Tech Focus: Intercoms, Part 1 - Dynamic Technology Adjusts to Whatever Comes Next Multiple approaches - wireless, IP, the cloud - are available but not without obstacles By Dan Daley, Audio Editor Wednesday, March 29, 2023 - 7:00 am
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Over the past decade, intercom technology has evolved into a multilane highway. A couple of the channels were turned into express lanes by the COVID pandemic, with intercom users, including sports broadcasters, forced to seek alternatives. Some lanes have been slowed by other extenuating circumstances. And there are plenty of potholes to navigate.
Sports broadcasters are looking for everything, says Michael Brown, regional sales manager, Mid-Atlantic and Upper Central States, RTS, because they never know what they're walking into or what they'll need for a show or what might change when they're there.
The first new lane on that highway was the move to wireless connectivity, but that was hemmed in by the FCC's constriction of the 700 MHz and then the 600 MHz band - think of the highway sign that warns Road Narrows Ahead, No Shoulder. Then came lanes dedicated to audio over IP (AoIP) and, subsequently, to cloud-based virtualization.
Brown notes additional FCC restrictions atop the loss of spectrum, including limits on output power and antenna directionality, further complicating wireless intercom operations. Even so, it remains the primary mode for large-scale deployments. AoIP and virtual comms show promise as alternatives but have their own intrinsic limitations.
Cloud-based comms sound good, he says, but the first things the people on the trucks ask is, Whose cloud, whose server? And AoIP is limited to 100 meters - 328 ft. - before [the signal] needs to be boosted, which is not something every situation allows. That's why sports broadcasters want all of these options available to them.
In response, Brown notes, RTS has developed hybrid-type workarounds, such as its RTS Voice Over Network (RVON) TCP/IP-based VoIP product. The Odin frame is a multiformat analog-to-Dante audio frame, allowing existing analog users a migration path to interface with existing data networks, including Dante, thus extending the system's scale. Its ROAMEO system takes wireless to the 1.9 MHz DECT frequency range, addressing earlier spectrum loss.
Away From Hardware, Toward the Cloud Over the past two decades, the Telos Alliance has been shifting away from hardware-based matrixing and toward AoIP-based operation and then on to the cloud, according to Telos VP, Business Development, Martin Dyster. Its Telos Infinity Virtual Intercom Platform (VIP) fully featured cloud-based intercom system launched in 2021. Much of its evolution was sparked by the COVID pandemic, he notes, which accelerated what had been a trend toward remote broadcast production by budget-sensitive television networks.
Telos's Martin Dyster: If you have a cellphone, tablet, or computer, now you also have an intercom panel.
But, he adds, the pandemic had another effect: It created a component shortage, and we, like many other companies, couldn't build anything, pushing product development further in a virtual direction. As a result, if you have a cellphone, tablet, or computer, now you also have an intercom panel.
Of course, moving into a virtualized environment has its challenges. For instance, browser-based interfaces can be vulnerable to online interruptions, as anyone working on Zoom or Teams has learned. The potential applies to any foray into internet-based connectivity. Dyster acknowledges that concern, one shared by just about every other industry sector that extends its reach through employees' devices. Announced in February, Telos's Infinity VIP App extends operation of the Infinity system to iOS and Android mobile devices, mirroring Infinity's current HTML5 browser-based VIP panel offering.
On the one hand, browser-based operation continues the company's mission of putting a panel virtually (and literally) anywhere. But it also comes with such issues as maintaining compatibility with Apple's and Google's steady stream of OS updates for those devices, updates that can be quite buggy in their initial iterations.
On the other hand, the phone version, described by Telos as a companion application, isn't intended to replace Infinity's other versions but rather to extend its reach at a time when broadcast sports productions are experiencing and experimenting with novel - and often disruptive - workflows.
Another response to virtualization was Telos's announcement, in October, of a partnership agreement with Vizrt. The resulting Viz Now SaaS-type portal, hosted by Vizrt, is intended to simplify and automate more of the intercom operation in the cloud environment.
Right now, Dyster says, [intercoms in the IP environment] are in the midst of constant innovation and testing to meet customer needs and expectations.
Customers Are Asking The pandemic focused users on alternative remote-production techniques. As COVID receded, the need for more ways to manage comms on a show persists, but it's not one-size-fits-all.
Clear-Com's Kris Koch: IP connectivity adds tremendous flexibility in how teams communicate and adds valuable third-party integration as well.
Our customers are asking for more ways to connect their teams, which are spread across multiple venues and locations, says Kris Koch, business development director, broadcast, networks and media production, Clear-Com, and REMI workflows have continued to grow and mature after the pandemic.
He points out that the digital diaspora of operators during COVID put a new premium on flexible comms solutions: IP connectivity, he notes, adds tremendous flexibility in how teams communicate and adds valuabl
