Doing a little research for a presentation I'm making at CBI's annual conference this fall. How many of you know of a "college radio" station that still has a modulation monitor in-house. Something that is not HD-capable, but is capable of decoding and de-emphasizing a composite input into discrete stereo line-level output. I'm not looking for generalities - I'm looking for people who have been in a station and seen one of these suckers. Probably a TFT884, but any mod monitor that meets the criteria will do.
For purposes of discussion, we're taking a somewhat vague definition of "college radio". Something that's primarily student operated, although a couple of paid pros at the top is fine. Actual music format doesn't matter much, but I am specifically NOT looking for "public radio" stations, which in this case we'll use the strict definition of "station that is an NPR, et al, affiliate and/or receives annual CPB funding".
The idea is that I'm talking to college radio stations that're examining whether or not to "go HD" and one important factor is how they handle "air monitoring" in such a situation. One way to achieve that is to re-purpose your old audio processor...the one that's probably not good enough for HD audio and is being replaced anyways. Feed it program and then loop it back as your "air monitor" so DJ's have an audio feed that sounds processed but lacks the inherent 8 second delay of HD.
Catch is, I know from experience that there's quite a few college radio stations out there that have old processors that work fine but only have composite outputs. But if a lot of stations have an old mod monitor around...and since non-HD mod monitors are useless in measuring HD-equipped facilities...then a composite-only processor is not an issue.
I know this is a narrow slice of a much larger question, but I want to KNOW just how accurate (or inaccurate) this little slice is so I can tweak the preso accordingly.
For purposes of discussion, we're taking a somewhat vague definition of "college radio". Something that's primarily student operated, although a couple of paid pros at the top is fine. Actual music format doesn't matter much, but I am specifically NOT looking for "public radio" stations, which in this case we'll use the strict definition of "station that is an NPR, et al, affiliate and/or receives annual CPB funding".
The idea is that I'm talking to college radio stations that're examining whether or not to "go HD" and one important factor is how they handle "air monitoring" in such a situation. One way to achieve that is to re-purpose your old audio processor...the one that's probably not good enough for HD audio and is being replaced anyways. Feed it program and then loop it back as your "air monitor" so DJ's have an audio feed that sounds processed but lacks the inherent 8 second delay of HD.
Catch is, I know from experience that there's quite a few college radio stations out there that have old processors that work fine but only have composite outputs. But if a lot of stations have an old mod monitor around...and since non-HD mod monitors are useless in measuring HD-equipped facilities...then a composite-only processor is not an issue.
I know this is a narrow slice of a much larger question, but I want to KNOW just how accurate (or inaccurate) this little slice is so I can tweak the preso accordingly.