infrastructure

Opus Codec Appears in Broadcast STL System

Intraplex-IP-Link-100-and-200-angle-transparentToday’s news dump included an article on GatesAir, now a freestanding entity, it was once the transmission division of what was then known as Harris Broadcast. The company makes radio and TV transmitters, as well as related equipment, which includes studio-to-transmitter (aka STL) links. According to the Broadcast Beat article they have sold and installed one of their Intraplex IP STLs to WRLY-LP, a low power radio station in Raleigh, NC.

A broadcaster with a transmitter that is not located right at their main building (not co-sited) needs an extremely reliable means of sending their broadcast signal from the studio to the transmitter location. They also need some way to get some transmitter telemetry back from the remote location so that they can monitor the health of the transmitter. Their on-air presence via the transmitter is, after all, their bread and butter.

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A Net Neutrality Infographic

VoIP Supply Infographic in Lenovo X-1-CarbonLast week VoIP Supply has posted an interesting and potentially informative infographic that purports to describe “How Does Net Neutrality Affect VoIP?” The artwork is originally from Visual.ly, created by Gryffin.

While the thrust of the thing is useful, there are a few things about it that put me ill at ease. Like so much of the debate about network neutrality, important subtleties are often misconstrued or simply overlooked.

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New Skype Alternatives for Internet Broadcasting

Skype-alternativesI have an issue with “meta“ things. I blog, but I’m not engaged with the broader realm of bloggers. Blogging about blogging baffles me. Similarly, although I’ve been involved in the VUC since 2008, I’m not really engaged in the world of podcasters/internet broadcasters. I’m trying to work on this by sharing some of the techniques that I’ve discovered in doing VUC calls.

Last fall I was advising podcaster Mike Phillips with some issues of audio quality with respect to remote participants in podcasts.  He appears to be a frequent contributor to the blog of the IAIB. It was there that I stumbled upon a post recommending Skype Alternatives For Internet Broadcasting.

This post implies that Skype is tremendously popular in this space, and yet there is some desire to seek out functional alternatives. The author, Andrew Zarian, offers the following list of alternatives; Google+ Hangouts, Zoom, Apple’s FaceTime and Cisco’s Jabber. All are certainly worthy of consideration.

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Talky.io Offers A Great WebRTC Experience

In the post-roll after last week’s VUC call I was able to invite Andy to join me in trying Talky a relatively new WebRTC– based video calling service from &Yet. The service is very interesting as is the company itself. I heartily recommend their blog.

TalkyIO-Screenshot

Andy and I had a good, lengthy chat using Talky. We came to the conclusion that it was the best experience with WebRTC that either of us has encountered. Admittedly, neither of us are WebRTC experts.

Talky supports screen sharing from within Chrome, given that a configuration change is made prior to starting the session. What it lacks is any kind of text chat.

 

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Some IVR Is Just Stupid

Does your phone system implement some interactive voice response, aka IVR? Do you know how bad IVR can drive your customers nuts? It can actually drive them away. Here are a couple of examples from my personal life.

Here in Houston there’s a very successful Greek restaurant called Niko Niko’s. Stella likes this place a lot. I like their food but I don’t like to go there. It’s always busy. It’s simply too noisy a place to have a relaxing meal.

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