[BC] Program transmission suggestions

[Dana Puopolo]

My commants are imbedded...

-D

------ Original Message ------
Received: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:39:30 PM EDT
From: Broadcast List USER <Broadcast at fetrow.org>
To: broadcast at radiolists.net
Subject: Re: [BC] Program transmission suggestions

The public Internet is incredibly robust.  Yes, the last mile can  
have problems, especially if you are on a cable "modem" but the  
backbones are amazingly robust, and are self healing.

True enough. This is why the ARPANET came into being in the first place.

Recall September 11, 2001.  A good friend of mine was one of the  
original employees in a little start-up called Akamai < http:// 
www.akamai.com/>.  They put "content" around the country so that if a  
lot of people are calling up web pages, they can be served up  
locally.  CNN was a huge customer on 9/11, and CNN.com never even  
burped.  Late in the day he was just so proud that what they did  
survived a test that even they could not imagine.  Clear Channel uses  
Akamai.

Smart people always have servers all over-not only here in the USA but located
in other countries too.

Even though World Trade 7 had thousands of servers in it which were  
suddenly taken off-line, it didn't make any difference except for  
those web sites served up ONLY out of there.  DNS were rapidly  
redirected and even most of those sites were back up quickly.  Of  
course, just like phones, LOCAL connectivity was hurt in lower  
Manhattan.

Also, there is no "easy" way for "parts of the [I]nternet capacity  
[to be] reallocated for clear government access/use."  Yes, PEOPLE  
can be sent into colocation facilities to move fiber from public  
routers to government routers, but those government routers would  
have to be brought in, and it isn't like they are sitting on shelves  
ready to go.  I suppose the government could order ISPs to shut down  
residential users, but what about the big Homeland Security muckety- 
muck working from his home?  I can't see it.

The Government's solution was/is to create Internet 2, which is a multi gHz
backbone. It's only available to Govt. agancies, law enforcement and colleges.
I've used it and it freaking FLIES! How about downloading something with 100
Mbit/second constant throughput? The limiting factor is how fast it can get on
your hard drive!

Also, remember that fiber has been laid all over the US in  
expectation of the boom that went bust almost 10 years ago.  Today  
you can rent dark fiber for nearly nothing between major cities.   
Then again, actually using it costs a lot of money in equipment needed.

Less that 15% of the fiber laid in the USA since the '80s is lit up. The rest
is dark. Why? Today's multi color laser technology allows you to get a million
times more data out of a single strand of fiber then you could just ten years
ago! Some of this tech. has trickled down to us as well. Look at Blu Ray for
example. Over 40 gigsa on a disk whose size could hold 700 megs just a few
years ago!

On the other hand, I would hate to depend on the public Internet for  
a STL.  That seems weak on several levels.  First, reliability.   
While the Internet is robust, it is not 100% reliable, and it doesn't  
need to be as it is not normally a "real time" service.  It really  
doesn't matter if your e-mail takes five seconds or five minutes to  
arrive.  However, it DOES matter if you are missing five minutes of  
program audio.

I agree, which is why I say over and over to get the same backbone provider on
both ends...and YES  ou CAN do it across the country! Use Covad, or Verizon or
Speakeasy or Sprintnet, or level 3 or UUnet or, or, or....  I also recommend
that in mission critical applications like STLs, stations use dual WAN routers
with both a cable and DSL connection installed (or a DSL and a T1-you get the
picture). Also, you can do the same thing on the send end with two Instreamers
on teo mor three different connections (the Streaming Client Firmware
available for the Exstreamer will automaitcally switch paths if a stream
fails).

The other issue is the quality.  I have used Barix boxes for  
streaming audio for keeping track of stations in other markets (for  
which we were not doing streaming for the general public).  The  
quality is quite good for listening to on a computer, but for actual  
program audio?  I don't think so!  It just amazes me what passes for  
"acceptable" today.  Just because it doesn't HAVE to pass an Audio  
Proof of Performance doesn't mean it shouldn't.

Here we disagree! Even many golden ears can't hear the difference between high
bit rate MP3 files and CD's. The Instreamer's best stream is a 192Kbit
variable bit rate stream. This equates to a 256K non VBR stream. Frankly, I'd
rather have a 192K VBR MP3 stream then a hissy analog composite STL or phasey
sounding set of 15 Khz analog program lines!  Remember, ALL interexchange
traffic runs on carrier now-so there's no such thing as 'pure' analog lines
unless both ends are within your C.O. Besides, those Tellabs equalizers sound
like crap-have you ever seen their schematic? The output transistors aren't
even the output opamp's feedback loop and they use a 741 opamp in the slope EQ
circuit!  Not to mention that the transformers in them sound like crap and
ring like crazy!

For those who want the best possible fidelity, there's a modification for the
Exstreamer I've come up with that makes them sound better-but if you do it you
MIGHT cancel your warranty! Barix is the sole arbiter here!

Nearly a year ago I replaced a FM antenna on a station with a lot of  
apparent multipath.  Well, the new antenna helped, but the station  
still had a lot of problems.  Well, it turned out the music was  
grabbed from all kinds of places, and a lot of it was MP3 files.  We  
just replaced all the music and the "multipath" like distortions went  
away.  It was astounding.  Still, getting the announcers to send  
linear files instead of MP3 voice tracks took some work, but  
eventually they got with the program.

The bottom line is this: for the last ten years perceptual coding has taken
over radio! There's nothing that anyone can do about it. Every song and
commercial played on every Prophet system on every Clear Channel station is a
256K MP TWO file! At least they run the level down 10db!
If I had my way, I'd play WAV or FLAC files, but we know that's not gonna
happen! Not to mention that the 'replacement' they've come up with for analog
radio (IBOC) is HUGELY bit reduced!  Believe me, a 192K VBR MP3 file will blow
IBOC out of the water any day!
That said, any station that runs 128K or less MP3 files is nuts! Downloading
your music off of bittorrent or Ares is even crazier!

I can see having DSL and some low data rate system as a BACK UP, but  
to crunch everything on the way seems a move away from goodness.  Add  
the fact that it was digital in the automation system, likely  
converted to analog, then digitized again to go into the STL, then  
back to analog to hit the digital audio processor...   All of those  
conversions cause the artifacts to stack up.  Of course, you CAN keep  
it digital, and SHOULD, but if the operation is so low end as to use  
heavily compressed STL, it isn't likely it is gong to stay in the  
digital domain from the automation system to the exciter.

Not true! What causes 'build up' is running multiple TYPES of perceptual
coding! If you keep with the same system (MP3 for example) all the way
through, the received audio will sound excellent-even with several A/D and D/A
cobversions. That's not to say that the number of conversions shouldn't be
minimized, but other stuff can cause MORE artifacts-such as running your
online audio on WMA when your music is encoded MP2 or MP3.
It's when you start out with ATRAC, then go to MP2 or MP3 then to AAC then to
APT-X then to IBOC and finally to WMA on your web stream-is there any way that
your audio isn't gonna sound like CRAP? Yet this is EXACTLY what's happening
at the majority of the big stations today!

Dana

--chip

On Apr 25, 2008, at 12:09 PM, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote:


> Message: 26
> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:32:48 -0700
> From: Mike McCarthy <Towers at mre.com>
> Subject: Re: [BC] Program transmission suggestions
> To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080424073219.05857bb0 at oldradio.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> Not to throw acid on the whole idea of public IP concept, but it
> really scares me when one considers the fragility of the public
> internet network.  It might work fine today when IP traffic loads are
> nominal.  What about when there is a major event and general usage
> skyrockets or there is an attack on the core servers?  Or worse yet,
> there is a national emergency and parts of the internet capacity are
> reallocated for clear government access/use.
> [...]
>
> MM
_______________________________________________

The BROADCAST [BC] list is sponsored by SystemsStore - Your Premium
Supplier Of Components To Build and Maintain A Technical Infrastructure
www.SystemsStore.com       Tel: 407-656-3719    Sales at SystemsStore.com