SVG Summit 2015: Wheatstone Demos IP-Based Audio Solutions

Wheatstone, the newest SVG audio sponsor, exhibited at the SVG Summit (Dec. 14-15) for the first time. Its presence, with the IP88AD combined analog and AES digital input/output blade server and 24-fader Dimension Three TV audio console, underscored its effort to develop new markets in sports.

“We’ve had a comfortable niche for a long time in ‘call-letter’ stations,” says Wheatstone Senior Sales Engineer Phil Owens, referring to the hundreds of mainly owner-operated stations across the continent. “We’re now looking to broaden our horizons.”

He notes that the IP-based systems the company has been successful with in broadcast radio are a good fit for television as it moves toward a networked-audio model. Remote sports production, especially for RSNs and collegiate broadcasts, is a key market moving forward, he adds.

“The IP88 is an audio-over-IP I/O terminal that also acts as a mixer and a router and is networkable over Gigabit Ethernet,” he explains. “These can be spread around a plant to form a robust network.”

The IP88 server and the Dimension Three console are able to network via the proprietary WheatNet solution and are compliant with the AES67 interoperability standard, allowing those systems to interface with other networks.

“On the television side, broadcasters won’t have to embed and de-embed audio anymore,” says Owens. “They can route any audio stream anywhere it needs to go for processing and then back into the stream for distribution. These boxes can form an ecosystem that’s perfectly suited to the IP-based future that broadcast sports is headed towards.”