Radio: What is the ideal location for Voltair in a station�s air chain?
Corny Gould:As far back as you can get it (without going to the clipper output).� We�re in the final beta phase of Version Omnia.11 1.7 software, and the next release of Omnia.9 which does this. The added advantage here is: 1) You are aware of the audio processing�s effect on the watermark; 2) you can take advantage of the extreme program consistency to aid in watermark encoding. This point in the processing chain most closely resembles the �real world� example of your station audio.The other benefit is due to where the Voltair is sitting in the above example. Since the Voltair is also an advanced watermark performance monitor, this placement makes it possible to have good visibility into the impact that some Audio processing settings have on watermark performance. While the majority of material will encode just fine over a broad range of tweaks, there is content thatonly�encodes well when certain parameters are optimized. Placing the Voltair ahead of the bulk of the processing chain will not provide this visibility.
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Radio:Is there any benefit to putting AGC ahead of Voltair?� If so, should it be wideband, or multi-band?
CG:�If it is multiband, then it could potentially help, though better results were obtained with the ability to add program density, which effectively can best happen at the back end stages of an audio processor. Wideband AGC�s have the disadvantage of having the low frequency content dominating the gain state of the device. For urban formats, or other bass heavy material, the critical watermarking frequencies (1-3 kHz) could be pushed down significantly depending on program content.We feel the insert point in our audio processors provides the best solution to placing gain control devices in front of the Voltair.� Not only for the reasons explained earlier, but also to give better visibility into the impact of as much of the processing chain on watermark performance as possible.
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Radio: Do any of the Omnia products have something like a send/return loop meant for Voltair?
CG:� Yes, both the Omnia.11, and Omnia.9 have this feature.
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