A company known for its VoIP and video over IP technology has a new product it believes will help broadcast TV stations cut costs while providing more flexibility for remote IFB feeds.
This product will get its grand debut at the 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas in early April.
The company behind the new tool, EarShot IFB, is Comrex.
“It needed to happen,” said Comrex Sales Director Chris Crump. “We’d visit TV stations and see banks of old telephone auto-couplers connected to expensive analog phone lines. Most other phone tech has transitioned to Voice-over-IP (VoIP), but remote IFB audio remains stuck in the last century.”
EarShot IFB provides telephone-based live studio program and IFB audio to field-based remote broadcasts. Up to 30 users can listen to program or IFB feeds by calling into EarShot IFB with a mobile phone. EarShot IFB can handle up to 4 program feeds, or 2 IFB feeds. For higher fidelity, smartphone apps can be used to pull the audio in studio quality.
EarShot IFB can be connected to low-cost cloud-based VoIP service, or tied to a station’s VoIP PBX.
“With our years of experience in putting VoIP calls on air, it was a no-brainer to provide a simple hardware solution to the IFB problem,” added Tom Hartnett, Comrex’s Technical Director. “The folks we talked to were sick of paying for a dozen or more POTS lines to provide this function.”
Comrex will be debuting EarShot IFB at NAB 2018 at Booth C2330. EarShot IFB will be available for purchase in mid-2018.
