Users of the donation-based local TV via IP service the NAB and the nation’s “Big Four” networks despise have another point of access now available to them.
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As director of Omnia radio processing sales for Telos Alliance, I get to talk to some very IT-savvy engineers who have either moved their audio processing into virtual environments or are flowcharting future deployment.
From these conversations, I created a checklist of some things you should consider before virtualizing your audio processing.
Before we dive into the list, however, we should answer the most often-asked questions: “What is this virtualization business? And why is it useful?”
Virtualization
Virtualization is the concept of taking a server and, with the help of virtualization software, partitioning it so that it appears as several virtual servers running their own operating system, allowing the user to employ the server for several different applications instead of just one.
As applied to audio processing, imagine running hundreds of FM, HD or stream-processing instances, delivering content where needed and backed up on-premise or off-premise (cloud).
Why virtualize?
There are a number of good arguments for virtualization. Among them:
Just over a year ago, Omnia released its first virtual audio processing ecosystem, Omnia Enterprise 9s, which is designed for high-density or virtual deployment. It’s based on the sound, performance, features and interface of our famous Omnia.9 hardware audio processing platform.
Pictured in Fig. 1 is the interface of the Omnia Enterprise 9s, which, if you are familiar with an Omnia.9, is identical.
Fig. 1: Omnia Enterprise 9s interface showing Omnia.9 display metering with processing activity, I/O loudness readings, and frequency analysis for one station. Up to eight are available from this interface and NFremote.However, look closely and you will see one major difference: options for Stations 1 through Station 8. That’s separate processing paths for eight radio stations, all running on one server.
Checklist to Deploy Processing Virtually
1- Bandwidth — Not everyone has access to fiber. With the Omnia µMPX codec in the Enterprise 9s, you don’t need that kind of bandwidth to send the entire FM baseband with RDS and stereo pilot across a link. With µMPX, it passes at a low bandwidth of 400 kbps without degradation of the audio baseband or transcoding artifacts. FLAC can be sent at 800 kbps.
2- Secondary ISP — Seriously consider a secondary ISP to carry your content or composite signal in the event of main failure. You’ll find two NICs on the rear of the Omnia MPX Node for full redundancy capability. For that matter, Starlink (from Elon Musk) may soon become an option for transmitter sites way past “the end of the internet.”
3- Appropriate Server, CPU or Host — Assuming you are running a virtualized environment for your audio processing. In our cloud testing of Omnia Enterprise 9s, moving from one physical server to another requires little or no “hit” or downtime. For users deploying one instance of Enterprise 9: each FM and µMPX output requires four CPU cores and 500MB total RAM.
4- Handling I/O — In the Omnia Enterprise 9S environment, here’s what is available today:
Input — Livewire, AES67 and Windows drivers. Stream receiver.
Output — For true MPX out, including pilot and RDS, you will need to license the µMPX codec for FM transmission over some type of IP link with Omnia MPX Node hardware deployed at the transmitter site (Fig. 2). In that figure you also see an Omnia.9sg deployed (optional). The Omnia Enterprise 9s software can encode a lossless FLAC stream, which the 9sg can use to make composite at the transmitter site.
5- Handling EAS and PPM — EAS: If your studio or program feed is generated elsewhere, current solutions include having your EAS unit at the transmitter, on its own separate local audio processor.
Watermarking: Stations in PPM metered markets that want to virtualize their airchain will need a way to properly watermark their signal. Full market testing has rolled out in a couple of large markets for MRC accreditation with Nielsen. While not released yet, this initiative will put the watermark where it belongs, inside the audio processor. (Our Linear Acoustic TV processors have had Nielsen watermarking for some time.) This also eliminates maintaining a hardware watermark encoder.
6- Appropriate IT Department — Do I have the appropriate IT talent to maintain the IP paths to where audio, or composite, is delivered?
7- Can I get this in a container? — This is on our roadmap.
To help illustrate redundant paths to the transmitter site, Fig. 2 shows two ways to generate composite with Omnia Enterprise 9s on a server, feeding:
It’s fascinating to see stations using this Omnia Enterprise 9s product in so many different ways and workflows. It’s a credit to the ingenious radio engineers in the industry that no two deployments have, so far, remotely been alike.
Questions about this article? Email Paul Kriegler at paulkriegler@telosalliance.com or Mary Ann Seidler at maseidler@telosalliance.com.
The post Virtualizing Your Audio Processing: A Checklist appeared first on Radio World.
Webster identifies the word as an adjective and gives the definition as being so in effect, although not in actual fact or name.
We hear the word a lot in today’s culture. Virtual reality has moved from hard-core gaming to the more mainstream with headsets and adaptors that can turn our smart phones into VR engines.
We ask our virtual assistants for directions or to change the channel on the TV. You can get a virtual pet or send someone a virtual gift card.
Since the start of the pandemic, virtual meetings have become everyday events. I have participated in countless virtual training sessions, virtual conferences and even the virtual NAB show earlier this year.
So it would seem that we now live in a virtual world, and perhaps some do. But not me. I’m more of a brick-and-mortar kind of guy — I like real things that I can see and touch, things that exist in the real world and not just in lines of code and ones and zeros.
That’s not to say, however, that I don’t find many of those virtual things useful. I very much do, and I appreciate them.
For example, in addition to some of the things I listed above, I use a very capable flight simulator, which you might categorize as a virtual airplane, to keep my flying skills sharp between real-world flights. Now that has value.
So you might say that I’m warming to the idea of a virtual world.
In our bizIn recent years, and especially since the pandemic came along, broadcast equipment manufacturers have been coming out with all kinds of virtual devices. Some of these things exist only in cyberspace, and some have real-world components.
One thing all these virtual devices have in common is that they all have real-world application. We’re not talking about video games here. We’re talking about top-tier products that perform critical functions in the broadcast infrastructure.
In that sense, they depart from Webster’s definition in that they do exist in actual fact … just not in the traditional physical form.
Apps like Wheatstone’s ScreenBuilder can pull information from many locations, inside and outside a facility, including from one or more virtual consoles, to produce a “one-stop” display of important data.For some time now, AoIP has been making inroads into broadcast infrastructure. I have been involved with this personally and can tell you that all those virtual connections beat the heck out of punch blocks and switchers.
Our cable ladders are almost empty, now with just small bundles of Cat-6 wires rather than huge bundles of audio and AES cables. Most any engineer who has been blessed with AoIP infrastructure will likely sing its praises, especially the ease with which “wiring” changes can be made, often from the comfort of his or her home or office.
A number of manufacturers have come out with virtual mixers, virtual boards, virtual control surfaces or whatever name you want to give them.
I suspect that the impetus for most, which likely predated the pandemic, was for remote operation or facility consolidation. But when COVID came along, a whole new need for that kind of thing presented itself. People were working from home, far from the faders, switches and knobs that they would normally manipulate with skilled hands.
Dreaming bigIn recent days, I have read of PPM watermark insertion that will soon occur “in the cloud.” That, apparently, is one of those hybrid applications I mentioned where some real-world hardware is involved.
It is intriguing, and I’m all for eliminating a piece of equipment in the air chain along with its connectors and potential points of failure.
Virtual consoles like this Axia IQs are now a real-world thing.And of course we have seen audio playout or digital media systems moving into the cloud in recent years. That’s a little scary for me; I like everything to be under our own roof where I can lay hands on the infrastructure and be responsible for its safety and security. But undeniably, that’s the way it’s all going.
I think the days of the on-premises file server based digital media system are numbered. Maybe, just maybe, that’s a good thing. I’m adjusting to the idea.
Our phone vendor tells me that equipment manufacturers have warned that their on-premise system assembly lines will, in the next couple of years, be no more, and all our telco service will be cloud-based. Letters I get regularly from carriers confirm this —“traditional” telco services are going virtual, and we had better be prepared to make the switch.
Now, we’re seeing virtual audio processors. In the Aug. 11 issue of Radio World Engineering Extra, you can read about Omnia’s enterprise audio processor, which exists in cyberspace. This is another hybrid virtualization, as real-world I/O has to exist, at least for the time being. But how long will it be before our exciters could simply connect to the network with no real world I/O at all besides the obligatory RJ-45 connector? That’s an exciting prospect.
Last issue, I left you with the way-out-there idea of high-power RF over IP. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen, ever.
But what about a virtualized transmitter? That would be a hybrid application for sure, and if you think about it, many of the components are already in place in some production transmitters: single-board computer, web interface, SNMP control and monitoring.
You would need real-world power amplifiers, combiners, low-pass filters and control/monitoring hardware for sure, but could we move exciter, control and diagnostic functions completely outside the transmitter cabinet and into the virtual world?
Is that something that could happen someday as we continue to virtualize broadcast infrastructure? It’s certainly something to consider.
Personally, I’m hoping for a virtual phasor and virtual ATUs. Now that would be cool.
But seriously, folks, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Way back in 2001 and again in 2006, Mario Heib presented papers at the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference proposing a digital phasor with variable phase/variable output power amplifiers at the tower bases. I can see virtualizing every part of such a system other than the actual power amplifiers and matching networks.
We’re headed for a point where cutting-edge facilities will have mostly empty equipment racks. I think that is something to get excited about.
Cris Alexander, CPBE, AMD, DRB is director of engineering for Crawford Broadcasting and tech editor of Radio World Engineering Extra.
The post Broadcasting — A Virtual World? appeared first on Radio World.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has awarded grants to public media stations in areas with high COVID infection rates.
The extra funds are designed to help them address “misinformation” in their communities.
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An Oklahoma licensee received a $3,500 notice of forfeiture for failing to file a license application for an FM translator on time.
Potter Radio submitted a construction permit for FM translator K236CT in Pawhuska, Okla., in January 2018 with a three-year expiration date of January 2021. On Aug. 4, 2020, Potter requested six months of additional time in which to finalize construct the translator due to construction delays caused by COVID. The Media Bureau agreed and extended the permit to July 4, 2021.
But according to the bureau, Potter Radio did not file a required covering license by that date and as a result the permit expired.
[Read: LPFM Sees Call Sign Deleted After Unauthorized Broadcasting Claim]
Later that month, Potter filed a petition asking the bureau to reconsider cancellation of the construction permit. The bureau treated the request as a waiver and agreed to reinstate permit, giving Potter until August 13 to file a covering license. Potter did so on August 2.
But when a permittee fails to file a covering license application on time — as required by FCC Rules — and instead continues operating, the commission considers it an act of unauthorized operation. In this case, the unauthorized operation lasted almost a month, giving the commission the authority to hold the party in question liable for willfully acting without a license and thus liable for a forfeiture penalty.
The FCC’s forfeiture policy statement establishes a base forfeiture of $3,000 for failing to file a required form and an additional $10,000 for operation without authorization. The commission also has the authority to raise or lower that amount as it sees fit. Based on the Media Bureau’s review of the facts and circumstances, it issued a $7,000 base forfeiture before again reducing that forfeiture to $3,500 because as Potter Radio is providing a secondary service as a translator station.
As a result, Potter Radio is required to either submit the $3,500 forfeiture or file a written statement seeking reduction or cancellation.
The post For Willfully Operating Without a License, Permittee Handed $3,500 Forfeiture appeared first on Radio World.
Progressive Concepts said it has been named master distributor and service center for North America by Italian broadcast equipment manufacturer RFE.
The product line includes RFE FM broadcast transmitters. The new DS Series FM Broadcast Transmitters uses sixth-generation LDMOS technology with color touchscreen control, built-in stereo encoder and Cosmic Four-Band Audio Processor. Ethernet and AoIP connectivity support worldwide remote control and networking.
[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]
The DS Series is available in power levels of 30 W, 50W, 100 W, 300 W, 500 W, 1 kW, 2 kW, 3 kW, and 6 kW. They are FCC and CCIR compliant and come with a two-year warranty.
Cosmic is a new audio processor made by RFE.
“This hardware component will be included as a standard feature in our FM transmitters, for audio signal control and stereo signal generation (A/D and D/A acquisition and conversion),” the company said. “This means higher audio quality and less distortion.”
Cosmic uses a DSP microprocessor to assure audio quality and extremely low distortion of 0.01%, the company said.
Extra “audio treatment algorithms” for the processing include AMC Automatic Modulation Control, in which the average deviation value is kept constant within preset limits in order to avoid annoying “overmodulation”
Peaks, as well as SFP Selectable Filter Profile, with which a drop-down menu lets you select four preset audio equalization profiles: Bass Enhancer, Hi Lift, Crystal Voice and Club.
Progressive Concepts is based in Illinois. Demos of RFE products are available.
Send your new equipment news to radioworld@futurenet.com.
Info: www.progressive-concepts.com or mailto:sales@progressive-concepts.com
The post Progressive Concepts Inks Deal With RFE appeared first on Radio World.
The Relocation Payment Clearinghouse LLC is now accepting C-Band relocation claims through an online portal.
The RPC is responsible for collecting, reviewing and distributing payments associated with the relocation, as required by the Federal Communications Commission. This includes those who opted for the lump sum payment option.
“The RPC is ready to accept and review claims,” said Frank Banda, RPC program manager, in the announcement.
“If you have received your email invitation, we encourage you to set up your claimant profile as soon as possible. Setting up your profile and providing the requested information through our Coupa portal is the first step in requesting a lump sum payment or making a claim for reimbursement of actual relocation costs.”
This is the latest in a series of steps related to the FCC’s repurposing of the C-Band (3.7–4.2 GHz) by moving satellite operations to the upper portion of the band (4.0–4.2 GHz) and making spectrum available for other uses through auction.
The RPC website has information about how to establish a profile and submit a claim.
RPC LLC contracted with accounting firm CohnReznick LLP, law firm Squire Patton Boggs, satellite expert lntellicom Technologies Inc. and cable/broadband expert Reed Strategy LLC to perform the duties of the clearinghouse.
Across all users including radio, there are approximately 20,000 registered earth stations in the contiguous U.S. that are classified as incumbents for purposes of the C-Band transition, according to the FCC.
As of May, approximately 1,500 earth station operators, some with multiple licenses, had taken the “lump sum” election, according to data from the FCC. Those licensees that did not accept that option were able to work with their satellite provider or recoup justifiable filter, dish and labor expenses from the clearinghouse, for expenses associated with the transition or relocation.
The post C-Band Clearinghouse Opens Its Claims Portal appeared first on Radio World.
She’s spent 27 years as an active member of the Chicago local TV world.
Now, ViacomCBS is appointing her to the role of President/General Manager of CBS News and Television Stations’ local businesses in Chicago.
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Ronna Corrente has gained national acclaim for her leadership of Gray Television’s FOX affiliate in New Orleans.
Now, Gray is promoting her. She’ll be leading the company’s Louisville operation.
What does that mean for WVUE, “FOX8”?
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Earlier this year, respected Local TV Leader Marla Drutz revealed that she’s retiring. Now, the Graham Media Group executive who oversees its flagship property in Detroit is formally ready to pass the baton to her successor.
Who’s getting the role?
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