AES Section Meeting Reports

San Francisco - May 5, 2009

Meeting Topic: Madi Router Solutions for Sports Broadcast

Moderator Name: Jim McTigue

Speaker Name: B. Morgan Martin

Other business or activities at the meeting: Value of AES membership, notification of upcoming section election, upcoming meetings, and upcoming AES Conventions and Conferences

Meeting Location: Cogswell Polytechnical College, Sunnyvale, California, USA

Summary

B. Martin Morgan and Rusty Waite provided a lively discussion on the history and evolution of MADI (AES10) and its use in modern Broadcast facilities. Mr. Morgan provided detailed insight into the planning, solution development, and integration of Salzbrenner Stagetec's NEXUS routing system and modern Broadcast Digital Production Centers. MADI Routing Systems have become an integral part of many broadcast centers. The requirements of these facilities are complex and diverse. They include distributed components including base stations, microphone preamplifiers, Console to Console links, control room to stage links, Return TB Switching (IFB), fiber optic switching, redundant fiber optic pathways, redundant AC mains, and audio monitoring. Salzbrenner Stagetec's solution included 'Base Devices', fiber optic linking of the Base Devices (including dual path redundancy), remote controlled mic preamps and a state of the art Broadcast Audio Monitoring System (dubbed BAM) to meet their production monitoring needs, using specially designed control panels and the DSP Summing facilities built into the NEXUS System. A larger version of this system has recently been installed in broadcaster's new west coast production center. This system has over 10,496 inputs. The evening ended with a spirited question and answer session.

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