AEQ reveals in BIT Broadacast the keys to the arrival of IP audio to radio studios

Javier Moreno, commercial director of AEQ, has revealed, in the workshop he has given at BIT Broadcast, the benefits that the arrival of IP to radio studios has meant. A technology that has optimised the implementation of communications systems, providing high-quality audio and solutions that have led to cost reductions.

Radio is experiencing a revolution in terms of communications with the arrival of IP technology. As Javier Moreno, Commercial Director of AEQ, "is the new form of audio transmission converted to data. It is not something new. For some years now, it has been applied to different sectors in which different solutions to multiple problems were sought."

Javier Moreno explained to the attendees of BIT Broadcast, which today closes its doors in IFEMA, how IP has arrived in radio studios and what are the main benefits it brings to these environments.

IP technology has primarily affected outdoor communications, VoIP and multi-channel linear audio distribution within radio studios. "Although in the end all this is the same, audio converted to digital and transmitted through public or private data networks using IP, (the Internet transmission protocol), the technology and equipment are different as well as the needs to which they can be applied."

Although in all three fields it has been a great revolution, the arrival of IP technology has been in the transmission of audio signals where it has really been a great novelty. It is the possibility of making multichannel sends within each station or studio, allowing significant wiring savings and a very simple way of distributing the signals among all the consoles or equipment installed.

Multichannel audio sending is not something new, "it was already being used in concerts by musical groups for almost 20 years and in the world of radio what has been used, and in some places it is still used, is the MADI system".

MADI is a type of link that allows the transmission of up to 64 channels of audio per link from a source point to a determined, fixed destination point.

With IP, it has been possible to have a number of audio channels only limited by the capacity of the network, for all the equipment connected to it simultaneously. All the equipment connected to this network may be contributing signals to be selected by other equipment simultaneously.

Its arrival at the radio studios has been late, above all, due to compatibility problems. In these environments, there is a wide variety of equipment with very different functions and from very different manufacturers.

"AEQ, like other well-known equipment manufacturers, has been waiting for the emergence of a standard that makes all equipment and brands compatible with each other. And, although it is already known that it will be AES 67, it is not yet 100% closed. However, more than a hundred manufacturers, Solid State Logia, Yamaha, SAS, NTP, Studer and ourselves, have agreed to use Dante technology that allows the interconnection of all brands with each other, and that in the very near future, will migrate to AES 67 compatibility with a simple update. All AEQ digital consoles already have their AoIP module in operation and connect directly to each other or to any networked equipment. Other manufacturers are coming up with equivalent solutions through the Ravenna platform in which AEQ also participates, but whose results we believe will not be as immediate or effective in terms of cost and flexibility."

AEQ has developed the Net Boxes, equipment that has a set of analogue and digital audio inputs and outputs that allow direct connection to the IP network and thus integrate all the auxiliary equipment available in studios. The signal configuration of this equipment is carried out through the general control software of the network and is compatible with the Dante control and transmission network.

External communications

IP audio encoders are equipment capable of converting an audio signal into a compressed stream of data to transmit through private networks (Intranet) or through public networks such as the Internet.

The first audiocoders began to be used for analogue telephone networks and today they are still used in places where digital networks (Internet and ISDN) have not been imposed as quality networks or are non-existent. "However, when they really appear as they are most commonly known, it is with the arrival of ISDN lines. At first with quite a lot of instability, but then they have become a reference of the type of line, due to their transmission capacity and stability of communication.

"AEQ has had a lot of experience with this type of equipment and some have become a reference in the world, such as the AEQ TLE-02D portable encoders or the ACD 3001 with which the 1994 World Cup football championships were held in the USA for the first time using this technology".

These ISDN encoders are the basis of the new generation of encoders over IP protocol that have two fundamental differences, on the one hand, the way in which the communication lines are able to transmit this data (converted audio) and, on the other, the connection protocol between source and destination.

"In the IP lines, the encoding formats for transmission are the same and new formats are added, more current, with greater compression and improvements in relation to delays and quality." IP addresses or, in the case of the use of SIP communication protocol, a name with which to identify the computer are now used.

Voice over IP

Another novelty that IP technology presents us, in relation to communications, is the possibility of replacing telephone lines or switchboards with communications over the Internet with the IP protocol.

"New installations are increasingly equipped with IP telephone exchanges, which implies a problem when it comes to connecting mixing consoles, since they do not support the direct connection of traditional hybrids and causes us serious inconveniences in the installation."

To solve this problem, manufacturers have developed different equipment such as the AEQ IP System that allows the connection of IP phones and touch control terminals to make conventional calls, from the mixing console to private phones to replace traditional telephone calls with AudioVoice over IP lines with IP switchboards.

It is a new form of communication that is presented as a revolution for the radio environment since it incorporates audio over IP in the studios in a transparent and easy to handle way, with terminal equipment and lines that everyone can have anywhere. And, in addition, it means a great saving on calls.