ACCESS 4.0: Coming Soon!

ACCESS 4.0 is coming this summer for ACCESS and BRIC-Link. 

4.0 is all about reliability. It adds CrossLock mode, which allows for a range of new reliability functions, while continuing to support the legacy modes of the thousands of Comrex codecs in the field are using already.

CrossLock allows users to utilize multiple networks, like a pair of USB modems, or two Ethernet ports. The CrossLock layer has bonding capability, adding together the capability of multiple networks to support higher bandwidth. Alternately, users will have the option of configuring multiple networks for redundancy mode, rather than bonding – this is a better choice for reliability on higher bandwidth links. Whenever multiple networks are utilized, CrossLock can employ powerful forward error correction, in addition to an enhanced version of the resend-based error correction already available in previous firmware. These tools provide a "killer combo", creating a bullet-proof IP link, even on poor networks.

Some gritty details – ACCESS 4.0 is only compatible with ACCESS 2USB portable units, but not the original ACCESS portable hardware with PC card slots.  It's compatible with all ACCESS Racks and the new BRIC-Link II, as well as the original BRIC-Link (although multiple networks can not be attached to original BRIC-Link, it can be used to receive multiple streams from the field).

ACCESS 4.0 is coming soon – keep an eye out and stay subscribed! 

North Metro Television Takes LiveShot To The Game

Community access is all about local engagement, and North Metro Television in Blaine, Minnesota is no exception. With two stations – one for covering local news, events and sports, and one for airing locally produced content – North Metro is a dedicated stream to what’s fresh and exciting in Blaine and the surrounding areas. But how can a station engage an audience with delayed programming?

That’s exactly the challenge that Matt Waldron, North Metro’s sports production director, faced.

North Metro covers local high school sports games, which are popular with the community and draw a large audience. However, due to equipment restraints, Waldron and his team were limited to recording sports games and playing them after the fact, sometimes up to two or three hours later. Potential audiences frequently already knew scores and game outcomes by the time North Metro could air the footage.

“We knew we needed to provide our audience with live coverage,” Waldron said. “With sports, especially, if you already know what happens, there’s no reason to watch.”

“We needed a solution that would allow us to stream live from any location we needed it to, while providing consistently high picture quality at a very low delay.”

Tech Talk: Impact Partnership's BRIC-Link Fool-Proofing Kit

Many customers of ours who use BRIC-Link as a stationary, point-to-point codec call it “the little black box that works”. You plug it in, it hums along, you mostly use the web GUI to interact with it – after a year or two, you might even forget where the actual box is.

Using it for a remote, however, is not quite so simple. BRIC-Link requires a fair degree of set-up, and often requires an engineer’s expertise to put together correctly.

But E.C. Hamilton of Impact Partnership has managed to engineer a remote broadcasting kit (with BRIC-Link at the core), for individual use by investment advisors and analysts with little to no technical experience with radio equipment, that can be set up in a matter of minutes. And he says it works like a sweet dream.

ScubaRadio and Comrex ACCESS: Adventures Underwater

18 years ago, Greg Holt was the manager of a sports radio station in Orlando when he stumbled across a novel idea for a radio program.

“[I was talking to my boss], and he said ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could dive for free?’ So I thought, let’s do a dive show.”

Since its creation, ScubaRadio has grown into a nationally syndicated program. Comprised of conversations with divers on location, remotes from beaches in places like Fiji and the Maldives, and characterized by an irreverent rock radio style, ScubaRadio brings the experience of diving to a wide audience. The show targets everyone from seasoned divers to regular folks looking for a reprieve from daily life.

Tech Rx: WebRTC, STAC VIP, and Why You Should Use It

Tech Rx: Your home for tech tips, tricks, and solutions. Take as needed.

Phone calls are easy. They’re simple to coordinate, and most people can get to a phone. However, phone-line quality interferes with interviews, leading occasionally to unintelligible answers from guests, or worse, dropped calls. And when you’ve spent a lot of time coordinating an interview, garbled programming just isn’t worth it.

WebRTC provides a simple solution for STAC VIP users, and it’s no more complicated for your caller than dialing a cellphone. It greatly improves the audio quality of drop-in calls, and best of all, it’s free to use.

How would you set WebRTC up for a drop-in caller? Here’s a hypothetical. Say you’re the chief engineer of a local radio station, and you’re charged with getting the mayor of the city prepared for a call with your station’s morning show. Here’s what you would do:

Confidence Feed: Skype and WebRTC

Confidence Feed: Our take on the latest industry trends, and what's new at Comrex.

When Microsoft purchased Skype this August for 8.5 billion dollars, we at Comrex assumed that Skype would be gone for good, wrapped into Windows Live Messenger or some other proprietary Microsoft software.

However, it looks as though our cynicism was a bit pre-emptive. Microsoft has announced that it intends to integrate Skype with WebRTC, including a commitment to integrate WebRTC into Internet Explorer. This isn’t just a major deviation in Microsoft's normal our-way-or-the-highway behavior – this is a sign that Microsoft is willing to participate with open-source players in general.

Details of this integration have yet to be announced – we’re not sure in what direction Microsoft will take this after the initial beta phase. With that said, it’s good news for our customers who were missing Skype, and it potentially implies a cooperative shift in Microsoft’s attitude toward partnerships in general.

We are, of course, continuing to support WebRTC use for all of our products. WebRTC is a new feature built into modern web browsers like Chrome and Firefox that allows real-time communication right from the browser, with no software to install. With WebRTC support, Comrex ACCESS, BRIC-Link and STAC-VIP can accept calls from anyone using these browsers on the Internet, and send low delay, high fidelity audio each way using the well-regarded Opus audio algorithm.

Got questions about using WebRTC with ACCESS, BRIC-Link, or STAC VIP? Read our technote on our support page.