[cma-l] mobile technology and community radio

Mon Sep 5 17:55:52 BST 2011

We have been doing a lot of work recently on reducing latency (delay) on link and OB encoding systems.
This has always been a problem with any digitising algorithm but now latency can be as low as 10ms which is effectively undetectable to the human brain.
However - the methods of doing this are complex and represent the use of specific equipment and a great deal of time expended - so we will certanly install them - but I'm afraid we're not prepared to tell anyone else how to do it!

------------------------------------
Ian Hickling
Partner
transplan UK

From: martin at martinsteers.co.uk
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2011 16:22:18 +0100
To: clive.glover at lineone.net
CC: cma-l at commedia.org.uk; admin at londonhuayu.co.uk
Subject: Re: [cma-l] mobile technology and community radio

Clive,

I have heard that you can get special / better streaming codecs that a) reduce the size of the stream and b) reduces the delay.. I think places like this http://www.audiotx.com/

I also think there is going to be a session on something similar to this at this years Radio Festival, about low cost OB solutions instead of expensive commercial / BBC setups.

2011/9/5 Clive Glover <clive.glover at lineone.net>

Peter

We have been experimenting over the Summer with various ways of doing Outside Broadcasts. Essentially we have mikes, mixer and music source(s) plus a laptop PC creating a stream broadcast over the Internet which is then picked up in the studios. In theory we can use a direct Ethernet connection or WiFi if available at the remote location or 3G otherwise. However Ethernet is rarely available and we have found WiFi unreliable so have opted for 3G which works well. We got a 3G dongle for ￡30 from 3 which lasted us through the whole Summer!

The only major problem with this setup is that there is a delay of several seconds which can cause problems if we are interacting with a presenter in the studio. We tried various combinations of presenter in studio with reporter on remote site, presenter at remote site with music coming from studio and broadcasting the whole programme from the remote site. Perhaps surprisingly the latter worked best as it avoided problems working with the delay.

The technical solution to the delay is to use special "black boxes" called Instreamers and Extreamers although these are expensive (￡200 or so each). But running the whole programme from the remote site works very well as long as the broadband link stays up.

The other main lesson is that it is essential to have a technical operator at the studios all the time during an OB, with a direct communications link (mobile phone usually although it could be Skype).

I think we have been surprised that this setup can produce such a good quality link from an external site using just a few ￡100s of equipment. Only a few years ago such things required van fulls of equipment and a staff of dozens - at least for the BBC!

regards,

Clive Glover

Radio Verulam

St Albans

On 4 Sep 2011, at 22:42, London Chinese Radio wrote:

Hi everyone,

Sounds a bit vague, but I would be interested in hearing what use community stations are making of mobile technology.
So the first question is "what do I mean by mobile technology", to which the answer must be "somehow using a mobile phone to interact with a radio station or it's output"

I once saw a presenter who used to take calls to his mobile which he had plugged into the mixing desk (that was on Sound Radio) it worked really well, and he did get quite a number of calls. 
Some of our presenters come and want to play music from their iphones, so I guess that's another use. Once, before we had a telephone hybrid, we had a presenter who did a phone in, and held the mobile up to the mic, that worked pretty well too....   
But more importantly, listeners - do you take texts, SMS, facebook messages, etc. How about people listening with their mobile phones?
Or what about using SMS services to contact large amounts of people en masse...? Anyone had experiences with that? 
Does anyone know of any way to broadcast to mobile phones and avoid huge costs to listeners on mobiles?  

I'm about to start a mobile technology project, and I'd like to hear any success stories, maybe we can all share what works well. I certainly will be more than happy to share any results from the project.

Best regards to all,

Peter Vautier
London Chinese Radio

-- 

野火烧不尽，春风吹又生

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