Outside Broadcast equipment

[TomHoward]

Afternoon all

 

I have been asked by a local community radio project if there is any way they can set up an outside broadcast solution within £2,500. This is specifically for a grant application - to be further broadcast on the internet and FM.

 

Frankly I would have thought at the level they are working at the best solution would be a mobile phone, but I wondered if anyone had any viable solutions, just so I can pass something back to them.

 

The main studio is a suite in an office block in a rural town, so we'd be looking at a set radius back to there I imagine. Any ideas of licence costs etc if necessary would also be appreciative - or is there a better way to do this - internet links etc for example - would the best solution be a laptop?

[paulears]

Biggest outlay will me rights foraging music. You can hire in packages of kit plus the link equipment for remote Tx but your budget it far too low. It's not usually possible to do it to even a modest standard for a little money! Your audience demographic and area make a big difference cost wise.

 

edit

I must not join in conversations on my iPhone mainly because I misunderstood the question, but really because my reply is rubbish and I can't work out what I actually meant! Sorry. P

[TomHoward]

I didn't think it was worth it, they're trying to run before they can walk. Realistically their best bet at this stage would be to hook up a laptop to the internet and stream content back to the studio.

 

They've asked me if I can advise on a spec for 'outside recording equipment' but I assume they mean outside broadcast - I've asked them to clarify, to make sure that they understand a mobile recording setup won't allow them to broadcast remotely - I suspect they think it might.

[henny]

I know of a number of local radio stations that do their ob's over Skype, they have 3G dongles on two different networks, a small mixer with USB audio built in and a few mics ect. One advantage skype gives you is text coms to the studio to help with the production side of the ob

[bruce]

What do you mean by "outside broadcast" - is it literally from anywhere in the area, or somewhere where there are existing comms?

 

We regularly do broadcasts like this - after much faffing about with laptops and streaming, we went for a solution based on a pair of instreamer/extreamer units from Barix. Total cost less than 500 pounds, and will run over a standard domestic broadband setup. Have used it everywhere from back-room-of-pub to a concert hall. Even once did a broadcast from a festival in a field, with wifi backhaul to a chip shop at the edge of the site!

 

 

If you have line-of-site back to studio, you could use 5GHz bridges - license fees are only 50 pounds, and you can get a working system with range of ten miles for a few hundred pounds.

 

Having said all that, the most common thing we use when attending any outside event - we record and broadcast a lot of gigs - is a Zoom H4n !

[TomHoward]

The Barix boxes sound like a good solution - something hardware-based that will allow them to set up a link relatively easily back to base. I think line of sight might be a bit ambitious. I'm thinking that some 'field reporting' kit like handheld recorders may be more some use to them as well.

 

To you happen to know which Barix boxes they were?

[pjb304]

Instreamer and Exstreamer are actual product names from Barix, so I guess it's those Bruce is referring to. See the product page.

 

I'm now left wondering how/why I know this given I have never used the products before.

[bruce]

To you happen to know which Barix boxes they were?

 

The bottom of the range ones. Instreamer 100 at the source end, extreamer 100 at the destination. Or you can, in some circumstances, replace the

rx end with a PC running winamp etc.

 

You can run them in mp3 or raw mode. If you're doing it over an ADSL line, need to use MP3, which increases the latency a little - a second or so.

 

Nice thing about them is that once they're set up, it's "plug and play". Connect one end to the network, other end to your audio source, and you're up and running.

 

Downside is that they don't have any external metering - it's done in software - so need to be careful not to overload input.

 

My "OB box" has a Barix encoder paired up with a compressor/limiter, to prevent overloading.

 

I'll try to dig out details of the supplier I used - you can buy them via several broadcast specialists, but they're a bit cheaper if you go to people who sell them for the intercom/security market.

[TomHoward]

That sounds like a good solution. Is there any external server in the middle - or are you using a static IP at receiving end etc? Being able to turn up on site and just plug in, and have that audio connection back to the studio without any setup on site sounds too good to be true.

[bruce]

I generally use an icecast server in the middle - makes things much easier to monitor and control - but it's definitely possible to do point-to-point links without a middleman. Easier, of course, if you have a static address at the rx end, but there are ways round that.

[J Pearce]

Tom, I don't know how that box does it but you don't need a static IP to be externally accessible. Look at dynamic dns. Most half decent domestic routers have functionality to pass their assigned IP back to a server which then forwards data to/from the host name that you have registered with the dynamic dns provider.

[TomHoward]

If you don't mind me asking, which icecast hosting are you using, is there a cost or is it free, or are you hosting it yourself? I'm not that bothered about finding the cheapest option if I can find a reliable one.

 

Dynamic DNS might be a possibility, but the rx end is behind a managed network (it's a suite in a building of serviced offices) so I can't guarantee that we have reliable access to all router settings etc. It may be possible that we could add a lower level router though to run the rx both off.

 

Interestingly, this looks like a better solution than running their own PC for uploading to shoutcast etc for their main internet radio feed.

[bruce]

We're doing the hosting ourselves.

 

At the rx end, if it's a NATted environment, and you want to do a direct point-to-point link, you'd need to set up some port forwarding.

 

 

The barix kit can handle dynamic DNS.

 

 

The only downside with using a barix for your main internet feed is that the box can only do VBR MP3, not CBR. That may or may not be a problem to you, but it's the reason I still use windows + edcast for encoding our internet feeds.

[TomHoward]

Here's one other thing to add to this- does anyone know of a hardware configured wireless bridge to go with the remote Barix box? I know of plenty of wireless bridges that require configuring upon use, but in order to make this as idiot-friendly as possible, I could do with a bridge that will allow the user to connect via an on-screen menu or similar, without requiring external configuration to connect.

[bruce]

Most of the commodity bridges, once set up, are pretty much "point and play", as long as you have line-of-sight, and you're working well within range. I've got a set that I usually use over a 1 mile link, and alignment of each end "by eye" is usually good enough - anywhere within 5-10 degrees is fine.

 

Having said that, I don't know whether I'd rely on an untrained person to set it all up.

 

You can buy a full kit from Broadcast Warehouse http://www.broadcastwarehouse.com/5.8-ghz-wireless-audio-over-ip-%28mp3%29/14/package

 

buying the bits separately (eg get the bridge from someone like Solwise) might drop the cost a little.