• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Good ways to send digital audio computer-to-computer

G

gunterm

Since a hardware box doesn't exist to do windows media, mp3 and AAC+ all in one I decided to "make" my own to handle encoding for several stations. The challenge now is sending audio from each PC to the main encoder without losing quality.

What I'm working on experimenting with now is S/PDIF soundcards on each end, either optical or coaxial. I was wondering if anyone else has tried this and if they found a better way I haven't thought of yet? Virtual audio cable over LAN would be easier and cheaper if it existed.
 
I don't get the full picture of the technical "division of labor" between your different hardware devices. Your question indicates you want to transfer audio from device to device as digital audio.... if you transfer via s/pdif... will it be standard audio comparable to a .wav file, or does your original machine convert to each of the formats.... mp3, AAC+, etc and then transfer to each machine.

Can you not do the transfer over you lan as a .wav computer file... the same way you would transfer a WORD .doc or an EXCEL .xls file?

Are the receiving machines other PCs and MACs on the lan or are they some kind of proprietary machines for the various formats?
 
This really isn't about division of labor, it's about me being able to reboot the on-air computers without taking the station completely off the air. Doing a reboot kicks all the listeners off, and recently one computer I restarted failed to boot up next time because the core files had been corrupted. If you were a terrestrial station I can assume you wouldn't want to have the transmitter turn off during a computer reboot :) Although this is much worse since the termination of your connection to the server also kicks every listener off and they have to reconnect.

I have Googled this and found nothing I could use, the only solutions that exist for lossless audio over LAN involve VST plugins and multitrack editing software, nothing that is a straight up set of virtual audio cards that would send over the local LAN. Barix makes something called "VACard Virtual audio" however that only transmits using MP3 and not WAV.

Right now all the computers are PCs, including the new computer designated to be the encoder box. I want all the audio to be lossless digital when it gets to the encoder PC, so far using S/PDIF to send it seems to be the only way but if a software solution exists that would be great.
 
If I understand correctly, the problem is you need a backup computer that you can seamlessly switch to in case your normal on air computer needs to be rebooted? If so, an analog solution would be a lot easier, and I seriously doubt that your listeners would know or care. Just use two computers, running them simultaneously with your automation program. Take the audio outputs and run them into a simple mixer. There are lots of fairly decent ones out there for incredibly low prices. You don’t need anything fancy, and ultra low noise mic pre-amps are not in issue. We’re talking line level (-10 db) levels. Even the worst cheap mixers have trouble screwing that up.

Take the output of the mixer and run it into the streaming computer or device, like a Barix Instreamer. You’re done. Of course, the changeover would need to be done manually. If you need to do it remotely, use a streaming computer with an audio card that has multiple inputs and use the Windows Mixer utility to control it. You can use remote Desktop, VNC, GoToMyPC, Logmein, or some other remote access utility to control it from anywhere you can get an Internet connection.
 
Not to belabor the point.... but I encourage you to recognize that "division of labor" is EXACTLY what you are after. You want each involved computer to have a limited scope of work to do. Each computer has only the operating system and software necessary to do the task it is assigned to do.

Your encoder may work best with Windows 2000 for reliability, while your automation software may work best with Windows XT. If one particular machine tends to be the only one that sometimes locks up or otherwise needs rebooting, that is the one where you follow Chucks suggestion and have a second one doing exactly the same thing in hopes they will never both need booting at the same time.

You use the Barix type equipment when you need to haul your data a long distance... as in from the studio in town to the transmitter 15 miles in the country.

In a streaming situation I would assume all your devices are going to be in one location. Conventional advice is that you never want to turn your data in one form of compression or encryption (mp3?) and then convert from that to AAC for example. Personally, I would shoot to keep everything .wav as it goes from machine to machine and then let your final machine convert it to the various encoded formats for your listeners.

I would be one of the least informed of advisers in this exact area, but I don't recall seeing a device that is going to convey via s/pdif a signal that is currently mp3. I don't know what devices are available and what software is available that would allow one computer to talk to another computer via Firewire without getting into something that would become the mechanism that shoves you into re-boot time which you are trying to avoid.

You can buy rock-solid LAN inter-connection devices and reasonable prices, and you can find some friends who understand LAN connections to help you trouble-shoot the cause of recurring problems.

Can you deliver the audio (either analog from a mixer as suggested by Chuck, or as one WAV compatible digital signal via LAN) to the streaming box and let it produce each of the formats (mp3, AAC+, etc) or do you need a separate computer for each protocol delivering multiple signals to the final computer?
 
Whatever youend up with use the free tool logmein.com.

Will not in the free mode transfer files. (Use filezilla for this)

Whatever you end up with in the computer realm you can always remotely control the PC's. Use a ups on both. Have a contact closure for hard restarts.
 
Why not use two or more barix encoders fed by different workstations running in tandem and then have a router handle load-balance/fail-over?
 
OK, so I caved since there appears to be no ways to do this over the LAN easily, bought a bunch of Echo Mia MIDI cards (which is one of the few brands that allow you to rename them for easy finding in the encoder program) which have separate pins in Windows audio for the Digital In and Analog in so each card can be used for two stations. Working well so far...
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom