[cma-l] mobile technology and community radio

Gordon Nicholas gordon.nicholas at btinternet.com
Tue Sep 6 13:39:51 BST 2011 

 
Hi everyone..
 
This is a topic that I particularily enjoy so perhaps I can add in a bit more from our experience at Vintage Radio on Merseyside.
 
We have started down the road of live OBs by taking interviews at the remote site (an exhibition) and feeding into a live music programme. We used Skype as a starter to see how it would work and were impressed by the audio quality but also the "on screen" banners you get if there is a link problem. You also have a "chat" window for interaction. We "cued in" the interviews on a time basis with pre-synchronised clocks by getting the remote presenter to start the interview at a set time and fading in at the studio while the other show was on air. The remote interview was "cued out" via a code sequence such as "and now back to the studio". The remote site used a 3G router although I dont see why 2G wouldnt do the job for audio. We tried to avoid mobile phones as the digital call setup got iinto  the  studio audio (happens even with the beeb!)
 
Other things we are looking at include the possible use of a free VPN  to avoid problems with firewalls and a simple voiceIP linking package which has multiple codecs and is (again) free!. Another project is the use of a Samsung Galaxy S which with the latest Android OS will do Video calling with both front and back cameras which we could use to feed the website.
 
Having limited funding we are always looking for low-cost options and am scared rigid by some of the figures talked about in the threads.
 
Hope that helps the discussion
 
Gordon
Chairman
 
http://www.vintageradio.org.uk   ..for the mature listener...

--- On Tue, 6/9/11, London Chinese Radio <admin at londonhuayu.co.uk> wrote:


From: London Chinese Radio <admin at londonhuayu.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [cma-l] mobile technology and community radio
To: "cma-l" <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
Cc: "Yanli Ji" <janny_198208 at msn.com>
Date: Tuesday, 6 September, 2011, 13:04


Hi everyone,

Great response from this thread, and interesting read...
One thing that comes up is how technically advanced CMA members are, for sure.

However, I was sort of looking for lower tech answers, that a normal person could use to their advantage.

I'm thinking about two main areas, one where listeners could use mobile technology to interact with the station, and the other where stations could use mobile technology to interact with listeners. 

With regard to the former, most stations (BBC, commercial and community) are already trying to exploit mobile technology to try to entice listeners to interact with the station.

With regard to the latter, I haven't seen so much, but it could be because I don't get out much...!
I'm thinking along lines of presenters going out into the community and using iPads (or smartphones) as a way of bringing the station to the audience. 
I like the "travel light" aspect of this: there are existing apps (such as the iRig mic and iPad dj and Groovemaker), where people could bring the studio to groups, and get them to participate. No vans full of equipment, no fumbling around with getting expensive equipment to talk to the station, etc. I think there is a lot of future in this. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to record your band, you had to go to a recording studio and pay engineers, etc. Now you can do so much of this on the computer. 

There are some technical questions, (mainly because I don't have an iPhone or iPad, so I don't know), like can you do live vox pops on an iPhone, and then have it simultaneously send the audio to the station (or even the website - cut out the middleman)? Or is it just a case of recording it live and then uploading the file (doesn't make too much a difference anyway). Anybody discovered an app that is like a presenters desk, where you can play music and take calls? (gap in the market, maybe?)

I was inspired by what Clive said, "Only a few years ago such things required van fulls of equipment and a staff of dozens - at least for the BBC!" and I think this is a good thing, something that all community stations could replicate on a small budget....

Love to hear your comments!

Peter Vautier
London Chinese Radio
(aka London Huayu)




2011/9/5 Ian Hickling <transplanfm at hotmail.com>



  

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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