More and more radio stations are using new equipment to record their station output, even if there isn’t a regulatory need for long term audio archives. The Net-Log from Sonifex is a device which can enable a huge number of benefits for station managers, programme controllers, sales staff and engineers.
The Net-Log audio logger is a new way to record and play audio. It overcomes the inherent unreliability of PCs for long-term recording by providing a dedicated hardware recording platform that uses a simple network connection for audio playback. Recording over 3 months of multi-channel audio to hard-disk you get instant access to audio from your desktop.
It can record 4 mono, or 2 stereo, audio streams for playback using TCP/IP. Audio is encoded in mpeg format and written to a large 60GB+ internal EIDE hard disk drive. Each channel, or pair of channels, can be programmed to record independently and can be configured with different sample and bit rates. This allows for several weeks of regulatory low-quality recording as well as high-quality re-broadcast recording on one machine.
There are a number of advantages of the Net-Log : Many radio stations throughout the world must log their station output for regulatory purposes. Net-Log allows them to do this with ease, being able to store over 3 months of audio on a 60GB hard-disk, together with the ability to archive to other media for long-term retrieval. A larger hard-disk can be installed to increase the amount of data available on-demand.
Even if logging isn’t regulatory, Net-Log is providing audio to the desktop of anyone at the station – they don’t need to go to the racks-room, or central technical area to play out a recording previously made. From their desktop, the sales team can check to make sure that advertising was played on time and create audio files to email to customers. Program controllers can snoop on their presenters, checking performance and checking that scheduled music was played. Station managers can check up on their competition and compare them with the sound of their own station. The production team have much easier access to recorded audio from past radio shows for the preparation of future stings and trailers. There’s no more hunting around the office for tapes – just search for it on your PC.
All audio created by Net-Log is Windows Media Player compatible and both .mp2 and broadcast wave files can be emailed to colleagues and customers and played out on any PC with a sound system.
