn’t just meeting standards, it’s about surpassing viewers’ expectations to deliver exciting, compelling audio with every program.” 

“Telos Alliance is focused on helping broadcasters deliver the most engaging content possible,” he added. “Today’s viewers are demanding better loudness control, better language options and immersive audio. We’re highlighting our new Media Solutions Initiative at NAB New York to let broadcasters know that the tools they need to achieve these goals are available from a single, trusted source.”

Attendees visiting the Telos Alliance booth will be able to meet Nikols, Sharon Quigley and other members of the company’s Media Solutions team. Telos Alliance will highlight how the automated, file-based Minnetonka Audio AudioTools Server software seamlessly integrates into a larger Next Generation Audio (NGA) processing workflow, the company said.

The company will also show its new Infinity VIP Virtual Commentator Panel (VCP), which replicates physical commentator panels in the virtual domain and makes commentary and intercom features available via any computer, tablet or smartphone, it said.

Telos Alliance will also introduce the new family of Linear Acoustic AERO-series DTV audio processors, the new Axia StudioCore console engine, StudioEge high-density I/O endpoint device, Telos VX Duo broadcast VoIP telephone, Telos Zephyr Connect multi-codec gateway software, Omnia Forza FM audio processing software and Axia Quasar AoIP mixing consoles, it said.

See Telos Alliance at 2024 NAB Show New York booth 1308.

More information is available on the company’s website.

With the proliferation of platforms, content owners have never-before-available opportunities to monetize their content in ways that reach consumers on their preferred viewing devices. However, making the most of those opportunities isn't without its challenges.

Traditional media workflows were never designed to deal with all of the subtleties that must be taken into consideration before a piece of content created originally for a viewing experience, such as in the home on an HDTV, can be monetized for audiences watching on their smartphone or tablet.

The secret to success is finding workflow methods that leverage tools such as AI and ML to automate reworking content for new platforms, thereby preserving revenues that otherwise would shoulder the added expense of manually repurposing content.

In this September 2024 Webcast, TV Tech Contributing Editor Phil Kurz and Costa Nikols, Exec-Team Strategy Adviser, M&E Telos Alliance, discuss the challenges and opportunities in optimizing content monetization.

PORTLAND, Ore.—Audinate Group has announced that cloud-based solutions from Calrec, Gallery Sienna, LAMA, Lawo, and Telos Alliance have been added to the growing list of applications that support native Dante audio in cloud-based production workflows. 

The recently released SDK for Dante Connect enables software developers to build Dante audio transmission and reception natively into their cloud-based applications, Audinate reported. 

Calrec, Gallery Sienna, LAMA, Lawo, and Telos Alliance join the expanding ecosystem of cloud-based software applications to choose direct integration of Dante into their applications. Integrating Dante directly into cloud-based applications enables end customers to connect any existing Dante hardware or software to cloud-based software applications using Dante Connect, the companies said. 

These new Dante integrations give broadcasters and audio engineers a vast array of new products to choose from when building cloud-based Dante audio production workflows. 

The new integrations join existing Dante-native cloud-based tools from Solid State Logic and Waves, as well as solutions connected by Dante Virtual Soundcard from Grass Valley, Harrison, Riedel, and Vizrt. The ecosystem now includes eleven professional tools that broadcasters can selectively integrate into their workflows, Audinate reported. 

Following its development preview at NAB 2024, Calrec joins Audiotonix’s sister company, Solid State Logic, with the integration of a cloud-based DSP mixing engine and software on demand, which will make its debut at IBC 2024 in Amsterdam. Calrec’s ImPulseV, hosted entirely in a public cloud environment like AWS can be accessed from anywhere in the world and is suitable for all broadcast audio production workflows. It delivers the same audio quality and feature set as Calrec’s hardware-based ImPulse processing cores.

“By using Dante Connect, we give customers maximum flexibility for audio production with an on-premise Calrec hardware and cloud-based audio DSP mixing engine,” says Henry Goodman, director of product management at Calrec. “As new cloud functionality and flexibility is adopted by our customers, Calrec continues to develop and deploy new audio equipment and software designed to exceed customer demands.”

Gallery Sienna has integrated Dante into the Sienna ND Processing Engine. Dante support enables broadcasters using a variety of video protocols, including NDI and SRT to seamlessly bridge embedded audio streams to Dante Native systems in their workflow.

"As we see the growth of cloud-based workflows, dedicated audio mixing platforms are increasingly required, and many of these are native Dante", says Mark Gilbert, chief technology officer of Gallery Sienna. "Adding Dante support to the industry standard infrastructure platform, Sienna ND Processing Engine connects the embedded audio in video streams with Dante-based mixing platforms and also adds new mechanisms for remote contribution of Dante audio from the ground to the cloud, along with remote monitoring of cloud-based Dante streams."

LAMA, Lean And Mean Audio BV, brings Dante integration to their software-based audio solutions to enable new options for audio mixing in broadcast productions. 

“Audio production and orchestration is critical to broadcast productions and cloud-based software solutions give engineers and A1s new options for additional flexibility,” says Ewan Cameron, co-founder and chief commercial officer of LAMA. “Adding native Dante connectivity within LAMA Connect enables broadcasters to quickly connect existing Dante hardware to the cloud-based software toolset.”

Lawo brings Dante integration to their HOME Apps platform to support productions, including television broadcast and on-air radio, performing arts, houses of worship, and professional AV. 

“The integration of Dante into HOME Apps is an important milestone for Lawo’s open, unified HOME platform,” states Jamie Dunn, Lawo’s Deputy CEO. “Providing Dante integration on a server-based microservice level yields a vast range of creative benefits for operators as it helps them navigate the transition to future-proof hardware-abstracted processing.”

Telos Alliance adds Dante into the cloud-based Telos Infinity VIP intercom system, the first professional intercom system to support cloud-based Dante workflows.

“Adding Dante to the Telos Infinity VIP intercom system enables customers to expand the integration of additional audio signals from any Dante device into the Telos Infinity intercom network,” says John Schur, president of Media Solutions. “This provides customers the flexibility and scalability of intercom systems without the requirement of additional hardware costs.” 

Using the Dante SDK, software developers get free access to send and receive Dante audio to any Dante-enabled hardware and software. This enables end users to send audio from existing on-premises Dante hardware to cloud-based mixers, DSPs, and orchestration software, providing maximum flexibility in configuration. 

Licensing for Dante audio support is managed by Dante Connect, freeing developers to add functionality without additional costs. End customers license Dante Connect, enabling native Dante connections and cloud-based Dante Virtual Soundcard integrations. 

To learn more about Dante Connect, visit IBC Booth 8.A95 or go to www.getdante.com/DanteConnect.  

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance has launched a new Media Solutions initiative, which it will present for the first time at IBC2024, Sept 13-16 at the RAI Amsterdam.

“In order for Telos Alliance to increase our presence and expand our influence in the Media & Entertainment markets, we have created Media Solutions as an initiative that will focus on delivering Jünger, Minnetonka Audio and Linear Acoustic into television & media markets outside of radio,” said Costa Nikol, Exec-Team Strategy Advisor, Media & Entertainment for Telos Alliance. “This includes having dedicated R&D, Sales, Marketing and Customer Services resources focused on the Television, Media and Entertainment customer base—along with dedicated management led by John Schur, President of Media Solutions on the executive level."

Although the company won’t be branding any of its products under the “Media Solutions” moniker, “having dedicated teams allows us to be better equipped to listen to market trends and demands, while maintaining the trusted brands that our customers already know,” Nikol added.

Scott Rothenberg, SVP of Technology and Capital Planning at global media solutions leader NEP Group, said: “Media companies are under more pressure to deliver unique, personalized experiences to audiences across new platforms and geographies. To achieve this level of customization at scale, content providers need to ensure Next Generation Audio is at the core of live production workflows. We share the same vision as Telos Alliance when it comes to championing audio that makes audiences feel more valued – and drives greater value.”

“Just ‘good enough’ audio doesn’t cut it in the competitive media landscape anymore — delivering exceptional audio quality is fundamental to engaging and retaining audiences,” said Telos Alliance CEO Scott Stiefel. “Despite rapid innovation in ultra-high quality video and immersive on-screen experiences, broadcast audio is overlooked far too often. Content providers need more support in seamlessly enabling Next Generation Audio technologies that transform auditory experiences. Our Media Solutions products empower brands to wow audiences and brings our business closer to established and new customers.”

Telos Alliance’s Media Solutions initiative will pioneer Next Generation Audio (NGA) technologies, enabling content providers to provide immersive, personalized audio that captivates and retains viewers. According to Telos, more than one billion consumer devices already support Next Generation Audio, a standard that enables personalized, accessible and interactive experiences by allowing individual viewer devices to engage with the playback system and customize the output based on user preferences, accessibility requirements, or changing listening environments.

Whether media is consumed via in-ear headphones, soundbars or multi-speaker setups, NGA enables intuitive, user-centric features such as enhanced dialogue and sound clarity, advanced volume customization for those with hearing impairments, and commentary and audio track selection for users to choose different commentators for sports events or select alternative language tracks for their favorite shows.

Telos Alliance will debut a range of pioneering Next Generation Audio advancements at IBC2024, introducing several new product lines and enhancements across Jünger and Linear Acoustic brands. The company will also showcase new AI modules within the Minnetonka AudioTools solution suite that drive production efficiencies and cleaner, richer audio experiences across live sports and entertainment programming.

Telos Alliance will be in Stand 8.D37. For more information, visit https://show.ibc.org/

Missed any of our recent product news? Here is TV Tech's weekly wrap-up of new products, services and deployments we published in our newsletter between August 5 to August 9. The stories are listed from the newest on Friday August 2, day by day back to our stories from Monday August 5. 

Telemundo Takes VR Studio Tech from Miami to the Paris Olympics

Telemundo's virtual reality studio in Miami uses Unreal Engine and Chyron to provide a "photo-realistic look" that shows small details of the Paris landscape like the "wind in the trees".

Haivision To Feature Live Video Contribution at IBC 2024 

The company will show the latest developments in its live contribution ecosystem.

Imaginario AI To Demo Video Indexing, Search, Curation At IBC 2024

The company will show its multimodal artificial intelligence solution in the AI Tech Zone.

AI: The Unsung Hero of Olympic Sports

Can AI sustain Olympic revenue during and between Games?

A New Take on Reflectors: Cine Reflect Lighting Systems

The need for better tools has inspired lighting innovation.

Disney+ Launches Nat Geo Immersive Environment for Apple Vision Pro

Disney+ has announced that subscribers to the streaming service can now experience a new immersive environment from National Geographic with the Disney+ app on Apple Vision Pro.

Wheatstone to Showcase Blade 4 at IBC 2024

The expanded capabilities of the 4th generation AoIP Blade 4 include high speed transport protocol to routable audio codecs, audio processing, scripting, and studio control in 1RU.

Telos Alliance To Feature Next Generation AERO DTV Audio Processors At IBC Show

The AERO.20, AERO.200 and AERO.2400 include new features like AoIP support via AES67.

Finding The ‘Boun-dairies’ For AI In Media

TV channels are using AI-generated presenters to read the news. The question is, will we trust them?

M&E’s Embrace of AI Dampens Potential for Damage Mitigation

Amid the hype, industry struggles to establish guidance and guardrails.

Google TV Streamer Launches at $99.99

The new Google TV Streamer offers an AI-powered, personalized 4K HDR streaming with Dolby Vision Dolby Atmos and a smart home experience.

2024 IBC Show to Focus on AI, Business and Tech Innovation

IBC President Michael Crimp previews the upcoming gathering.

Mediaproxy To Show AI-Powered Captioning, Transcription for LogServer At IBC 2024

LogServer now supports AI-Media Technologies LEXI Recorded and Skyline Communications DataMiner.

Kramer Buys ZeeVee To Expand AVoIP Portfolio

ZeeVee’s expertise in AVoIP will expand Kramer’s product lineup and accelerate growth.

EVS Invests in TinkerList

EVS becomes a shareholder in the broadcast software provider as part of its strategy of offering simplified live production solutions.

XR Extreme Reach, Roku Expand Streaming Ad Partnership

The expanded collaboration allows advertisers to link all ads on the Roku platform to performance outcomes.

Arkona, Manifold Partner To Show EASY-IP At IBC 2024

EASY-IP combines arkona’s BLADE//runner and manifold’s CLOUD routing, processing and multiview tool.

CLEVELAND, Ohio—Telos Alliance today announced shipments have begun of the Linear Acoustic AERO.20, AERO.200 AND AERO.2400 DTV audio processors and that it will show the products during IBC 2024, Sept. 13-16, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

“We are thrilled to announce that the AERO.20, AERO.200, and AERO.2400 are now shipping and immediately available to our customers,” said Larry Schindel, Linear Acoustic product manager. 

Unveiled prior to the 2024 NAB Show, the DTV audio processors replace the AERO.10, AERO.100 and AERO.2000 models, the company said.

The AERO.20, AERO.200, and AERO.2400 offer the same loudness control, upmixing, Nielsen and Verance Aspect audience measurement watermarking, Dolby coding and flexible local audio insertion for EAS and text-to-speech as their predecessors. They also introduce several important, new features, including:

• Dual independent 3G SDI I/O paths to support 1080p signals
• AoIP via AES67 for SMPTE ST 2110-30 support as well as Livewire+
• User-selectable metering and logging options for EBU R 128 or ATSC A/85.

“Television broadcasters worldwide have trusted Linear Acoustic AERO processors to provide compliant, top-quality audio to their viewers for over 20 years; these new products continue that legacy while adding more advanced I/O, including Livewire+ AES67 AoIP,” said Schindel.

See Telos Alliance at IBC 2024 Stand 8.D37.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Missed any of our recent product news? Here is TV Tech's weekly wrap-up of new products, services and deployments we published in our newsletter between July 22 and July 26. The stories are listed from the newest on Friday July 26, day by day back to our stories from Monday July 22.

Telos Alliance Unveils StudioCore, StudioEdge

Telos Alliance has introduced StudioCore and StudioEdge—both members of the company’s Axia lineup of AoIP studio consoles and accessories.

Bitcentral Integrates Pixalate Analytics Into ViewNexa

Bitcentral has integrated Pixalate’s ad fraud protection, privacy and compliance analytics solution Post-Bid Analytics and Reporting into its ViewNexa streaming platform.

Anton/Bauer Unveils VCLX LI 1600 Power Supply for Cinematographers

Anton/Bauer has launched its VCLX LI 1600, the latest evolution in its VCLX range of block battery systems. The new battery delivers more power than ever from a lightweight and IP65-rated weatherproof unit, the company said.

Nielsen’s Gracenote Enters Contextual CTV Ad Business

Gracenote is now working with Peer39, Magnite, Cannella Media, Ocean Media, DirecTV Advertising, Tastemade, Xumo and others to improve contextual advertising.

What Role Does VVC Have in the Future of Over-the-Air TV?

Recent panel discussion explores ATSC's consideration of the VVC (Versatile Video Coding) candidate standard to include in 3.0. 

Dejero to Showcase its ‘Smart Blending Technology’ at 2024 IBC Show

The company will also mark the IBC debut of its new GateWay 3220 compact network aggregation device.

Alibaba Cloud, OBS Launch AI-Fueled OBS Cloud 3.0 for Paris Olympics

In a notable milestone in the use of cloud-based services at the Olympics, Alibaba Cloud and Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), has today announced the launch of OBS Cloud 3.0 for the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

FCC Launches New Mobile Speed Test App

The Federal Communications Commission has announced the launch of its new Mobile Speed Test app. The new app features an enhanced user interface that makes challenging the accuracy of the provider-reported mobile coverage data even easier.

LiveU Reports Vital Role in Covering UK Election

Company says 180 broadcasters and news agencies from 40 countries deployed its IP video gear.

Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle Launches

Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced the launch of their long-awaited premium streaming bundle for the United States. 

Scripps' Incident Management Planning Minimizes CrowdStrike Disruptions

While some news operations were affected, tech support prep and Macs limited the problems.

Astera to Showcase LunaBulb LED Light at 2024 IBC Show

Astera, a German-based developer of light solutions for film, event and TV markets, will showcase its range of LED-based lighting gear, including its new LunaBulb, at the 2024 IBC Show, Sept. 13-16 at the RAI Amsterdam.

Brazil’s SBTVD Forum Recommends ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer For Nation’s TV 3.0 OTA Service

The SBTVD Forum, the non-profit organization that advises the Brazilian government on digital television and policy matters, is recommending the selection of the ATSC 3.0 physical layer as the over-the-air transmission system for the nation’s TV 3.0 next-generation terrestrial broadcast service, ATSC said.

RAI Taps Clear-Com for New Intercom Setup

Clear-Com has announced that it worked with Video Progetti to deliver an advanced intercom solution for Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), Italy’s state broadcaster.

Sencore to Feature Latest Internet Distribution, Contribution Advancements at IBC Show

The company also will show its latest developments in encoding, decoding and monitoring.

NBC Sports Taps Comcast Technology Solutions for Olympics Coverage

NBC Sports has announced that it will be using Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) to provide multiscreen video management and delivery for its production of the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics.

QuickLink To Highlight StudioPro 4K Video Production Solution At IBC Show

QuickLink will show its QuickLink StudioPro 4K video production platform at IBC 2024, Sept. 13-16, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

IBC 2024 Sees European Debut of Proton Cam, World’s Smallest Camera

Miniaturized camera specialist Proton Camera Innovations will be bringing Proton Cam, which the company bills as the world’s smallest broadcast camera, to the IBC Show, Sept. 13-16, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

Gray Television To Enhance Paris Olympics NextGen TV Signal With HDR, Immersive Audio

The broadcast group will offer NextGen TV viewers in eight of its NBC markets the Paris Olympics in HDR when they open Wednesday, July 24. Viewers in three of those markets also will be able to listen to immersive audio of the games.

Lawo To Launch Home mc² DSP App Audio Engine At IBC Show

Lawo will make the official launch of HOME mc² DSP app, first announced at the NAB Show in April, at IBC 2024, Sept. 13-16, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

DMC Productions Leverages GV AMPP-Based Workflow for Nordic Tennis Tournament

DMC Productions has deployed a remote production workflow that processes all signals on site as opposed to transporting them for off-site processing based on Grass Valley AMPP for the 2024 Nordea Open tennis tournament, July 8-21, the company said.

Amazon Prime Video Acquires Bray Film Studios in the U.K.

The studio has been the production home for the second season of the Prime Video series `The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ since 2022.

Paramount Advertising Brings AI-Generated Ads to Pluto TV, Paramount+

Powered by generative AI partner Waymark, Paramount's new Paramount Ads Manager creates CTV ads based on images, text, and videos derived from a business’s website.

Perifery Introduces AI+ 2.0 Suite of Tools

Perifery has launched AI+ 2.0, an AI-powered suite for media professionals to revitalize their existing content libraries with AI-generated metadata.

FOR-A to Spotlight Software-Defined IP Solutions At IBC Show

FOR-A will show spotlight software-defined IP solutions and hybrid production at the IBC Show, Sept. 13-16, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance has introduced StudioCore and StudioEdge—both members of the company’s Axia lineup of AoIP studio consoles and accessories.

StudioCore is the successor to the company’s QOR.32 engine and will serve as the new engine for the Axia iQ, Radius, RAQ and DESQ control surfaces. The new engine maintains the 24-channel mixing engine from the QOR.32, an internal power supply and 5-port Ethernet switch but adds an 8-channel monitor matrix system. It also offers a Livewire+ AES67 stream capacity of 32 inputs and 32 outputs, the company said.

StudioEdge is a high-density I/O device the complements the Axia xNode family of products. It can be used as an all-in-one I/O solution in control rooms of any size, or as an ingest station or routing and monitoring solution in TOCs and machine rooms, it said.

Both new products are built on a common 2RU fanless hardware platform that includes an integrated 5-port Ethernet switch with PoE, and a 5-inch color IPS LCD touchscreen display for complete local control of routing, I/O, and audio levels, Telos Alliance said.

I/O includes four selectable mic/line inputs, eight dedicated line inputs and outputs and three digital inputs and outputs that are user-configurable as AES/EBU, S/PDIF, and USB Audio, which eliminates the need for an IP driver for stereo applications. There are two headphone outputs with independent DACs and built-in amplifiers, a built-in audio file player via USB data port and four GPI/O ports. A second internal power supply is optionally available. 

“Both StudioCore and StudioEdge provide the flexible architecture our customers have been asking for, with features like an I/O expansion slot, USB Audio I/O, two powerful headphone amps, and a built-in USB file player,” said Luca LaRosa, Telos Alliance senior product manager.

Both products are due to be available from the Telos Alliance network of Axia channel partners in September.

More information is available on the company’s website.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance has announced the Infinity Virtual Commentator Panel, a new addition to the Telos Infinity VIP Virtual Intercom Platform. Infinity VCP is a unique extension to the VIP product family that enables remote contributors to access a commentary or announcer station from anywhere in the world through the VIP intercom platform. 

Built-in features include the ability to mute the on-air microphone feed when using comms or speaking “off air”, and create a custom monitor mix of IFB, program, mix-minus, and aux sources - each with individual gain controls - all available while still using dedicated VIP intercom keys, the company reported. 

“Virtual Commentator Panel is a new form of VIP panel with a dedicated and familiar feature set that any voice artist, commentator, or TV or radio reporter will instantly recognize and understand,” said Martin Dyster, Telos Alliance vice president of business development and Infinity product director. “Infinity VIP was designed to be used for traditional communications, but our customers recognized and valued the platform's unique potential for remote on-air contribution; VCP delivers that functionality with a combination of intercom and dedicated contributor-specific features.” 

Like other Infinity VIP panels, the Virtual Commentator Panel is accessible from any computer, tablet, or smartphone using an HTML5 browser, or on iPhone and Android smartphones via the VIP App. For situations where a traditional hardware controller is preferred, VCP seamlessly integrates with the popular Elgato Stream Deck + through a dedicated Stream Deck plug-in, the company explained. 

VCP requires the recently released V3.0 Infinity VIP software to enable it as an optional licensed feature. It is available immediately in four, eight, and 12-button configurations through Telos Alliance’s worldwide network of Telos Infinity channel partners.

To learn more about Infinity VIP, visit https://telosalliance.com/vip. 

Broadcasting is all about communicating to and with the viewing audience. A big part of making this happen is the ability for production teams, technical crew and on-air talent to communicate with each other. Which is why intercom has always been a key technology, albeit one with fairly humble beginnings. But from relatively simple systems for studio communications, with facilities to talk to incoming sources, it has grown into both a continually developing technical area and a substantial business sector.

Part of this can be attributed to the expanding scale of TV production, not just bigger and more elaborate shows but also the ever growing use of remote access through IP networks and the cloud. This has seen REMI (REMote Integration) become a major consideration for intercom installations, although most manufacturers regard it as something that is already well-established in live production.

Smaller Crews
The difference today, says Dave MacKinnon, recently appointed vice president of product management at Clear-Com, is that whereas such a set-up would have been “very well planned out” 10 years ago, broadcasters are now working on a more “run and gun” basis.

“More productions are being done by either one person or a small production team,” explains MacKinnon, who came to Clear-Com after a career that began with the federal government and continued with 12 years at NBCUniversal. “And because of increased bandwidth and 5G, the production center doesn’t have to be in the city the show is coming out of. In the last few years the economics of broadcasting have changed dramatically, with many broadcasters wanting to spin up FAST channels to extend the value of what they are doing.”

As part of this, MacKinnon adds, “flexibility and interoperability” are the two main features broadcasters expect from modern intercom systems. Both these criteria are highlighted by John Hooper, president of Eartec, which produces a range of wireless headsets that can be connected to wired intercoms using the company’s digital interface module.

Eartec’s “plug and play solution includes software to balance the signals of the existing wired intercom and Eartec’s full duplex wireless transceivers to create a seamless audio link,” Hooper says. “We’re also seeing a growth in demand for long-range communication and offer [Eartec’s] Global Connect system for wireless communication over IP. This is linked to a computer or even a smartphone and allows mobile wireless users to communicate in full duplex through the internet.”

Eartec recently announced the availability of its new UltraLITE PRO16, a full duplex wireless headset aimed at larger crew sizes.

REMI Workflows
Rick Seegull, senior vice president of technology and business development at Riedel Communications, adds scalability and reliability to the list of requirements along with flexibility and interoperability. “Of course, there is a major IP component to provide for these features and most are converging to a SMPTE ST 2110-based system so they can easily share resources and sources—for everything, not just intercom—without creating technology islands,” he says.

REMI workflows have been at the forefront of broadcaster’s needs in live location work for several years, Seegull adds.

“This has escalated exponentially since 2020 and now become a standard component for live events, as is At-Home production allowing operators not only to be in the broadcast control room as opposed to on-site but now even being at home whenever the need arises,” he says. “Scalable intercom systems over WAN via VoIP [voice over IP] connectivity or even uncompressed, extreme low latency connections with panels linked anywhere in the world, which allows operators to use the same components they would in the broadcast truck at the venue only back at the main control room or even at home.”

Increasing Interest in Cloud Connectivity
As for the cloud, Seegull comments that it is “definitely being discussed” and used more when it comes to intercoms. This growing interest in virtualized and de-centralized hosting for intercom operations is confirmed by Martin Dyster, vice president of business development at Telos Alliance, which has been a leading proponent of cloud-based communications in recent years.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth and increased interest in this area,” he says. “It’s not necessarily because people are getting into cloud production per se or building entire systems around cloud-based audio and video technology, although those customers exist. People recognize the benefits of a virtualized comms system in being able to deploy an intercom panel at the drop of a hat to anybody anywhere in the world without the overhead of boxing up a piece of hardware, shipping it round it world and relying on someone to hook it up remotely.”

Telos has “worked closely” with the Media and Entertainment team at AWS to determine “best practices” for larger cloud workflows, according to Dyster. “We’ve also worked with technology partners to get over some of the hurdles of moving multicasts between elastic cloud computing instances [a virtual server or computing environment], which, up until now, has been very difficult to do. The partnership with AWS is very positive and they chose us as the comms partner for its delivery of the NAB Show LIVE broadcasts.”

As Michael Brown, business development manager at RTS, observes, one of the first questions asked when people discuss the cloud is: “Whose cloud?” The options are, he says, hardware on-premises or bringing in a third party to oversee the connections set-up. “Other questions that must be answered include “who is responsible for reliable connectivity and who is liable if there are missed commercial inserts when an automated update to another network occurs?’” he muses. “As well as answering these questions, the technology must be proven before a totally cloud-based comms systems is deployed on a high profile, high value production.”

Brown envisions a hybrid design, with a hardware backbone and cloud connectivity “as an adjunct and secondary usage for non-critical communications.”

Gary Rosen, vice president of global sales for wireless intercom developer Pliant Technologies, calls cloud-based intercom products “a great enhancement to an existing infrastructure” but is not convinced it will become the dominant technology for communications, at least in the short-term. “With so many factors needed to make cloud devices work external to the venue, and given the reliability of on-site systems, I don’t believe current systems will be replaced with cloud-based intercom in the near future.”

Options for cloud operations, Rosen adds, include dedicated and hosted servers, which are either in-house or provided by the likes of AWS and Google. AEQ has taken a different approach to most broadcast manufacturers by offering a dedicated cloud service that was created for the company’s systems.

“We manage it and is our own cloud, providing support to our intercom systems with full back-up and no other material on it,” explains sales director Gustavo Robles. “The cloud is very popular because it offers the possibility to interconnect remote locations in a very easy way. But there are still big projects for big customers that demand a traditional, robust, mega-redundant central matrix with dedicated hardware.”

Despite this, Robles acknowledges, requirements are changing, with users deploying what suits the productions, including utilizing smartphones or wearables as wireless beltpacks. The shifting nature of intercom is also shown by Riedel connecting analog microphones to a Bolero wireless intercom beltpack for interview work; and Telos’s prototype combined comms and commentary software panel, which can be controlled either by a touch screen or a hardware box such as the new Elgato Stream Deck Neo.

Which shows that in many ways broadcast intercom is the same as it has always been but is also evolving as new technologies appear to meet broadcaster’s needs.

CLEVELAND, Ohio—Telos Alliance is launching their latest series of television audio processors, the Linear Acoustic AERO.20, AERO.200, and AERO.2400. The new processors will  be featured at the company’s booth (C1808) at the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 14-17.

The processors represent the latest and most advanced offerings in the long-running Linear Acoustic AERO lineup and are the direct replacements for the AERO.10, AERO.100, and AERO.2000 products, which are being deprecated. 

AERO.20, AERO.200, and AERO.2400 offer the same trusted loudness control, upmixing, Nielsen and Verance Aspect audience measurement watermarking, Dolby coding, and flexible local audio insertion for EAS and text-to-speech as their predecessors, but introduce several new and important features, the company said. These include dual independent 3G SDI I/O paths to support 1080p signals, user-selectable metering and logging options for EBU R 128 or ATSC A/85, and an updated Windows 10 IoT operating system to provide additional security features.

“Television broadcasters around the world have trusted Linear Acoustic AERO processors for over twenty years to provide the best-sounding and compliant TV audio possible for their viewers, and their versatility, reliability, and audio quality is unmatched,” said Larry Schindel, Linear Acoustic Product Manager. “AERO.20, AERO.200, and AERO.2400 continue that legacy while adding more flexible and advanced I/O, routing options, and security.” 

The AERO.20, AERO.200, and AERO.2400 will be available through Linear Acoustic channel partners in Q2 2024.

Telos Alliance says it will add support for Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos encoding to its Linear Acoustic LA-5300 Broadcast Audio Processor. 

The LA-5300 turnkey solution provides loudness control, upmixing, optional Nielsen and Verance Aspect watermark encoding, and Next Generation Audio using Dolby AC-4, all while maintaining these same processing and watermarking capabilities for their 2- and 5.1-channel HD signals using Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus encoding, according to Telos.

An upcoming software update for the LA-5300 will make it possible to add Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos encoding—aka Dolby Digital Plus with JOC (Joint Object Encoding)—as a licensed option. This will allow broadcasters not using the Dolby AC-4 codec to deliver object-based immersive audio to streaming services or UHD cable and satellite feeds.

“The ability to provide the option of Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos greatly expands the usefulness of the LA-5300 and positions it as a universal television audio processor and encoder,” said Larry Schindel, Linear Acoustic Product Manager. “Whether you’re an over-the-air broadcaster using Dolby AC-4 to provide immersive audio or distributing immersive content via over-the-top or streaming platforms using Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos, the LA-5300 delivers.” 

A single LA-5300 can handle up to four programs and provide unique encoded streams for the main program audio, SAP, and video descriptive services. The software update enabling the Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos option in the LA-5300 will be available by the end of Q2 2024 through Telos’ network of Linear Acoustic channel partners. 

CLEVELAND—The Telos Alliance has announced that thought leaders from the company will be participating in several presentations and discussions at the SBE Ennes Workshop taking place in conjunction with the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

On April 12, chief technical officer Greg Shay will deliver a presentation entitled “The Various Flavors of AOIP: Dante, AES67, Livewire, and Wheatnet”, in which the latest compatibility breakthroughs and capabilities of these four major Audio-over-IP formats will be discussed, and their utilization inside professional media examined.

The next day, April 13, Telos Alliance vice president of business development Martin Dyster, along with senior solutions consultant Kirk Harnack, will present “IP Execution in Internal Comms: IFB, Hybrids, Telephones, and a Cloud-Based Future,” a look at internal communications systems within production and broadcast facilities, including IFB systems, the past and future of hybrids and IP phone systems, and how IP-based communications are being implemented into cloud and hybrid applications.

“One reason I love broadcast engineering is that we're persistently looking at new technologies to see whether they'd be a good fit in our broadcast systems,” says Harnack. “And when you find exciting new ways to accomplish things, to simplify tasks that used to require concerted effort, it’s rewarding to share them with your colleagues. That’s one reason I love being part of the SBE Ennes Workshop: it embodies the free flow of ideas, information, and technology that’s necessary for broadcasters to remain on that leading edge. It’s a thrill!”

More NAB news and information is available here and by visiting Booth #C1808 in the Central Hall at NAB 2024 to see the latest broadcast innovations from Telos Alliance. 

It will come as no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI), virtualization and the cloud will be the major trends dominating the agenda at this year’s NAB Show. This applies as much to audio as it does to the visually oriented contingent that will be at the exhibition but the sound side is seeing some very different or specific applications of these shared technologies.

When it comes to audio mixing consoles, virtualization and cloud processing are “weekly conversations,” according to Henry Goodman, director of product management at Calrec Audio. “The majority of people want to talk about what will happen in the future with those technologies and how they might benefit from those kinds of workflows,” he says.

Another hot topic, Goodman adds, is, almost inevitably, AI. “It’s an area we’re all  looking at with a great deal of interest,” he comments, “and we’re looking at it to see how it can provide benefits for us.

“On the console side, the area that would interest us is providing facilities that offer some kind of assistive mechanisms for the operators. It could be for balancing external feeds coming in or providing standardized EQ for certain types of microphones. It’s not something that is at the forefront of our development programme right now but we’re definitely keeping a close eye on it.”

AI and cloud processing were highlighted by other manufacturers in TV Tech’s focus on audio mixing consoles in the January edition of TV Tech ("Audio Mixing in the Age of Remote Production") As with many technologies, virtualized mixing and processing is not an entirely new technology; it is now being used increasingly in radio, with Telos Alliance company Axia supplying consoles for one of the first implementations, the BBC ViLOR project, completed in 2019.

‘Headless Mixing’
Martin Dyster, vice president of business development for TV at Telos Alliance, highlights another trend that, although it first appeared elsewhere in the world decades ago, is now gaining traction in the U.S.

 “Audio follow Video [AFV] is becoming increasingly prevalent, particularly in live news at local stations,” he says. (The AFV concept  involves automatically adjusting the timing of audio signals to match the timing of corresponding video signals.)

“In some instances the consoles aren’t even a surface, they’re completely under the automation control of the orchestration layer managing the show,” Dyster adds. “This kind of ‘headless’ mixing is not new but the U.S. has caught up with it and it’s becoming widespread there.”

Similarly, Dyster continues, Europe is ahead of the U.S. when it comes to immersive audio, although NBC has broadcast Olympics in some form of immersive audio for the past decades. 

Christian Struck, senior product manager for audio production at Lawo, comments that broadcasters are currently demanding “intuitive and comprehensive immersive audio features,” with the ability to mix over wide area networks plus support for decentralized mixing involving several consoles.

“Just when immersive audio looked all set to take the world by storm, it was put on the back burner by the pandemic,” Struck says. “But it is back in full force, thanks to the ready availability of playback devices, including smartphones and binaural headphones.”

The IP Network
The last few NAB Shows have seen the growth in products that conform to SMPTE ST 2110 for the transport of media streams over IP networks. But, as Phil Owens, senior sales engineer at Wheatstone, outlines, the cloud is the next challenge for the standard.

“We have seen the whole issue of 2110 environments, where a physical installation has two distinct networks, with audio and video on each,” he says. “The audio goes to both simultaneously, so if there is a drop-out on one, it picks up from the other instantly within a frame of audio. But there is now the issue of how a 2110 environment will work in the cloud, which is still in its early stages.”

Wheatstone is also devoting what Owens calls “a great deal of R&D” in its Layers cloud/server software platform for mixing, streaming and processing either at cloud data centers or local servers. However, he also sees more emphasis being put on voice processing, particularly for news and sports coverage.

“Broadcasters can get away with less acoustic treatment or design in the studio and report from environments that they might not have broadcast from in the past because the mic processor can cover a multitude of sins,” Owens said.

Larry Schindel, product manager at Telos Alliance, agrees that processing is “quickly moving” into the virtualized space. “Cloud processing is gaining in popularity as more workflows migrate to the cloud,” he says. “But there is still a large base of customers who prefer to keep everything ‘on prem’ or at least use a bit of a hybrid approach.

“Some of the more common types of processing in use today are loudness control and upmixing but processes like Object-based Audio with Serial ADM [a metadata format for use with Dolby Atmos] and automatic voice-over mixing are also starting to emerge in the marketplace,” Schindel adds.

Software-Driven Processing
Loudness will again be a focus for NUGEN Audio during the NAB Show, with previews of the latest version of its VisLM3 metering plug-in. New features include user-defined program segments, which can be used where multiple integrated measurements are required, such as between ad breaks; support for up to 22.2 audio channels; stem monitoring; and loudness measuring for individual deliverables.

Professional audio is definitely seeing a “shift towards software-driven processing,” according to Will Waters, principal product manager at Audinate. This, he says, “underlines the industry’s commitment to leveraging advanced technology” to meet the evolving demands of broadcast production.

Waters also sees software processors having an increasing role on the intercom side of broadcast production. “This offers broadcasters even more versatility and efficiency in managing their intercom solutions,” he explains. “The evolution of broadcast technology, especially with digital and IP-based systems, has significantly impacted intercom.

“We’re now seeing Dante as part of intercom communications by being integrated into the networked audio infrastructure, enabling any number of audio mixes or routes to exist from the production equipment,” Waters added.

Staying Connected
IP-based intercoms are now well established but, as Martin Dyster at Telos observes, the sector continues to evolve.

“We’ve found an increasing number of customers moving towards either full Live Cloud Production (LCP) or a hybrid of on prem and cloud,” Dyster said. “From the finance angle, and perhaps surprisingly, we’ve witnessed most of our customers adopt the Infinity VIP system via a one-time buyout capital purchase route. But we have also seen increasing interest in subscription models, especially where the intercom is associated with a cloud-driven video production system like Grass Valley AMPP or Viz.”

Some intercom manufacturers were quicker to offer IP systems than others but now all the major brands have at least one system based on the technology.

“I think IP is now firmly in place,” comments Marco Lopez, vice president of engineering at Clear-Com. “There was a natural progression of first standardizing the way we were distributing audio signals across the various infrastructures and now those are being used for digital audio that could be wired but is also a means of achieving wireless audio connectivity where, typically, you would have had to build a network of antennas, especially for very large scale events with many users connecting to that environment.

“From a technology point of view it’s all about the standards now, ensuring we have good connectivity and integration using ST 2110, along with NMOS support. as well as AES67 and Dante,” Lopez added.

With such a variety of technologies and applications to investigate and discuss, it could be that audio is something of a trendsetter in Las Vegas this year (again). 

Register for the 2024 NAB Show, April 14-17 in Las Vegas at https://nabshow.com/2024/

The most significant advances in audio for today's media have emerged from broadcasters' transition to IP and the cloud. More than any other development, audio over IP is expanding the ways audio can be enhanced and customized to expand viewer options. 

 In our latest Guide to Audio, we take a look at how IP is changing the way audio is processed, managed and delivered in today’s broadcast environment and how it is revolutionizing the viewing experience.

Download the free ebook here. 

Audio mixing is and will always be a key component of live broadcast production. How, where and on what kind of equipment it is carried out in the future is not entirely certain but trends are emerging and technology is being established that already give some indication of how the audio console is evolving to meet the changing requirements of broadcasters.

For the time being at least there is still a definite need for big, physical multiple fader sound desks, most especially on large-scale, prestige broadcasts such as premium sports events and entertainment shows. The difference, according to Henry Goodman, director of product management at Calrec Audio, is where the mixing surface is located and where the processing takes place.

‘Distributed Production’
“What we’re seeing is a break in the geographical connection of the control room having to be where the studio is and the operator having to be at the venue,” he says. “If you don’t have to physically tie your operator to the venue or a truck, you can put them in a nicely built studio where they have the space to monitor properly with all the necessary equipment. That changes how you can manage the operator and the equipment, as well as providing greater consistency in the mixing.”

Software and the cloud play major roles in this new arrangement, which Goodman prefers to call distributed production rather than remote production.

“It’s not just remote, it is distributing the different elements of the production in different places,” he explains. “The cloud part is another step along that way. Instead of having your physical DSP processing next to the console or in a central control room, you have it either in a public cloud or on COTS hardware that’s under your control, replacing the traditional DSP engine with a software-based engine. 

“Quite a few of the broadcasters we’re talking to are not necessarily totally sold on public clouds, so building their own private cloud and running software on that in an agile way is quite appealing,” he added.

Calrec’s parent group, Audiotonix, has produced a technology Proof of Concept (PoC) for audio cloud processing that is now providing what is described as the “backbone” of live broadcast consoles being developed by both Calrec and fellow subsidiary Solid State Logic (SSL). 

For Calrec, it involves a RP1 remote production unit at the venue linked to an Argo mixing surface in a control room over Dante Connect, with an Audiotonix New Heights audio DSP mix engine in AWS Cloud. 

“When we started thinking about what we needed for cloud processing we looked across the group for technology we could use, which is why it’s seen as an Audiotonix development,” Goodman says. “Calrec and SSL are working on it at the moment because we’re both operating in the broadcast sector and it’s mainly broadcasters that are driving the need to get audio processing in the cloud.”

Best of Both Worlds
Other leading broadcast audio console manufacturers are also adding their own takes on how to provide more flexibility by splitting up the various aspects of the mix process and putting a substantial part of it in the cloud. Wheatstone’s Layers Software Suite brings mixing, processing and streaming capabilities to any server, either on premises or in an AWS or other cloud data center. 

Senior Sales Engineer Phil Owens comments that in a “typical console system” today, which will be based on audio over IP (AoIP), some of it can be easily virtualized and other parts of it will remain physical.

“But you want the part that’s physical to work in your dream system in the cloud at some point,” he says. “For this we have virtualized the guts of some of our consoles. By that I mean when you sit at a physical console and push a switch or raise a fader, there’s CPU hardware in that console that’s telling the rest of the system what you did. 

“When you virtualize that, you’re still going to push a switch or raise a fader but it’s going to be on a touchscreen and those commands still have to have a CPU that tells the rest of the system you took those action,” Owens continued. “So we have the console virtualized to the extent it will run on a Linux server and you interface to it via a touchscreen, which can communicate with a server in the next room or the next town or in the cloud.”

Lawo has developed the HOME IP management platform as the basis of its audio mixing systems, with various apps for different requirements.

“We have not decided to nudge our customers in any particular direction,” says Christian Struck, senior product manager for audio production. “While these containerized microservices can run in the public cloud if users so wish, they are as effective on standard servers in a data center as on-prem. We like to call data centers that can be accessed from just about anywhere in the world a ‘private cloud,’ which is easier to protect and more affordable with respect to ingress and egress costs.”

Just Getting Started
Even with this activity, it can be said that— as Martin Dyster, vice president of business development for TV at Telos Alliance observes—these are still early days for software and cloud-based mixing. 

Dyster highlights the Audiotonix New Heights project and AWS’s involvement with audio companies, adding Telos is also working with the cloud platform but more for its virtual intercom system. 

“Audio has been left behind when it comes to cloud production and we’re all playing catch up right now,” he says. “I’ve been involved with the cloud for about three years through the comms platform and have become very aware that the landscape around us for cloud-based mixing has been pretty sparse. 

“A lot of broadcasters we talked to early on were using things like REAPER [digital audio workstation] but we weren’t seeing the major console brands you might expect. That’s starting to change now but it’s still not a well populated landscape and it will be interesting to see what develops over the next five years.”

Dyster notes that the concept of a virtualized console is picking up more in radio, with Telos’s Axia Altus virtual cloud mixer now being used for some applications on that side of broadcasting. While TV and radio sound desks are different animals, there is now more crossover between the two areas due to the growth of visualization in radio, with cameras now becoming more common in on-air studios. 

“Features like automix are an absolute standard now,” he says. “Automation control from third party orchestration layers is more requested, particularly with visual radio and algorithms that can automate based on the schedule of the show, so the console cuts itself to some extent, with more audio-follow-video features.”

What About AI?
As with all broadcast production technologies, many are now considering what influence or impact artificial intelligence (AI) might have on audio consoles. Dyster points to specialized mixing systems from Salsa Sound and LAMA Mix, which provide features such as ball tracking for sports coverage, automixing and monitoring for language recognition. 

Lawo’s Christian Struck adds that “there is no doubt AI will find its way into future audio mixing consoles or their DSP engines,” while Wheatstone’s Phil Owens says that although AI is working its way into the broadcast workflow, it hasn’t hit audio yet. 

But it does have potential. 

“What AI can do for sound is provide the basis for plug-ins that perform noise cancellation. When you apply an AI to that job it gets better at doing it, recognizing noise as opposed to signal,” Owens said.

Henry Goodman at Calrec agrees it is an interesting area and one people are looking at to see what benefits it can bring.

“On the console side, the area that interests us is having facilities providing assistive mechanisms for the operators, whether that’s balancing external feeds coming in or standardized EQ for specific microphones,” he said. “It’s something we’re keeping a close eye on but it’s not at the forefront of our development right now.”

All of which makes the audio console the gear to keep watching, if only to see where it ends up in the broadcast center. 

Since broadcasters moved to the cloud and IP, intercoms have followed suit, and with these transitions, communications technology has become more reliable, flexible and user friendly. Advances in wireless technologies from Wi-Fi to 5G have helped improve coverage range, bringing wireless comms capabilities into areas where they were previously unavailable. Digital technology has also brought enhanced security and audio quality as well a large increase in channel capacity.

Communication is critical when it comes to live production and reliability tops the list of requirements. Getting your message from here to there in the shortest amount of time with clarity and security are vital and in our latest Guide to Intercoms, we look at how vendors are continuously coming up with more innovative ways to accomplish this.

Download your free ebook here. 

IP allows broadcasters to scale and adapt easily, quickly spin up new services to meet changing audience demands for content, and flexibly configure and manage devices and workflows. This webcast will explore how broadcasters are using advances in IP to upgrade their plants to realize the potential of next-gen technology and leverage long-term cost savings. 

Join us for this dynamic discussion with our moderator, Phil Kurz and sponsors Telos Alliance and swXtch.io on Thursday, Oct. 19th at 2pm EST. 

Click here to register for this free event!

Internet Protocol networks have thoroughly permeated the world of professional audio production. Recent advances have improved interoperability between different technologies such as AES67, ST 2110, DANTE and other formats. In addition, advances in IP-based intercom systems have pushed IP formats into every niche of production audio today. 

Join TV Tech Talks Moderator Wes Simpson, Stephen Brownsill with Ross Video and Greg Shay from Telos Alliance as they discuss recent advances in audio tools and techniques including:

• Ultra-low delay audio production workflows
• Increased flexibility of audio production systems
• Enhanced interoperability between popular audio formats
• New advances in audio production consoles

Click here to register for this free webcast.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance is making its Telos Infinity VIP Virtual Intercom Platform available for Panasonic Connect’s KAIROS Global Live Control Room. 

The Global Live Control Room combines the on-premise capabilities of the KAIROS IT/IP platform with LiveX’s Virtual Video Control Room, which allows operations such as switching, ISO recording, playback, graphics and intercom via Infinity VIP to be cloud-based. 

“As the industry’s only fully featured cloud-deployable intercom, Telos Infinity VIP is ideally and uniquely suited to serve as an integral part of a larger system,” said Martin Dyster, Telos Alliance vice president of business development. “All of VIPs benefits, including the ability to quickly and flexibly launch an Infinity panel on any computer, tablet or smartphone, are now available to anyone using the Global Live Control Room platform.”

More information is available on the Telos Alliance and Panasonic websites.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance will highlight several new products introduced across its product families, including the Quasar XR and SR consoles, and will focus on broadcast audio solution and customer consultations at the 2023 NAB Show, April 15-19, in Las Vegas.

The company also will feature its audio-over-IP (AoIP), cloud-capable Infinity communications system with newly introduced mobile app; Forza, the newest member of its Omnia processing family; Linear Acoustic’s audio-for-video offerings for Next Generation audio; and the AIXpressor with FlexAI processing infrastructure from partner Jünger Audio

"Our customers and friends across the audio and broadcast industry have been asking for hands-on demonstrations of our award-winning suite of solutions. When our customers ask us for something--we listen,” said Marty Sacks, executive vice president of sales, marketing and strategy at Telos Alliance.

See Telos Alliance at NAB Show booth W3766 and hospitality suite W3673.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance has appointed Co-CEO Scott Stiefel to the role of CEO.

In its announcement the company said that, along with overseeing day-to-day operations, Stiefel will take the reins from Co-CEO Tom Swidarski who will serve as vice chairman on the board of directors.

Telos Alliance Founder Frank Foti remains chairman of the board and continues to lead the Omnia development at the highest level.

Stiefel said he looked forward to leading the company as “we expand into the world of software and enterprise systems, platforms and professional services and to continue expanding our world-class hardware offerings.”

Stiefel has served Telos Alliance in various capacities for more than 20 years, starting as a hardware and embedded systems engineer and working his way up to the role of CEO. The company said that “despite the challenges associated with the pandemic and supply chain headwinds, Scott, along with all of our executive leadership team, have achieved one of the most successful years in the history of the company.”

Stiefel first assignment after joining Telos in 1994 was to design the ISDN card for the Telos Zephyr. He worked on the hardware and DSP code for the original Omnia.FM and the Audioactive Encoder products before becoming a project manager on the Zephyr Xstream.

Stiefel joined ViaSat Inc. in 2008 and served as vice president of operations working on high-speed satellite and terrestrial communication systems and ASICs. He returned to the Telos Alliance in 2014 as chief operating officer.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance is partnering with Vizrt to remove barriers from live production in the cloud, the company said today.

Vizrt is releasing Telos Infinity Virtual Intercom Platform (VIP) on Viz Now, a software-as-a-service portal hosted by Vizrt that enables live cloud-based production.

“We are thrilled that Vizrt chose Telos Infinity VIP as the native cloud intercom solution for their Viz Now platform,” said Marty Sacks, executive vice president of sales, marketing and strategy at Telos. “Cloud production—now more than ever—is a reality for the industry.”

Vizrt will host an industry look at Viz Now on Oct. 20 at 11 a.m. EDT. The live demo and Q&A session is available online.

More information about Telos Infinity Virtual Intercom Platform is available online.

Telos is holding a webinar showcasing the new Jünger Audio flexAI & AIXpressor: The newest processing and conversion solution for the best audio imaginable.

Jünger Audio’s flexAI - flexible Audio Infrastructure successfully combines the concepts of a dedicated and reliable hardware basis for high-density processing, conversion and interfacing with the flexibility of software-defined applications. It all adds up to a brand new solution for your audio needs.

Friedemann Kootz and Roman Rehausen of Jünger Audio will offer an insightful overview of its software and hardware components.

Click here to register for the webinar. 

Perhaps more than any other transition since the move to digital, the cloud has had the biggest impact on television production. Today, our industry is moving beyond the basic capabilities of using cloud for storage and processing to customizing its use based on user requirements. 

Throughout our new “Guide to Cloud Solutions,” we examine the latest developments in adopting cloud for media production and how the industry is developing best practices to enhance security and cost efficiencies. 

Download your free ebook here. 

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

Click here to watch this free webcast on-demand.

Broadcasting is still behind IT when it comes to cloud adoption but there are parts of media and entertainment—playout and post-production in particular—that have embraced the virtual platform as a way of decentralizing and streamlining operations. The same, however, cannot be said for intercoms, an area that still has high demands in terms of real-time connectivity and is mostly holding on to its established hardware-based methods.

As with so many things in life and work, the pandemic changed the view of many on this point. Among them were several broadcast organizations, says Martin Dyster, vice president of business development for TV at Telos Alliance. "During the last 18 months or so we've found that broadcasters are increasingly looking at cloud and virtual intercom solutions in order to provide an effective means to communicate as they develop new broadcast production workflows," he says.

A 'Waiting Market'
To meet this emerging requirement, Telos introduced the Infinity Virtual Intercom Platform (VIP) in 2020, which, Dyster says, found a "waiting market." VIP can work entirely in the cloud when fully deployed on a VPC (virtual private cloud) platform. This has proved to be a major turnabout for the intercom market, which, despite wireless connections and mobile apps, continues to rely on hardware infrastructures. Because of this, Dyster feels there will continue to be resistance from other manufacturers because working in the cloud does not align with their core businesses.

"You can see a similar reaction within the audio mixing console market where the brands that have led the field in large, medium and small format mixers for decades have not embraced virtualization," he says. "In both the intercom and mixing technology sectors, it seems the door has been left wide open for more agile and forward-thinking companies to bring new products to market that fulfill the needs of broadcasters who are embracing cloud production. I cannot believe it will be long before at least one of the hardware brand leaders in each sector breaks rank and shows their hand."

Telos' Infinity and the Unity system—which is set up online through a web portal and supports a single group of users sharing six party-line channels—are the main intercoms to be fully hosted in the cloud. Among those still adhering to established hardware methodologies for intercom is Pliant Technologies. "Intercom has always been a communications technology for collaborative working group in real time," says vice president of global sales Gary Rosen. "The cloud is really best used [for] non-real time storage and retrieval. It's not really suited for this application."

Live Production Demands
The main objection to using the cloud from traditional, hardware-oriented intercom developers is the potential for a complete loss of communications if something does not work properly.

"When everything is down, the intercom still needs to work," comments Nico Lewis, senior sales manager for EMEA at RTS Intercoms. "Consider a live television show: A camera fails or a microphone fails and the audio operator can't hear the guest. ‘No problem, we'll just tell the technical director to take another camera and the audio operator will ask the stage manager to get a spare microphone to the talent.’ 

“But—'What do you mean, no one can communicate these simple instructions?'” Lewis asks rhetorically. “Intercom is the critical component and therefore we wait [in using the] cloud till the last moment. Or maybe do not do it and keep it connected in our established way using OMNEO [RTS' media networking system]."

Lewis does concede that "the future will tell," about cloud adoption for comms, however Clear-Com sees the eventual move to cloud as unavoidable.

"We have been watching the deployment of new cloud-based production tools with interest and feel that adding comms to these workflows is inevitable," says Kris Koch, business development director for broadcast networks and media production for the company. "The urgent nature of comms, [however], and the need for it to be always available, especially when nothing else is, creates a challenge. It becomes critical to not only deliver the features our customers need through the cloud but also to provide reliability and redundancy so broadcasters can operate independently in times of emergency or technical problems."

At Riedel UK, sales manager Nacho Lee observes that the cloud will "probably" become part of intercom but not yet. "There are still concerns [over] reliability and security," he says. "Most of our clients in education, theater and even broadcast still tend to have an isolated intercom island, separate to their IT network, [which is] mainly for independent control as well as safety reasons."

Gustavo Robles, sales director at AEQ, agrees that there is a lot of talk in the comms market about cloud, saying it is "the future," with the company already working on new units and systems. "Until now we [have been using] VPN [virtual private network] and a dedicated hardware central matrix but the idea is to move far from this and offer the same specifications but totally virtual," he explains.

All or Nothing
In terms of reliability in the cloud, Dyster acknowledges that losing connection to a virtual platform would "leave you without intercom," but adds that if a production was using a wider cloud system, its problems would be bigger than just communications.

"Equally, if you are using remote intercom panels with a matrix-based system and relying on the internet to connect them, losing that connection would also take your comms out," he adds. "AWS provides redundant solutions that safeguard against the former event but, like anything, there could be exceptions where you are vulnerable and AWS has certainly had the odd 'blip.'"

The answer to whether or not the cloud does become part of intercom systems—or the entire infrastructure—could lie in recent history. There was some resistance to audio over IP (AoIP) as the basis for comms but now that is well established. Matrices and traditional party lines have not gone away yet but AoIP, particularly in uncompressed form, is being widely used for intercom, with Dante, AES67 and SMPTE ST 2110-30 providing the backbone for many installations. If the cloud follows a similar route, then its wider-scale adoption seems more likely.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance has appointed Scott Stiefel as co-CEO, joining co-CEO Tom Swidarski to lead the company.

Frank Foti, Telos Alliance founder and executive chairman of the Board complimented Stiefel’s leadership skills and knowledge of both business and engineering. In a company statement he noted, “Over the years, it's been such a pleasure to see him grow, first as an engineer, then taking on the business segment.”

Stiefel said he was “excited to join Tom in leading Telos through yet another era of growth and transformation.”

Stiefel’s career at Telos began in 1994, where he designed the ISDN card for the Telos Zephyr, worked on the original Omnia.FM and Audioactive Encoder products and served as project manager on the Zephyr Xstream. In 2001, he moved from the engineering group to become operations manager for Telos, overseeing production, supply chain, logistics and quality.

After a six-year stint as vice president of operations at ViaSat, he returned to the Telos Alliance in 2014 and served as COO until this promotion.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance is launching the Telos Infinity VIP Virtual Intercom Platform, which allows for sophisticated communications from anywhere—at-home, on-prem, site-to-site or in the cloud, according to Telos.

Infinity VIP is described as the “next evolution” of Telos’ Infinity IP Intercom system. Telos claims that the Infinity VIP is the first system to put fully-featured broadcast intercom in the cloud.

“This opens up a whole new world of virtual comm workflows, responds to customer demand for remote workflows and aligns with Telos Alliance’s larger push toward virtualization across product lines,” says Martin Dyster, vice president of Business Development for Telos Alliance.

Telos is offering multiple deployment options for the VIP:

• On-prem: A hardware appliance or a server for on-prem installations
• Integrated: Infinity VIP integrates with Telos Infinity beltpacks and hardware panels, or any third-party intercom or audio subsystem using AES67 or SMPTE 2110-30 connectivity for either on-prem or cloud versions 
• Cloud Server: Software for supported cloud platform installations, with connectivity options for integration with third-party cloud-based and on-prem audio systems
• Software-as-a-Service: Telos Alliance partners will offer a SaaS version of Infinity VIP, allowing users to lease it in a virtual environment

For more information, visit the Telos Alliance website.

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance has introduced the Telos VXs Virtual VoIP System, which is meant to provide virtualization to broadcasters and their remote teams to tap into production and engineering party lines to adapt to broadcast’s changing workflows.

With production facility designs moving toward SMPTE 2110 media networks, the VXs software can be deployed on shared servers in the centralized data center or in cloud instances. This assists with facility-wide upgrades and automated deployment without a site visit, per Telos. Broadcasters have the option to scale VXs in size from a single contribution audio line to a facility-wide IFB/coordination system to a multifacility solution.

Using customizable Axia Pathfinder Core PRO HTML-5 user panels, VXs gives IFB and coordination channels help with coordination and control for various applications, including OB trucks or headquarter communications.

The Telos VXs features support for SMPTE-2110, AES67 and Livewire environments for simultaneous integration with intercom systems, audio consoles and other production systems over existing multicast media networks. It can also integrate alongside AES67-enabled Dante devices with support for SAP advertisements.

VXs can be combined with the Telos Infinity IP Intercom system. This allows the Infinity Dashboard interface to centrally configure remote IFBs and engineering coordination lines, as well as add them to partylines and groups or be assigned to Infinity IP Intercom panels.

For those without an IP media infrastructure, working with Telos Alliance AoIP Audio Nodes provides high-density AES3, SDI and analog I/O to integrate with any console or intercom system, while also allowing for an upgrade path to direct AoIP connectivity.

Additional features include creating touchscreen-friendly custom HTML-5 panels when combined with Axia Pathfinder Core PRO Broadcast Controller to monitor and control VXs from a web browser. Also, every call gets fifth-generation audio processing with the help of Smart AGC coupled with Telos’ three-band adaptive Digital Dynamic EQ, Acoustic Echo Cancellation and support of the G.722 codec.

For more information, visit www.telosalliance.com.  Telos also has a webinar showcasing the VXs Virtual VoIP System.

LONDON—Developers of professional intercom systems have made much of the fact that while modern technology has helped enable remote operations and working from home, much of that technology was already available prior to the pandemic.

Social distancing has forced broadcasters to accelerate their adoption of these technologies but with no indication as to how long the new ways of working will be in place, systems have been adapted and upgraded to offer features that were not immediately necessary a year ago.

Some companies have even developed brand new products during this time, although these are not all comms-oriented. Riedel Communications responded to the need for social distancing with its DisTag distance monitor. This alerts the person wearing or carrying it if someone gets too close through haptic (a two-stage vibration alarm), visual (a two-stage LED signal) or acoustic (a two-stage sound signal) methods.

In addition to DisTag, Riedel has “made a lot of improvements” to its core comms products according to Intercom Product Manager Felix Kolls. Some of these concern the user interface more than connectivity and are targeting non-technical, creative staff working from home. The 1200 Series SmartPanel now offers touchscreens that support icons and an eight-character main label plus 16-character sub-label per key, so that each function can be identified and explained.

VoIP (voice over IP) has come into its own and is being used in conjunction with Virtual Intercom Panels for working from home, Kolls said. “This allows a regular computer or mobile device to function as an intercom end-point,” he explains. “The integration of panels or audio into an intercom system via long-distance connections is key for today’s distributed productions.”

Catering to nontechnical users was also the impetus behind the design of Pliant Technologies’ new MicroCom full-duplex range, which allows multiple people to be on a system without the need for a technician onsite setting it up, configuring it or operating, according to Gary Rosen, vice president of global sales for Pliant.

In general, Rosen adds, having more wireless intercoms “can be extremely helpful,” not just through connecting people without physical constraints but also in maintaining social distancing. “Before COVID restrictions, you could walk up to someone and whisper to them,” he says. “Intercom enables you to stay 30-feet away and still whisper to them.”

THEY’RE ALSO MULTITASKERS

AEQ has combined several products from its different technology areas—intercom, communications and networking—to expand coverage over different platforms and connectivity formats. In addition to intercom systems, which are designed with KROMA Telecom, AEQ also develops codecs to provide connections over either ISDN, standard telephone lines (PSTN) or IP. It also produces call-in/conferencing management technology and from this range the Systel-IP platform is being integrated with the Conexia intercom to provide more options for broadcasters.

AEQ Sales Director Gustavo Robles explains that integration can be through SIP (session initiation protocol) or the Phoenix codec. “We can also offer Dante, RAVENNA and AES67 for audio over IP,” he said. “Also included are SMPTE ST 2110 interfaces, while our remote links can run over standard Ethernet or VPNs [virtual private networks] with intercom panels in different locations.”

John Kowalski, director of broadcast and network sales at Clear-Com, agrees that SIP enhances connectivity, particularly for field reporters or for those working from home. “SIP and VoIP are technologies we were supporting in 2019 and which increased in business applications, including being used to come in and out of intercoms, during 2020,” he says. “IP connectivity to mobile devices as well between studios is something else we are seeing.”

Kowalski added that the need to improve connectivity for remote production existed prior to 2020 and was addressed by ClearCom through its LQ Series of AoIP interfaces. These have been adopted for working from home and also work with the Agent-IC mobile app, which allows iOS and Android devices such as smartphones and tablets to become mobile user panels.

IP IS CRUCIAL

IP functionality has been able to adapt to the needs of working from home natively, said Martin Dyster, vice president of business development at Telos Alliance, but it needs to be more user friendly for less technically inclined staff.

“We realized at the outset of the pandemic that the configuration was not going to be simple for all users, so we made some fundamental changes that made the Infinity IP intercom as close to ‘plug and play’ as possible,” he said.

A more general trend brought about by the pandemic, Dyster notes, is the acceleration of TV studios migrating to cloud-based workflows. This is, in turn, pushing intercoms towards having some of its core functions located in third-party facilities.

“This new way of working in TV has taught us that the need for scalable, reliable and secure off-premises products and services will continue to grow, with broadcasters becoming increasingly adept at these workflows,” he says. “We have accelerated our own transition to cloud-based products based on this demand and also adapted some of our hardware technology to facilitate work-from-home or remote use.”

RTS has provided new features for its VLink software-based intercom that include cloud service redundancy, recording, encryption, video capture/streaming, enhanced control panels and standalone capabilities.

“We have also improved our long-distance studio interconnection technology—RTS Trunking—which is now able to support volume control,” says Angelo Piga, global product manager for RTS Partyline. “This is a real game-changer because it allows users to adjust listen volumes for remote point-to-point and partyline assignments as if they were local assignments.”

Away from technology, hygiene and cleanliness continue to be serious considerations in controlling the spread of the virus. Piga agrees that sharing equipment, particularly headsets and microphones, is still a concern for customers.

“We have helped by giving instructions on how to keep things like that clean,” he says. “We’ve also seen a significant increase in headsets and microphone orders.” Rosen adds that sales of replacement foam mic covers and ear pads have increased, while noting that the days of having a “bin of headsets” and “just grabbing one are behind us.”

Whether workflows and working practices will go back to anything approaching how they were pre-pandemic is still uncertain. As John Kowalski of Clear-Com says, any changes going through 2021 and into 2022 are likely to be “more subtle than abrupt.” The only constant will be the continuing need for communications and connectivity.

LONDON—All technology evolves and adapts to suit the changing requirements of its end users. Audio consoles have been through significant changes over the last 30 years, with analog giving way to digital for large-scale television, radio and live event production. This in turn has led to smaller desks, with more touchscreen control and, increasingly, mixing “in-the-box” on digital audio stations (DAWs).

While these refinements and alterations have taken place over time, the outbreak of coronavirus and the impact of national and local lockdowns on broadcast and facility operations have had more immediate effects on mixing console design. The most obvious of these is the adaptation of desks for home working, which can be regarded as positive and was already beginning to happen.

HOME CONTROL

“The pandemic has accelerated the take-up of working from home,” agrees Andreas Hilmer, director of marketing at Lawo. “We have designed that capability into our consoles, which can be used for a range of applications. These include distributed production, where an operator can be in an audio room next to the main production suite or another building or a different city.

“It can also be used for home working, with a full console in the studio, being controlled by software, a touchscreen and maybe a compact fader bay by somebody in their kitchen,” Hilmer added. “All the live audio stays in the audio suite, with only the control chain going to the home.”

Just before Christmas, Lawo launched second-generation versions of its compact mc² desk and audio console engine. In an event streamed live from the Jazz Club Karlsruhe, near the company’s headquarters in Germany, the new mc² 36 and A_UHD (ultra high density) Phase II Core were introduced.

Hilmer explained that Lawo always tries to rejuvenate its product line at regular intervals and this updating brought a new platform for the entire mc² range and additional capabilities on the mc² 36, which was originally introduced in 2014, including native IP mixing and more powerful DSP.

PHYSICAL OR VIRTUAL: DOES IT MATTER?

Another company that has seen its ongoing development find almost instantaneous acceptance during the COVID-19 crisis is Wheatstone. In what Senior Sales Engineer Phil Owens describes as a “flurry of software development” during March, Wheatstone created the ReMIX app, which controls the software mixer in I/O BLADES interfaces and is designed for Windows tablets and PCs.

Wheatstone also offers the ability to create virtual consoles through the combination of the ACI (automation control interface) protocol and ScreenBuilder suite of touchscreen tools.

Owens observes that with such new technologies, whether a physical or a virtual console is being used “doesn’t really matter.” What is important, he says, is remote connectivity, which has become the most requested feature from Wheatstone clients.

Owens adds that the same attitude applies to whether mixing is carried out using a dedicated control surface with faders or “in-the-box.”

WHILE SOME THINGS CHANGE ... 

Peter Walker, senior product engineer at Calrec Audio, acknowledges that priorities during 2020 due to the circumstances brought about by COVID-19, with a focus on safe, reliable and flexible workflows.

“Because of this, there’s definitely been an increase in automation/remote control for smaller productions,” he says. “But live broadcast still needs high-quality systems with niche broadcast features. Regardless of the controller type, processing and routing are still at the center of the sound suite, whether it is located in an audio studio, a local equipment room or a server center.

“Practical considerations such as DSP resources, flexible routing, mix minus feeds and IFB mixes all existed before COVID and still exist,” Walker added. “Broadcast networks will always require refined control.”

The argument against touchscreen-based mixing for live production has always been that it does not have, as Tom Knowles, broadcast systems product manager at SSL, says, “the immediacy of physical, tactile controls.” But, he adds, the sound desk is no longer a standalone unit, it is often part of an integrated system of distributed components.

“Physical surfaces, software control interfaces, DSP computer and I/O devices are the building blocks that perform audio console functions,” Knowles said. “Systems can be scaled to meet the task at hand, providing the flexibility and agility a traditional console may not have provided, with the connecting software being the key element.”

COMPACT DESIGN

Blackmagic Design has been at the forefront of the trend toward more software-based operations, notably with the DaVinci Resolve suite of color correction, editing and visual effects tools. Version 17 of Resolve also includes Fairlight sound editing and mixing capability, which, when used in conjunction with the Fairlight Audio Accelerator, can handle up to 2,000 tracks, which is typical on film soundtrack mixes these days.

Recent trends have moved away from relying on large digital consoles for routing and distribution to DAW-based systems with additional DSP for larger systems, according to James Townsend, digital audio technical sales specialist with BMD.

“The console’s role then becomes one of control, providing the fastest possible interface for the software,” he said. “It provides familiarity for the operator, who can concentrate on the picture while working instead of continually scrutinizing a DAW user interface.”

BMD has different options for this new role, from large-scale Fairlight consoles to the new Desktop Consoles.

VIRTUAL AND SCALABLE

Telos Alliance has fully embraced virtualized audio mixing with the new Axia iQs software, which has AES67 audio over IP (AoIP) capability as well as being cloud deployable. Martin Dyster, vice president of business development for Telos Alliance, comments that the global broadcast market is rapidly leaning toward a remote production model. 

“That looks as though it will be here for keeps, long after COVID has been suppressed or controlled,” he says. “Customers are looking for truly virtualized, rapidly deployable and scalable solutions, not just a means to remote control the back-end of a ‘traditional console.’”

The iQs is described as “multipurpose” and Telos/Axia is also moving beyond its traditional radio market with the physical console that was launched at the 2019 IBC Show. Dyster comments that the company’s Quasar AoIP mixing console is being sold into TV as well, which further extends the reach of audio over IP, something Telos has been advocating for many years, into the visual production domain.

All of the major console manufacturers producing desks for TV work offer some form of AoIP capability: Wheatstone with its own WheatNet-IP system, Calrec (both Dante and RAVENNA), Lawo (RAVENNA/AES67), SSL (Dante) and BMD. With its extended connectivity capabilities, the audio console is now much more than a means of mixing sound. Whether it will evolve fully into the virtual realm is debatable, but it shows no signs of finishing its development any time soon.

When my wife and I watch TV, there is a screen involved, but it may not be the big one that sits in our family room on a large stand. It could be an iPad, iPhone or laptop. Our family is very typical of how media is consumed these days.

Watching TV is a very different experience than when most of us started our careers in broadcasting. We can watch on over-the-air TV “off the air,” via our local cable provider, or via streaming. The level of competition has ratcheted up dramatically. With players like Netflix, Disney+, HBO, Peacock and others, there have never been more options for viewers to be entertained.

Even from just a few short months ago before the pandemic, media consumption has evolved rapidly, with the world increasingly demanding an on-demand lifestyle—and it’s not just what and when people want to watch, but where. 

Scenarios like the ones I describe above are now expected, and broadcasters—traditionally restricted to the confines of the TV “set”—finally have the options they need to compete when they adopt ATSC 3.0 (consumers will know it as “NextGen TV”).

BUILT ON INTERNET PROTOCOL

In ATSC 3.0, for the first time ever, the broadcast platform is built on the same Internet Protocol backbone as today’s popular streaming media platforms, allowing broadcast to break free from the TV set and push broadcast to mobile, cars, gaming consoles … anywhere really. ATSC 3.0 also allows broadcast to play by internet rules, giving your audience choice and an overall enhanced experience that, again, they have now come to expect from competing media platforms like streaming. Consumers want to enjoy their content on the move, demanding personalization and choice. 

ATSC 3.0 is designed to bring together over-the-air (broadcast) with over-the-top (streaming) content, enabling broadcasters to keep pace with digital platforms that already offer many of the features and benefits of ATSC 3.0.

DELIVERS MAJOR UPGRADE IN AUDIO CAPABILITIES

One of those benefits is immersive audio that adds additional overhead channels to a surround sound mix. The result is a compelling, all-encompassing audio experience that makes your audience feel like they have been pulled right into the middle of the action. In North America, that translates to Dolby Atmos. Viewers don’t have to install new speakers, either. TVs, soundbars and up-firing speakers are simple and unintrusive ways to get immersive at home without building a home theater. 

Another big audio upside of ATSC 3.0 is personalization. Now, consumers can choose their preferred language, pick their favorite sports announcer and take advantage of improved audio description capabilities. With the current ATSC 1.0 standard, when delivering programs in a second language or with a descriptive track for the visually impaired, the audio is delivered premixed, typically as either a mono or stereo track. 

But with ATSC 3.0, the audio is mixed at the receiver, allowing viewers who select an alternate language to receive the program in full surround or immersive. This not only saves valuable bandwidth for broadcasters, but it also provides all viewers with the best experience and they no longer have to sacrifice their audio experience to hear their preferred audio tracks.

ATSC 3.0 ADVANTAGES FOR BROADCASTERS

Aside from audiences, there is also a huge advantage for you, the broadcaster. Most notably, ATSC 3.0 helps you generate revenue with watermarking. While ratings watermarking is not new, modern implementations of watermarking yield ratings data that is consistent and reliable. 

PLUS: Bringing Profits to NextGen TV

For the first time, broadcasters have two-way connectivity to the consumption of media that is on par with digital platforms. This creates predictability of ratings metrics and increases opportunity for advertising revenue because the same content is now “data-casted” over the air and over the internet, increasing reach. 

Revenue opportunities are also increased because it’s all encrypted, so watermarking measurement is reliable. Now that there is two-way connectivity between the broadcaster and the viewer, targeted advertising is also now a possibility.

ATSC 3.0 not only provides additional features and functionalities to your viewer, but also allows them to watch your content when they want, where they want and on whichever device they want, all while providing you with improved analytics and revenue opportunities.

Marty Sacks is executive vice president, sales, support & marketing for Telos Alliance. 

CLEVELAND—Telos Alliance has scheduled a new webcast that will discuss workflows for file-based audio processing, “Save Money, Increase Efficiency and Automate Your Audio Workflows With AudioTools Server.”

The webcast, which is part of Telos’ 2020 Virtual Showcase series, will take place on July 15 at noon ET.

Telos’ AudioTools Server team will host the webcast and discuss how file-based audio processing can increase efficiency and save labor costs. Attendees will be instructed with real-world examples of AudioTools Server clients’ success stories; how to future-proof for next-generation audio formats; how to incorporate quality-first audio processing into an existing orchestration system; and when to stay on-prem and when to push workflows to the cloud.

Registration is available online. 

CLEVELAND—The Telos Alliance has updated its Telos Infinity IP Intercom software to the latest version, v1.6. Included in v1.6 are updates to Telos Infinity Dashboard Advanced and software for the Infinity Panels and Beltpack.

With the update, Dashboard Advance users can now save instant “Snapshots” of system configurations, edit them offline and push them to the “Live” Infinity network. Different setups for shows and events can be created and stored with the new “Scenes” feature. When used with the Zones menu, users can take Scene snapshots from Infinity subsystem, then edit and recall them without disturbing the wider Infinity system.

Another new feature is the ISO Key Mode, which enables a user to establish a private communications channel with each camera position by temporarily removing them from any Group comms while an ISO call is happening.

Users can also now take complete control over a panel or device by accessing it through the Panel or Beltpack web menu pages or through Device/Manage in Telos Infinity Dashboard Advance software.

In addition, Dashboard Advance now allows a user to load new Panel or Beltpack firmware into the UI and send a targeted update to multiple devices simultaneously. Dashboard also can report the status of any Panel or Beltpack on the network that is running an out-of-date or incompatible firmware version.

For more information, visit www.telosalliance.com/Infinity.  

John Schur, President of the Telos Alliance’s TV Solutions Group, outlines the Next Gen products creating ‘buzz’ at IBC 2019. These products include the Telos Linear Acoustic LA-5291 Professional Audio Encoder. It enables the creation of immersive Dolby Atmos audio at live events for transmission to broadcasters. Also included is the Telos Infinity IP intercom system. It supports two-way intercom communications without the need for a matrix over public/private IP networks.

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.

AMSTERDAM—The Telos Alliance will introduce its SDI AoIP Node at IBC 2019, Sept. 13-17, at the RAI Amsterdam.

“Radio broadcasters caught on to the nearly endless benefits of networked audio nearly two decades ago and haven’t looked back since,” says John Schur, president, Telos Alliance TV Solutions Group. “Television is now on the same path, aided by emerging standards such as SMPTE ST 2110. For most facilities, the transition from SDI to IP will be a gradual one, and products such as our SDI AoIP Node will help ease that transition.”

With two independent 3Gb/s HD/SD-HDI inputs and outputs, the SDI AoIP Node offers up to eight audio pairs from either or both SDI inputs that can be de-embedded and converted to AES67.

As IP audio streams, they are available as network sources that can be monitored, distributed or have their loudness controlled with the Linear Acoustic AERO.8000 processing engine. Up to eight audio pairs of networked audio can then be re-embedded—and pair shuffled if desired—into two independent SDI outputs.

With 3G video standards support, the SDI AoIP Node can be integrated seamlessly into UHD facilities. In SMPTE ST 2110-based facilities, the unit’s AES67 I/O offers native support for SMPTE ST 2110-30, including two-channel streams with a 1ms packet time.

The unit includes two Ethernet ports—one for AES67 and the other for networked remote control accessed via a browser-agnostic, web-based user interface. The SDI AoIP Node also has redundant internal auto-ranging power supplies and comes with a two-year limited parts and labor warranty.

See Telos Alliance at IBC 2019 stand 8.D47.

More information is available on the Telos Alliance website.