Meetings

November 2016 Meeting: Lawo and the Virtual Radio Station

When broadcasters swap CD’s, cart machines, turntables and audio consoles for PC-based digital playout, mixing & processing systems, we call that Virtual Radio. At our next meeting, guest speaker Bill Bennett, Lawo’s Radio Applications lead in the U.S., will describe virtualization in greater detail by outlining the real applications in use today.  He’ll explore how broadcasters may now reap operational benefits and gains by capitalizing on I.T.’s investment in R&D and will discuss virtualization’s anticipated role in content creation and broadcast workflow in the future.

Bill Bennett, Applications Lead, Lawo USA
Bill Bennett, Applications Lead, Lawo USA

Virtual Radio is a hot topic. A recent episode of This Week in Radio Tech (TWiRT) featured a Lawo presentation on this topic. How did they conduct their broadcast interview? Virtually, of course!

Lawo is a provider of virtual radio products, digital mixing consoles, routing systems, video solutions and turnkey systems for the professional broadcast industry. Their equipment is utilized by TV and radio stations, production companies, and theaters worldwide.

Bill Bennett made his presentation Wednesday, November 9th, 2016 at iHeartMedia, San Diego before a sizable audience of local broadcast engineers.

About the Presenter

Bill Bennett has been a long time audio engineer and project manager, leading media venue technical set-up teams for several Olympics. He’s also managed NBA, NHL, and regional events. He joined Lawo last year.

 

Local News

September Lunch ‘n’ Learn: AIMS – The Way You’re Going to Do Video Production Over IP

With all the discussion regarding studio video over IP, it gets a little nutty to try and sort out all the players trying to move the industry forward.  Scott Barella, Deputy Chairman of the AIMS (Alliance for IP Media Solutions) Technical Work Group and the new CTO of Utah Scientific will explain the progress of IP video and how the standards groups of SMPTE, EBU, AES as well as industry groups such as VSF and AIMS are working together to help move the IP initiative forward.

He will also review the key differences of SMPTE 2022-6/7 and TR-03/04 and what the engineers are doing behind the scenes to make it all work together.

Scott will then also share where Utah Scientific is in their development of some key products enhancing existing systems that are raising a few eyebrows.

Join us for this bonus meeting Wednesday, September 21, at 12 noon at KFMB Stations, 7677 Engineer Road. Utah Scientific will pick up the tab for lunch.  This is truly bleeding edge information that we’re lucky to see the day before the presentation is made in L.A.

Local News

September 2016 Meeting: BDI On Transmissions Parts

Something we don’t talk a lot about are the precision electro-mechanical devices we use at the transmitter–the RF power metering, RF switch control, dummy loads, and so on. What goes into this gear? What’s the state of the art? We intend to take the wraps off this wizardry at this month’s SBE meeting. Bob Tarsio, President of Broadcast Devices Incorporated, will present information about the advanced devices used in transmitter plant infrastructure.

Bob spoke Wednesday, September 14th at KGTV in San Diego before a number of local engineers.

Bob’s been at BDI since 2002, when he left a 20 year stint at Viacom as their Director of Engineering. Earlier, he was a radio Chief Engineer at what was WLTW/WAXQ in New York.

Commentary

Making Waves Editorial: To Chill or Not to Chill

In August 1980 I was in my second year of TV engineering at KTVZ Bend when my boss Jess Ortega and I were to be on a live, local call-in TV show at 7pm at the station, talking about TV reception. About 30 minutes before air time, the transmitter dumped. As in—we were off-the-air. We jumped into the truck dressed in our suits, drove to the transmitter site, and were able to immediately put it back on-the-air because it had cooled during our drive. The show was re-scheduled for the next evening. Continue reading Making Waves Editorial: To Chill or Not to Chill →

Meetings

Homegrown Pico Digital to Talk About Their Station in a Box

Many, if not most, radio stations these days have an Xpress box to bring them some flavor of satellite-delivered content, whether a talk show or syndicated music broadcast. But did you know these receivers are made in San Diego? Did you know they can be programmed to operate as self-contained radio automation systems? What can networks do with these store-and-forward devices?

Damon will talk about their watermarking and monitoring technology as well.

Pico Digital started as Pico Macom in 1969, selling TV modulators and related RF devices for the cable TV and hospitality markets. They still make and sell sophisticated cable RF modulators, but have widened their offerings to include radio and TV IRDs.

Damon Semprebon of Pico Digital will give a talk on the capabilities of the Xpress line of receivers and other Pico products of interest to TV and radio broadcasts Wednesday, August 10th at 12 noon at KFMB, 7677 Engineer Road in San Diego. We’ll have a small lunch provided by Pico Digital, then the presentation. Members and guests welcome.

About Our Presenter

Damon Semprebon has 30 years experience in technical project management, product development, and other technical services. Before coming to Pico Digital a year ago, he spent 25 years at the San Diego company variously known as Comstream, Tiernan, Radyne, Comtech, and International Datacasting.

Society of Broadcast Engineers