New enhancements to radio broadcast, partyline intercom solutions enhance quality and streamline configuration

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, April 2, 2013 — Barix comes to the 2013 show with new enhancements to its professional two-way IP audio solutions for broadcast radio and intercom, improving quality in sound and communications. Barix also continues to simplify system setup for customers, eliminating traditional IP configuration processes to have customers streaming audio within minutes.

The company will show its Partyline Intercom solution at the 2013 NAB Show, highlighting open-channel communications across multiple parties without audio interference — especially ideal in fast-paced video production environments. New enhancements eliminate the need to configure IP addresses and servers, stripping away the complexity often associated with multipoint IP audio system setup.

Barix will demonstrate how camera operators and other production personnel can use the compact Annuncicom PS1 on the move, utilizing a push-to-talk button with selectable audio channels to facilitate communications amongst directors and production personnel.

Radio Broadcast Solutions
Barix enhances its Exstreamer 500 bi-directional audio device at the 2013 NAB Show to improve audio quality and streaming flexibility. The device now supports both constant and variable bitrate, with the former added to simplify streaming to Shoutcast and Icecast servers – pertinent for extending how broadcasters incorporate Barix IP audio solutions for live streaming and syndicated program distribution. A new chip improves quality of the analog-to-digital conversion path to enhance professional broadcast sound.

The Exstreamer 500 is a multiprotocol encoder and decoder with balanced audio and professional I/O options for signal relay and control. In broadcast, it is ideal for STL and remote contribution applications. Broadcasters can simplify configuration using the Exstreamer 500 with the Barix Reflector Service, creating a complete streaming audio solution that replicates a received stream to an unlimited number of destinations through the public internet. The Reflector Service is based on a simple server-client architecture that removes IP address, server and other configuration hassles.

The start of the year is always busy at Barix, with trade shows and 1001 new ideas to work on! This year we had the added work of rebranding the company – no small task as we have grown in the last years!

Keeping track of industry developments and getting feedback from customers can be difficult in such circumstances, and in the last year we have turned increasingly to social media as a source of information and a place to give and get feedback.

This blog is one example, and for years we’ve offered support to the Barix community through our forums. Just over a year ago we set up the “BarixAG”- youtube channel, which contains a mix of Solutions ideas and practical howtos. Specialist groups on LinkedIn are also a great way to keep abreast of issues, and to give and get advice from other industry professionals. Here are a few that we have found useful:

- Audio over IP for broadcast
- Broadcast Engineering and Technical Professionals
- Broadcast Professionals
- In-Store Music and Messaging Professionals
- On Hold Messaging Association – OHMA

… of course there are MANY more … but be careful! It is easy to let such things steal too much time as well!

Barix are audio over IP; it’s what we do.
Over the years, we have worked closely with our customers to develop products that excel. Now we move to extend that synergy, simplifying life for our customers by delivering easy to use, targeted solutions for specific applications.
Join us as we take the first steps in the journey at our new website www.barix.com

Allen Temple Baptist delivers services to those unable to attend using Barix IP audio solutions

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, December 10, 2012 — Audio over IP pioneer Barix AG is helping Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California stream its Sunday services to radio station KDIA-1640-AM with exceptional audio quality and low latency — and at a very low cost.

Allen Temple Baptist transmitted its services via telephone line to the radio station for more than 30 years, but was looking to become more cost-efficient while moving into the digital age. The church purchased a Barix Instreamer 100 for on-site encoding of live services, and an Exstreamer 100 for KDIA to receive and decode the audio.

Director and Minister of Communications Charlotte Y. Williams said that Barix came highly recommended, and has simplified the way the church delivers the signal to KDIA. She notes that the migration to Barix IP audio will save the church several thousand dollars annually.

“Our broadcast has never sounded so good, and we have never experienced such substantial cost savings as we have by transferring our broadcast via Barix,” said Williams. “We are able to set it and forget it, and the audio has a much cleaner, pristine sound. We highly recommend the Barix solution as a simple, low-cost, high-return method.”

Williams added that the church was highly impressed by the “excellent customer service” provided from point of purchase through installation, which helped the church get their stream up and running quickly.

Company to introduce new accessory at ISE in Amsterdam

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, December 3, 2012 — Audio over IP pioneer Barix addresses network downtime with its new Real-Time Clock accessory, ensuring that audio and control devices continue operating uninterrupted during network failures — keeping mission-critical operations for broadcast radio, streaming media, building automation and other applications on time.

The market-agnostic, self-sustaining reference clock plugs into any device with an RS232 serial port, including but not limited to Barix IP audio and control products. The Barix Real-Time Clock (RTC) maintains time, even when unpowered, for years. This allows the RTC to provide time information immediately after a device startup, independent of a network-based time reference.

“Barix devices are normally network-connected and receive the time through that connection, but what if, after a power outage, the network connection remains down?” asks Johannes G. Rietschel, CEO and founder of Barix AG. “It’s a serious concern if your operation requires time-dependent logging or control. The Barix Real-Time Clock provides that time source to maintain operations.”

Rietschel points to specific examples for streaming media and building automation. Retail businesses, for example, often operate “Store and Play” systems for in-store audio that are programmed to run time-based announcements and playlists. The Barix Real-Time Clock allows the device to work offline without network connection, playing out audio messages and time-sensitive content on time. Similarly, broadcasters streaming syndicated programs with local network IDs, jingles, ads and promos can trigger events on schedule without affecting the on-air content.

For building automation, Rietschel notes that Barix Barionet IP control devices can use the RTC to gain independence from network time references, continuing to switch lights and boilers on and off if the network goes south. This ensures that energy-saving techniques for schools, businesses and other facilities continue without disruption.

“The overarching benefit for any operation is that your devices can read the time from the RTC and run critical programs as scheduled,” he said. “It’s a low-cost accessory that can make a big difference.”

Barix will show the Real-Time Clock along with its latest one-way and two-way IP audio devices at the ISE show in Amsterdam, taking place January 29-31, 2013 at the RAI Exhibition Center (Booth #2-E64).

Non-profit conservation organization depends on reliable, high-quality audio streams from Barix devices to study humpback whales in their natural setting off the Canadian coast

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, October 23, 2012 — Audio over IP pioneer Barix AG is well-known for supplying one-way and two-way audio solutions for broadcast radio, entertainment, in-store media, security and transportation applications. Scientific audio is a lesser-known application from Barix — but one that non-profit conservation organization Pacific Wild has found clear benefits from using.

Dedicated to protecting Canada’s Pacific coast, Pacific Wild has deployed audio monitoring stations at four points along the British Columbia shoreline to capture live sounds of humpback whales in their natural marine environment. The monitoring stations use rugged “hydrophones” — microphones designed for underwater listening and recording — to capture whale audio and other sounds of the ocean in high quality.

Barix Instreamer IP audio devices encode the captured sounds live and stream the audio 24/7 over the internet to Pacific Wild offices, allowing Pacific Wild employees, scientists and wildlife enthusiasts to study and learn from the behavioral patterns of humpback whales — and how surrounding activity such as shipping activity affects their behavior. The live stream is accessible for the public at http://pacificwild.org/site/great-bear-live/hydrophones/.

According to Rob MacKenzie, a freelance IT engineer working with Pacific Wild, the Barix solution has significantly raised live audio quality from the hydrophones. MacKenzie was brought in to “bring the technological level up a few notches” and improve the end-to-end system. The previous audio system recorded 8-bit audio at 8kHz, which made it challenging to capture clear sound. The Barix solution digitizes the hydrophone-captured audio into 16-bit MP3 for the best signal integrity and compatibility.

“I was tasked with rebuilding the entire system,” said MacKenzie. “I put up a new Linux recording system, added new monitoring systems, improved network availability and rebuilt the power systems for all the enclosures. But the Barix Instreamer has been instrumental to our research. We’re capturing everything from loud identification calls to soft back-and-forth chatter. Just being able to record those very soft sounds proves the bit depth and audio quality we get from Barix.”

MacKenzie noted that while there are a number of research stations for whale behavior in British Columbia, there has been a gap in the central coast area that Pacific Wild is now covering. Pacific Wild expects to expand to 12 sites over the next five years, using Barix to encode and stream all live audio.

“There is a lot of research going on with humpback whales, including male song and how it changes across large geographical areas,” said MacKenzie. “We can monitor how one whale will start singing a slightly different song, and how it is passed along to other whales. We’re also studying how ambient underwater noises and shipping traffic affect their behavior and ability to communicate. The Barix devices, in addition to providing audio, help us perform measurements, create graphs and understand trends related to all these sounds.”

MacKenzie adds that the Barix Instreamer has been extremely reliable, with relatively no setup process beyond assigning each device an IP address. The devices are bolted into protective, solar-powered enclosures installed off the shoreline and out in the wild, built to withstand the icy blasts of wind and year-round moisture associated with the harsh regional climate.

“The Barix encoders spit out data constantly and consistently as long as the radios are up,” he said. The complete, end-to-end network includes 802.11 microwave radios to deliver the live Barix stream from the remote locations to Pacific Wild headquarters.

“Barix devices serve scientific applications worldwide,” said Johannes Rietschel, CEO of Barix AG. “The AWI (Alfred Wegener Institute)’s PALAOA station in Antarctica has been using our devices for many years to monitor underwater nature sounds. With the Pacific Wild project, whales are now monitored both in the northern and southern hemisphere by Barix devices! These are just two examples of Barix devices in action, with thousands of installations worldwide serving their purpose with Swiss precision and bespoke reliability.”

One little known feature of the Barix INSTREAMER is it’s built in support for live streaming in a Cisco environment – easy to overlook in such a feature packed device!
Nonetheless, word is getting back to us more and more frequently of customers using the functionality, primarily in one of two configurations:

- as a ‘Live Stream’ where users can dial an extension and hear the Instreamer audio; a dealer room is one example of where this can be useful, the Instreamer is streaming a live feed of market data.

- to stream live audio for music on hold; for example a local radio station (make sure that you have the rights / have paid the royalty fees before rebroadcasting any radio channel!). A great customer story here: http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/blogs/live-stream-music-on-hold-and-cisco-uc-on-ucs-barix.html

This second option is distinct from ‘traditional’ Music/Messaging on Hold supported by the Exstreamer MOH Client firmware, where a fixed file is played repeatedly to callers on hold. More here: http://www.moh-technology.com/news/161/

Powerful audio-over-IP solution based on the networked Barix Annuncicom 155 and Annuncicom VME enables programmed recordings, live announcements and intercom functionality

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, September 18 2012 – Barix AG, a leading supplier in the field of IP-based audio transmission technology, is using this year’s InnoTrans (September 18-21, Berlin Exhibition Centre, Stand 4.1/224) to highlight a prestigious project of its Swiss customer Ortics GmbH in Brazil, in which around 400 Barix components from the “Annuncicom” family are being deployed.

Ortics, together with a European partner, is supplying a key part of the new passenger information system for the Metro trains in São Paulo, Brazil. The modernisation project, being realised by a Brazilian consortium, has already started and is set for completion in 2014. 25 trains, each comprising six carriages, are being fitted out by Ortics with modern voice communication, system software and vehicle diagnostics systems. Opened in 1974, the São Paulo Metro operates five lines, with 64 stations, having an overall length of about 74 kilometres, some sections of which are underground.

The project sees 16 Annuncicom 155 units and 2 Annuncicom VME cards installed in every train. The Annuncicom 155 is a robust device for VOIP, intercom and IP-paging that Barix has developed specially for harsh everyday operation in trains, buses and ships. Its deployment in the São Paulo Metro enables the train driver to initiate manual as well as automated announcements, and to communicate with passengers via emergency intercom points. The Annuncicom VME is a variant in card format for 19″ VME racks, deployed by Ortics as an interface module with digital and analogue signals for the actuation of local amplifiers.

To Lorenz Trachsel, CEO of Ortics GmbH, Barix components are ideal in complimenting his own passenger information systems. “Following very positive experiences with the integration capabilities, the functionality and the reliability of Barix products, it stood to reason that we should once again opt for the members of the Annuncicom family for the current project in Brazil.” Amongst the benefits of the Barix solutions for Mr. Trachsel are custom programmability, enabling perfect alignment to customer requirements, potential prioritisation of safety-relevant announcements and integrated functions for line monitoring.

Demonstration to emphasize significance of audio integration into IP video systems for life safety and security

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, September 4, 2012 — Barix AG, a pioneer in IP-based audio, in-tercom, control, and monitoring, will exhibit at ASIS International (September 10-13, Philadelphia Con-vention Center) for the first time – bringing its range of IP audio and control solutions to the profes-sional security end user.

Barix will exhibit within the Milestone Systems booth (#3126), underlining the increasing significance of audio in surveillance operations, and the importance of improving audio quality and flexibility of distribution for live paging and public address.

“Security professionals have realized that video is no longer enough,” said Johannes G. Rietschel, CEO and founder of Barix AG. “Human beings have ears and a mouth to go with the eyes, and there is a clear advantage when all three of these senses are used in surveillance and other security-related appli-cations. The ability to cleanly integrate high-quality audio and video over a common IP network delivers cost savings and greatly simplifies installation for the user.”

Many video-centric security industry vendors have already integrated Barix audio over IP into their solutions, including industry leaders such as Milestone Systems. Milestone integrates Barix Exstreamer one-way and Annuncicom two-way IP audio devices into Milestone XProtect IP video management software to support paging and public address (one-way); and audio surveillance and intercom (two-way). Milestone also supports Barix Barionet IP control devices within its XProtect software to bridge physical device and software layers, effectively triggering camera movements and activating video recording based on motion, lights, doorbells and other events.

Barix will show its latest IP audio and control devices on the Milestone booth, including the Annuncicom 60 introduced this June and being shown to security audiences for the first time. The Annuncicom 60 is a low-cost IP audio device that serves as a gateway between VoIP, IP paging and intercom systems, and traditional components including call boxes, loudspeakers and microphones. The device offers plenty of flexibility, with operators able to issue verbal warnings or instructions to people under surveillance; or to communicate with callers at an SOS help point, for example.

Barix will also demonstrate how its latest Exstreamer audio output devices with Power over Ethernet (PoE) and built-in amplification can help end users consolidate and minimize technology components at end points — simplifying infrastructure and reducing deployment costs while offering very high audio quality for voice clarity.

Marcel van der Meijs, vice president of sales and marketing for Barix, will offer a presentation on Barix integration to XProtect at 11am, Wednesday, September 12 at the Milestone booth. Attendees will learn how IP audio can help security personnel more effectively draw attention to criminals, monitor activity and communicate, reliably trigger video recordings and alarms, and even deliver background music over the same network — with priority interruptions for page messages, warnings and security announcements.

“There is no limit to the benefits that audio can bring to video-centric security systems,” said van der Meijs. “The ability to talk back to a location in a city surveillance project, for example, can easily prevent a crime from taking place. And the ability to trigger lights and video in dark areas based on audio events can offer security personnel a clear picture into what is happening. Meanwhile, gunshots, screams and other emergency situations captured by these devices can automatically trigger alarms for immediate attention from monitoring centers. These are all important benefits that can make a real difference.”

We’re happy to announce the posting of the latest youtube video on the BarixAG channel, the video is about Barimon; the Barix Monitoring service from our long term partner MOH Technology.

Barimon collects data from Barix devices and allows users to review, or graph the data, and also export it for further analysis. Barimon works with the Streaming Client and FTPMP3 standard firmwares and can be easily integrated into any BCL application. Click here to view the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dHzfYvBBlA