Audio technology for broadcast: meeting the demands of the 'new normal'

摘要

As the world slowly climbs out of the economic difficulties of the past several years, the work paradigms and budget cutbacks that were put into place by broadcasters in response to the worst of times have now become the 'new normal' way of doing business for the emerging best of times. The dilemma for the broadcaster during the economic slowdown was how to continue high quality production and delivery to meet rising demands for HDTV, 5.1 surround and the 3D and mobile TV sectors, while keeping a keen eye on costs. The challenges apply to national, regional and local broadcasters worldwide and in most areas of production, but are especially acute in audio. Paul Lindsay, sales manager for Solid State Logic, reports. Producing high quality, multi format audio entails a series of stages of production, each of which requires a range of skills which come from specialised training and years of experience. Each different production task has its own challenges but they are all affected by two key trends - reductions in experienced professional staff levels and proliferation of production automation systems. Increased reliance on non-specialised professional staff to meet production/budget demands is a byproduct of the economic downturn which seems to have initiated a permanent change in approach to production. Although there is usually still a chief engineer and one or two specialised audio engineers at a station, current production systems need to be able to deliver high-end results in the hands of all-rounders who might operate camera, lighting and other systems as well as sound. Hand-in-hand with this trend, broadcasters are increasingly reliant on production automation systems to streamline workflow and playout duties formerly run by a larger staff complement.