Radio-Assist 7.1, a version towards structure and ergonomics

In 2001 NETIA launches the first Radio-Assist 7 version. In November 2002, the second version is put on the market with an even more solid system architecture, new functions very popular among users and numerous improvements in use. The 7.1 evolutions, like most of NETIA products, focus on both the structure and the ergonomics.

As for the system architecture, two software automata newcomers, DBShare and Media Management, revolutionize the reliability methods of large-sized digital-audio systems. DBShare centralises all communications with the Radio-Assist 7 database. By systematic and synchronous redundancy of all the metadata produced by the system, DBShare ensures the consistency of database contents. All databases are automatically synchronised. When an incident occurs on one database, DBShare automatically switches over to another one and archives all the queries made during and after the incident.

The switch is completely transparent for all client workstations. When conditions return to normal, the memorised queries are automatically executed and the database is fully restored. Both databases are resynchronised so that no datum gets lost.

Media Management handles the entire flow of data (metadata and sound data) within a digital audio or video system. It is designed to monitor and transfer data automatically from one domain to another and to ensure that the domains remain fully independent. For instance, when an item is marked as RTB (Ready-to-Broadcast), the audio file is automatically copied on the broadcast server. Likewise, when an item is marked as RTA (Ready-to-Archive), it is automatically copied on the archive server.

Media Management operation is fully transparent and ensures the user has access to the required file wherever it is located on the system. The automatic Media Management device makes it easier to create specific domains for each activity (Production, Broadcast, Archiving, etc.). Each domain has its own structure: servers, databases, etc. This separation of activities generates independent subsystems and guarantees greater security.

The combined action of DBShare and Media Management in the heart of the system increases the resistance to crash and failure. The specific principles consist in monitoring, memorizing and anticipating each action and each document transfer within the system. This 'tracking' always ensures that the right document is available at the right place, at the right time.

Numerous operating improvements have been carried out to each existing tool :

The browser is the multi-criteria search and consulting tool of the Radio-Assist database. For this version, NETIA adds new search criteria, creates new icons (archived and deleted items) and new tools (cartstack master). Customizing the browser with dynamic tabs ( Tab Editor) is one of Radio-Assist's main innovations. NETIA keeps improving this tool by integrating dynamic tabs into the existing database (tabs are modelled on existing ones). The access and/or consulting rights of these tabs can be easily defined by the administrator. Likewise, with dynamic tabs, each department or unit accesses directly and solely its own file classification. This Radio-Assist database specification is particularly popular with radios which have several on-air themed channels.

Recording immediately accessible for editing :

In this version NETIA offers the possibility to record either on site, remotely or both. To do it fast, thanks to a clicking button, an item which is being recorded can be directly loaded in the editing tab.

The " Snippet" tool belongs to this new tool generation, the conception of which bases itself on technicians' requests who are more and more used to the various editing software of the market. The 7.1 version follows this trend with a new stretching function working only on the selected zone. "Ctrl 0" is a very convenient keyboard shortcut which automatically points out the original item in the Browser.

Recording and mixing :

Entirely dedicated to radio professionals, Radio-Assist 7 Multitrack is a mixing tool the ergonomics of which make it possible to produce fast interviews, documentaries or jingles. Aiming at complete efficiency, NETIA integrates a recording function on a single track. The technician can integrate immediately a sound or a voice in its mixing ( Voice Over).

Feed-Plan & Feed-In :

These two automatic recording planning software applications are given new developments such as a specific setup interface (selection of the switching grid, destination address of error messages, operating modes etc). A new function "Full Channel Recording" enables the technician to preset the duration of recording slots (1h, 1h30, 2h etc.) which is very handy for a 24h on-air recording for instance.

Air-DDO : reactive broadcast

For the 7.1 version, the new Air-DDO play-out system represents the aim of many years of research and reflection, as much on the ergonomic level as on the technological one. This play-out system now has various functions displayed under the tab form: Recording, Snippet, In-Track, Playlist Editing. Broadcasting does not prevent the technician from recording, editing or mixing. In the radio domain, reactivity is an essential quality. During broadcasting, Air-DDO follows in real time all the latest modifications put into effect on the day's playlist and then updates them automatically on both Air-DDO screens. Until now, the modifications of the on-air playlist were made from a production workstation. With the new version, the modifications are made from Air-DDO itself. A new planning tab is directly accessible on the Air-DDO interface. In the studio, the technician himself modifies his playlist according to the day's events. Furthermore, AIR-DDO feeds synchronously an intranet site with what is being broadcast. The web surfer follows remotely but live the whole broadcast (audio files and metadata).

Two screens for Air-DDO, the one shows four chanels of broadcasting and the other one, the tools of monitoring, production or planning.

Three play-out modes (automatic, semi-automatic or live assist) are permanently available and the user can instantaneously pass from one mode to another. The semi-automatic mode allows the possibility to integrate a commercial break at a fixed time during a manual broadcast. At the preset time, the commercial is automatically broadcast. A time interval can be defined for this broadcast with ± x seconds. In automatic mode, Air-DDO is particularly useful for all night music programmes. Play-out takes into account the fade and mix points placed by the production. For background tasks, the technician benefits from the monitoring and recording functions.

In this 7.1 version, NETIA offers essential technical solutions to the huge evolution of digital-audio systems which has been going on over these past years. Users evolve too. They now ask for more and more high-performing and clever production tools. Radio-Assist 7.1 latest version is the answer.

Quick-Player for France Bleu "local radiostations"

Each local radio has a complete Radio-Assist production-to-broadcast system. NETIA's Radio-Assist acquisition and production programs consist of highly advanced software which the user will find extremely pleasant to use with features like on-the-fly marker setting, instant recording restart, integrated drag & drop, editing by adding or cutting, etc.

A number of look-up tools give access to files in the database via the local network or intranet. With just their login and password, any member of the radio station can view and access any relevant data. The latest version of Insider displays the progress of the on-air schedule in real time. Scheduling and broadcast are two tightly linked aspects of local radio work. Feder-All automatically designs and generates the schedule templates. Tedious scheduling tasks such as repetitive jingle insertion or countdowns are handled automatically by the software. Air-DDO, the Radio-Assist broadcast program, provides a range of ways to broadcast a sound item: from a playlist, from a cartstack or by direct selection in the database.

Radio France has chosen another very convenient broadcast tool, the NETIA Quick-Player, specially designed for small-to-medium radio stations. One of France Bleu's latest installations in the Limousin region is a good example of how the two broadcast programs go so well together. France Bleu Limousin and France Bleu Limousin in Tulle are two closely-linked entities.

Two daily switchovers are planned from the main France Bleu Limousin schedule to Tulle, one from 7:00 to 8:30 and the other from 11:00 to 12:00. For these periods, France Bleu Limousin in Tulle has a high-performance Quick-Player station which can record, produce and broadcast simultaneously.

Three simultaneous broadcasting channels give instant access to over a hundred sounds, music, jingles or commercial items. The first channel is dedicated to jingle or spot broadcasting and can be used to load a group of 96 constantly accessible sounds. The two other broadcasting channels display two cartstacks (the number of items per cartstack can be pre-set). These two channels are a valuable support for the presenter who has pre-programmed everything in one or more cartstacks. Items in a cartstack can lead in sequentially or be broadcast manually.

Quick-Player is also a broadcast preparation tool. It has a permanently accessible edit zone and PFL playback that the presenter can use to fine-tune sequencing by setting lead-in and fade points exactly as required. The Quick-Player edit section is highly perfected. The presenter can place a "liner" on a music item with the mouse, for instance, a Madonna message recorded on the intro of one of her songs. Access to the radio's audio database is direct, so the presenter can be freely creative and arrange programming at will at all times. From now on all production work is done either from a production station on the system or directly in a studio from Quick-Player.

Quick-Player has a recording function. While broadcasting, the presenter can record his or her own voice or phone calls, put them in a cartstack and review sequencing. The new sounds can be broadcast later on in the programme. The Quick-Player remote control is a valuable asset for radio technicians. Speed and accuracy are vital in a studio. The NETIA R&D department has given long thought to this need and has designed an ergonomic and easy-to-understand remote control for it. The great asset of Quick-Player is that it offers a whole range of high-performance tools which are uncommonly easy to use.

Quick-Player is a product designed for small-to-medium radio stations and is an excellent performance/price alternative. Sales of Quick-Player are constantly growing, especially in Europe and South Africa.

RAI & NETIA

System deployed across Italy :

RAI has over twenty sites in Italy. Those that are already equipped have a Radio-Assist 7 acquisition-to-broadcast system and usually have their own database. All the radios are interlinked and communicate through high-output channels (optic fibre or specific lines), sharing their sound files as needed. For instance, transfer of sound files from the Parliament to Radio Uno is triggered directly from the browser of a Radio-Assist production station. The flexibility of this structure makes for seamless information sharing amongst sites throughout the entire country.

Rome is of course the main site with, in particular, a powerful Elettra ACS (Advanced Computer System) archiving system which interfaces with Radio-Assist. This archives all the radio's sound files in digital form so that the Radio-Assist database only needs to contain currently-needed items. Users can access an online catalogue containing 350,000 hours of quality sounds. The system is highly intuitive for the user, automatically managing a complex process of format and system conversion, access rights control, database management, etc.

Secured architecture :

The global system has over 300 workstations requiring faultless management of every action and every file it contains. " DBShare and Media Management" are the two NETIA programs to meet this requirement. Media Management is used for separating out different domains: Information, Production, Broadcast. Each domain has its own structure of servers, databases and workstations. Alongside this, DBShare centralises all communications with the Radio-Assist database. It ensures systematic and synchronous redundancy of all the metadata produced so that database contents remain fully consistent.

The combined action of DBShare and Media Management at the very core of the system strengthens its resistance to untoward incidents. The basic principles are monitoring, memorisation and anticipation of every action and every file transfer within the system. Such traceability ensures that the right file is always available in the right place at the right time.

Contracts and trust between NETIA and RAI :

The special relationship of many years standing between NETIA and RAI is manifested in their contracts. In 2001, RAI signed an agreement with NETIA concerning all its radio automation supplies. In 2002, they signed a highly-developed 3-year maintenance contract. To ensure efficiency in this area, NETIA and RAI decided to create a team with eight technicians from RAI and one seconded from NETIA with a remit to provide a permanent maintenance service for all the network workstations, and install new workstations or software versions.

NETIA provides another level of maintenance exclusively for critical equipment such as servers and administration and broadcast workstations. Furthermore, RAI has signed up for the NETIA 24/7 Hotline. It is important to note that at the same time the maintenance of all the network is managed in house by RAI.

Softly, softly, go on air

With over 15 radio stations and 2 television channels, RTM is not only the national channel in Malaysia but also covers the entire Asia-Pacific area.

Installation of computing equipment and setup of all the digital audio systems is under way. Alongside this, the NETIA training department has set up big training programmes for the system's administrators and users. The entire staff is now fully operational. The eminent ergonomics of Radio-Assist software and the practical exercises undertaken in the training session greatly help in smoothing the way to digital broadcasting.To ensure broadcast quality, RTM has selected the Music-All, Feder-All and Air-DDO software trilogy, whose high performance is recognised by many important broadcasters.

RTM Malaysia :

Music-All is an extremely powerful planning solution which can handle millions of titles and still comply with the numerous constraints set by the programme scheduler. The technician uses Feder-All to define the schedule template and model timeslots and programmes. Air-DDO, the broadcast solution, automatically integrates the playlists scheduled for the day.

Enriched with production and planning tools, AIR-DDO is so easy to use that it is never too late to make manual modifications. And to cap it all, there is the Air-Log program to take the strain of on-monitoring and copyright declaration.

TRT chooses NETIA

The radio automation system will be installed on a HP/COMPAQ fiber channel based server cluster with two database/file servers and shared storage. The database used for the recording of materials is SQL based and freely set up to the specifications of the customer.

Types and categories can be modified, custom structures can be created on demand. The system also has a configurable security suite and user access: it is possible to limit access of any users to specific portions of the database. The database can be accessed from any workstation connected to the radio net on LAN, or from a remote location on WAN.

The production and broadcast network will use the ethernet LAN backbone of TRT. The clients will also be HP/COMPAQ professional workstations and desktops. To prepare the programs for these broadcast terminals there will be 5 ingest & editing, and 6 scheduling stations. Playlists can be created manually, and inserted in predefined timeslots that make up the format of the radio.

Additionally, Netia offers a separate module called Music-All for music time slot scheduling. Music-All has a separate database, that links to the Radio-Assist database. The titles and metedata from Radio-Assist imported from Radio-Assist, and in the Music-All database, new metadata specific for music-scheduling are added, such as style, mood, criteria, rotation etc.

These metadata too, are freely configurable by system administrators. A title may be included in more than one Music-All database. A Music-All database can be linked to only one part of the radio database, like songs in a certain language, or style. Thus it is possible to have music databases specialized towards certain types of music, like rock, pop, or a certain period, as well as a global database for general purpose music scheduling. Playlists are then created manually or globally according to the criteria and formats defined by the user.

There will be 3 On-Air stations, for the 3 TRT channels entering the automation scheme, and a backup On-Air workstation for each. Each on-air workstation will also be equipped with GPI controller boards for interfacing with on-air desks, and dedicated key panels to provide a hardware control surface.

Radio-Assist features tools for several kinds of internet interaction. There are modules for streaming the broadcast. There are modules for synchronising the website of the organisation with the broadcast, for example to have the web site display metadata about the currently playing song, etc. There are also modules for creating low-quality copies of the media store on a web server and opening these to internet access (for example past news bulletins).

In Brief

• With the anticipation of the 2004 Olympic games which will take place in Greece Radio Athina 9.84 will hold its place in this great event for Greece and will be the official broadcast station for the games. Radio Athina 98.4 is acquiring NETIA's latest Radio-Assist 7 version.

• DER SUPERMIX, 94'3 r.s.2 radio in Berlin, opts for Radio-Assist 7 products.

• Quick-Player, the highly modular Radio-Assist 7 production and broadcast tool, is a great success within small to medium radios, as proves the signature of yet another contract. Radio Salam, a non-profit radio in the Lyon area, has begun its digitisation with a complete little digital audio system which is both flexible and highly reliable.

• Radio Zambia is now equipped with a complete Radio-Assist system. With the help of AUD.COM, NETIA's partner for many years, an audiovisual company with a special focus on audio techniques.

• Lifetime Entertainment Services (USA) has been using Radio-Assist for its Lifetime TV channel for over a year and has now proved its appreciation by signing a maintenance contract.

In-House News

Fred Van Eijk appointed Regional Sales Manager of NETIA SA.

Fred Van Eijk has been appointed as Regional Sales Manager. Fred Van Eijk joins NETIA to support the continuing growth in the European region. He will be based out of the offices of NETIA Benelux in Liège (Belgium).

"I am proud to welcome Fred Van Eijk in the international sales team, I am confident that his international experience and in-depth knowledge of the broadcast market and customers are key assets for NETIA as we continue to grow worldwide." said Xavier De Vynck ( Director of International Sales).

Prior to joining NETIA, Fred Van Eijk pursued a successful career at EELA Audio where he oversaw the international sales. "It's a pleasure to join a company that is enjoyed by its employees, admired by its customers, and envied by its competitors." said Fred Van Eijk.

NETIA Benelux Quai Orban,45, 4020 Liège, Belgique Tel : +32 43 49 90 08 Info: f.vaneijk@netia.net

NETIA in the world

Turnkey Media Systems, new US distributor :

TurnKey Media Systems offers a range of computer-based products which are used for on-air, Internet and broadcasting business applications. The suite of NETIA software solutions will become TurnKey's primary focus.

"What this NETIA software can do for broadcasters is the most exciting thing that I've seen in the past eight years," TurnKey Sales Manager Scott Slocum noted. "Finally, we have scalable technology for radio broadcasters and for radio sites that share facilities with television. We can create everything from an affordable system for a small-market standalone station, on up to extensive integrated systems that NETIA has done for organizations of the magnitude of the RAI in Italy, the Australian Broadcasting Company, Vatican Radio, the BBC in England and Sporting News in USA. The powerful database design and the logical layout of the on-air, production, archiving and planning software is superior to anything I've used, sold or seen in the United States."

TurnKey Media Systems is located in Olathe, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. For further information on the NETIA products, the company can be reached by mail at P.O. Box 126, Olathe, Kansas USA, 66051, by phone at 913-568-2254, and by Internet e-mail at NETIA@TurnKeyMediaSystems.com.

Studer Asia, new distributor :

Studer SE Asia, NETIA's distributor for Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Indonesia

STUDER S.E. ASIA PTE LTD 289 Outram Road 169071 Singapore

Contact : William Ng Tel: +65 6225 5115 Fax: +65 6225 5005

A new distributor in Iceland :

NETIA reinforces its distribution network with a new actor, CAMSON EHF. CAMSON EHF provides sales and services to the professional Broadcast and Film business in Iceland. The company is also looking for new opportunities in related markets - internet streaming, digital processing, multimedia etc. " We serve the professional market directly, but at the same time we are building up a dealer relations to various retailers. That way we can distribute high quality products, that our regular customer base is used to, to other markets that need the same quality and knowledge as back up. Our main aim is to offer not only high quality products, but also support, service and counselling to the highest degree. Most of our customers are in mission critical situation every day and appreciate solutions and products that minimize down time." (Jon Sigurdsson)

CAMSON EHF, Hatùn 6a, 105, IS-Reykjavik, Iceland Contact: Jon Sigurdsson Tel: +354 512 1200 Fax: +354 512 1201 Info: jon@camson.is Web: http://www.camson.is

Where to meet NETIA ?

NAB, Las Vegas, 7th to 10th April Convention Center, Stand N2434, North Hall

Broadcast Asia, 17th to 20th June Singapore Expo Stand 6M4 -1