The Pro Audio Pit at NAB has been bringing some of the industry’s sharpest minds together. It’s been a great venue for highlighting the issues facing broadcast audio. The panelists have been both entertaining and informative, from Frank Serafine talking about the tools and techniques for capturing location effects sounds to Jonathan Novick (Audio Precision) and I discussing modern audio test procedures.
I particularly enjoyed the dialogs on moving multi-channel audio around facilities with Director of Audio and Studio Engineering Jay Yeary of Turner Studios, Peter Glaettli, R&D head for Studer, and DTV Audio Group Executive Director and consultant Roger Charlesworth.
Glaettli discussed the capability demands on modern consoles for hundreds of inputs and outputs, and the interface of that with facility infrastructure. Roger and Jay covered the rebirth of MADI as a reliable, practical studio distribution protocol, though a precursor to what appears an inevitable IP-based future model. Merging digital audio and video together in HD-SDI streams as early in the flow as possible can avoid audio sync issues, though the audio channel count capabilities of these streams are already being stretched by the demands of multi-language, video description, and licensed and unlicensed music options alongside the core 5.1 mixes.
For nearly a decade now, Roger has championed a file-based (as opposed to stream-based) audio data distribution methodology—an approach that’s seeing significant traction as plants are being retooled.
The highlights go on and on, but it’s time to stop and head back for the next discussion.
The Pro Audio Pit continues this week at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas, so if you’re at the convention, make sure to stop by and see what’s going on. Held in Central Hall at C2459 each day of the show, the Pro Audio Pit is providing panels, seminars, tutorials and more, hosted by noted professionals as well as the editors of Pro Sound News, Pro Audio Review, Mix and others.
