In prior webinars, Nautel and Telos Alliance demonstrated a novel approach to HD Radio™ operation, using software-implemented audio processing and Nautel’s Gen4 HD MultiCast+, to completely eliminate time alignment drift through locking the FM + HD1 signals. The latest demonstration showed how this time-locked air-chain could be hosted in the cloud, utilizing the Telos Alliance Omnia Enterprise 9s high-density audio processor, a software-based Gen4 Importer/Exporter, and Nautel technology all running on the Amazon Web Services platform.
“An important aspect of a robust virtual network is failover, which is the system’s ability to switch to backup paths should something happen to the primary one,” said Philipp Schmid, Nautel CTO. “Our demonstration clearly showed the inherent availability of backups in a cloud-hosted air-chain. We included two failover events, switching our air-chain from Ohio to Brazil, then to a Nautel HD MultiCast+ acting as a physical resilient node. In all cases, the program flow was only briefly interrupted.”
“The opportunities offered to radio broadcasters through virtualization are immense,” said Kevin Rodgers, Nautel President and CEO. “It brings not only cost savings through a reduction in physical equipment; it makes group operations of multiple stations much easier and allows near-instantaneous upgrading of services with little downtime. The flexibility and ease of transitioning to HD Radio™ become simpler than ever, allowing broadcasters to scale their operational requirements up and down as needed and offering new revenue opportunities.”
Both companies noted that further development and the release of additional products will be needed prior to full deployment of this technology in the industry, but that current products such as the Omnia Enterprise 9s and the Nautel HD MultiCast+ ensure a path that will facilitate these new approaches to simplifying the air-chain.
Interested parties can view archived webinars showing the demonstrations of a time-locked FM+HD1 signal and cloud operation at www.nautel.com/resources/webinars/.
For more information please contact:
John Whyte
Head of Marketing, Nautel
+1 902-823-5174
John.Whyte@nautel.com
Krissy Rushing