As the NAB Show gets closer, we continue our series of short Q&As with manufacturers about their plans and offerings, to help you get the most out of the big annual trade show. Marty Sacks is vice president of sales, support and marketing for The Telos Alliance.
Radio World: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend, generally speaking, at the 2015 NAB Show?
Marty Sacks: No question it’s IP. IP is everywhere! We’ve watched interest mount from the very beginning in 2003; it was almost immediate. We couldn’t be more excited to see that the industry is now pursuing it like crazy. The AES67 standard and the newly formed Media Networking Alliance will help us speed adoption.
RW: Axia has a new product — What is Fusion?
Sacks: Fusion is Axia’s brand new mixing console. You know, when you’re the company that invented the first of something — in this case, the AoIP mixing console — you really sweat every detail. We’ve taken everything we’ve learned about AoIP consoles since 2003 and distilled that knowledge into a brand new whole. In fact, that’s why we named it Fusion — it brings together all of the technology, expertise and experience of more than a decade’s worth of real-world learning.
RW: How is this new product different from what’s available from your past products, and elsewhere on the market?
Sacks: One thing I’m very proud of is the level of flexibility and capability our team has built in to Fusion. No two people are the same, right? So everyone should be free to work the way that’s most comfortable. Fusion lets every board op tailor the console to their own personal workflow. Being comfortable with your tools means you make better radio … we’ve seen it time and time again.
One example: Axia pioneered the concept of completely automatic, hands-off mix-minus generation in our consoles. Jocks love it because it just works — they don’t even have to think about mix-minus anymore. Fusion takes mix-minus to an entirely new level, allowing talent and engineering to collaborate on a logic-based mix-minus workflow that’s completely customizable. For operators working complicated shows with lots of phones and remote talent, this new approach makes producing a perfect show even simpler. Simpler workflow equals better radio!
RW: Other new products pending from Axia to see at the show?
Sacks: Yes! We have some enhancements to an existing product to talk about in Vegas that Frank [Foti] and Tim [Carroll] won’t let us talk about yet!
RW: Much has been made in the past year or two about the impact of the AES67 standard on broadcast audio infrastructure providers. From your standpoint, what’s the next important step in the interoperability movement?
Sacks: I think there are actually two “next steps.” The first is for the rest of the industry to join us in fully implementing compliance with AES67. The industry is crying for interoperability! The second step is actually an extension of the first: I think the industry must work together to address the question of GPIO and source advertising, which are currently not provided for in AES67.
