“Jake’s Take”
Tech Tips from Tieline’s U.S. Codec Expert Jacob Daniluck
Welcome to the first installment of Jake’s Take on Working from Home.
The world is currently experiencing a pandemic outbreak in which many governments around the world have issued a “Shelter-in-Place” orders. With the commitment to continue to serve their local communities, broadcasters are challenged to keep their stations on the air to inform listeners, while at the same time protecting the health of their employees. As a result, engineers have to organize high quality solutions to get, among other technical fixes, air talent set up with remote studios in their homes. Tieline has several simple ways to help engineers in any market size or location address their remote audio content delivery issues. This month in “Jake’s Take” I will discuss some basic needs for remote audio delivery solutions, as well as some specific use-cases for on-air delivery.
What are Your Broadcasting Options?
Tieline offers a wide selection of remote solutions ranging from full remote studio units, mobile apps, and low-cost solutions to tie into your existing home studio audio chain. When looking at these solutions, it is important to determine what your talent’s needs are from home. For example, let’s take one of the ViA portable hardware use-cases (our portable remote studio mixer codec) and some of the many features packed into this unit.
The ViA codec not only can stream a mono or stereo signal back to the studio, but it also can send or receive additional audio connections. This use-case is designed for multiple types of broadcasts, and the best example of this would be when a show needs to send audio to multiple locations for backup, or perhaps even rebroadcasting the show. When looking at this use-case, one could go beyond just using it to stream to multiple sites, but also use the ViA as a middleman for guest interviews. The ViA has multiple encoder/decoders (to stream the audio) and can be configured to receive guest call-ins using Tieline’s Report-IT application or even a phone call through a SIP Trunk.

This leads me to my next solution for those who already have a home studio set-up. The Bridge-IT PRO and Bridge-IT XTRA codecs are both designed as low-cost solutions to add-on to an existing audio network. These codecs are traditionally designed for Point-to-Point and Point-to-MultiPoint, which makes this a perfect situation for home studio builds to transport their signal to the station.

Recording Guest Interviews
As news stations across the world are scrambling to keep their employees safe, interviews are still needed from Governors, Mayors, Doctors, etc. to keep the public informed on the latest news. How do you record a guest interview? The answer is simple ‘Tieline Codecs and the Report-IT’ mobile app. Report-IT allows producers and engineers to preconfigure specific audio settings and connection details within our TieServer Cloud Server Network. Once configured, all that is required is to instruct your guests on how to download the Report-IT app from the iOS/Play store and log in with the User ID provided by the station. The User ID contains all the information required to connect back to the station’s codec and guest interviews can be uploaded via FTP to the studio directly with the tap of a button.
One could go further and have Report-IT call into a ViA at a home studio, and then have the ViA record the interview directly onto an SD card (I’ll discuss recording a Report-IT/ViA interview more in a future Tieline Tech-Tips article), or please feel free to call sales or support for more information.
Remote Control Options

Finally, my last suggestion for this month’s newsletter issue deals with remote control. Sending on-air talent home to work remotely creates more stress on the producers and engineers to maintain audio quality standards. Tieline released a product last year called Cloud Codec Controller, which is designed to give producers and engineers the ability to remotely control Tieline capable hardware like Report-IT and the ViA, Merlin, Genie and Bridge-IT. This application allows the user to monitor and adjust audio levels, check the status of connections and even make changes on the fly with full access to the HTML5 Web Interface on the codec. This application license only requires enabling the Cloud Codec Controller Client on the hardware itself, which is very simple.
We are living through an extremely challenging time. Tieline hopes that this information can assist you in finding ways to make your remote broadcasts so seamless that listeners cannot tell the difference between an in-studio or at-home remote broadcast. And while we are following CDC guidelines and policies to ensure the safety of our co-workers, families, friends, and fellow humans, we are still working hard to support our customers in any way possible.
May The Broadcast Be With You…
Jake
P.S. If you have any ideas for discussion topics for future issues of this newsletter please send them to me at jacob@tieline.com. For more info on our products visit www.tieline.com or email sales@tieline.com
(Jake’s Take on Working from Home, published 31st March, 2020)