Industry Insights: Balancing reliability and flexibility in broadcast intercom systems

Broadcast intercom systems play a crucial role in coordinating complex productions and ensuring clear communication in high-pressure environments.

In this Industry Insights roundtable, experts from leading intercom manufacturers discuss key considerations for selecting and implementing these systems.

The conversation covers topics such as essential features, the impact of SMPTE 2110, remote production trends, wireless versus wired systems, strategies for clear communication in noisy settings, challenges of multi-location setups, safety applications, smartphone integration and latency minimization in IP-based systems. Participants provide insights into how intercom technology is evolving to meet the changing needs of modern broadcast facilities.

Key takeaways from the Industry Insights roundtable

• Interoperability, reliability and flexibility are critical factors when selecting intercom systems for broadcast environments.
• SMPTE 2110 compliance is increasingly important for seamless integration within broadcast signal chains.
• Remote production capabilities have accelerated the development of mobile apps and decentralized communication solutions.
• High-quality audio processing and noise isolation features are essential for clear communication in noisy broadcast environments.
• To minimize latency, IP-based intercom systems require careful network design and audio format selection.

What are the key features when selecting an intercom system for a broadcast studio?

Gary Rosen, VP of global sales, Pliant Technologies: Some key factors to consider when selecting an intercom system include the number of users, where they need coverage, as well as user comfort. Additionally, it’s essential to design a system that meets the needs of the specific facility.

Rick Seegul, SVP technology and business development, Riedel Communications: Broadcasters today are looking for flexibility, scalability and reliability when it comes to Intercom systems, and we have always prioritized these aspects as the main pillars in product design. With proven reliability and clarity as a main priority, making a system flexible in current workflows but also having a system that can adapt to future features and standards is extremely important. An intercom system built on software-defined hardware allows for apps and licenses to allow for future enhancements, features and even future standards to be deployed without the burden of purchasing additional hardware, can protect customer investments for years to come.

Dave MacKinnon, VP of product management, Clear-Com: I think the biggest ones to look for are interoperability and reliability. In today’s broadcast media space being able to work with a variety of other systems is critical. Equally as important is the ability to work in the cloud, on premise, or in some hybrid mode. As I once was a Clear-Com customer I always enjoyed being able to connect my various Clear-Com systems to a variety of other vendors and now as the Clear-Com VP of product management it’s one of my top goals to make sure we support an interoperable system across all our product lines but also with other products on the market.

How is SMPTE 2110 impacting your products?

Rick Seegul: Riedel has consistently utilized and endorsed industry standards to facilitate seamless integration within the broadcast signal chain, avoiding isolated technology solutions and enabling broadcasters to select best-in-class products for their needs. Since 2017, our Artist intercom system has been ST 2110 compliant, featuring ST 2110 signal compatibility across all components, including Matrix IO, intercom panels, and wireless panels, along with NMOS and ST 2022-7 redundancy. With thousands of ST 2110-based systems deployed, Riedel offers extensive expertise in optimizing both our products and their deployment across diverse layer-3 networks.

How is remote production impacting your products or product roadmap?

Dave MacKinnon: Clear-Com has always been big in the remote production space having an impact with our products as well as our support teams. No surprise to anyone—the pandemic accelerated not only the demand for remote functionality as well as a lot of our customers’ remote and decentralized projects. Clear-Com was in a good position to offer solutions like Agent-IC Mobile App that supported almost all, if not all, remote workflows needs. Going forward I think there is a real opportunity to take advantage of these workflows and increase the productivity of content producers as well as handle breaking news and disaster recovery scenarios that have long been complicated and expensive for broadcasters to handle.

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How do wireless intercom systems compare to wired ones in terms of reliability and flexibility?

Gary Rosen: In comparison to wired intercom systems of the past, most of today’s wireless intercom systems can provide greater flexibility and feature sets with no sacrifice in performance.

Rick Seegul: Wireless systems provide significantly greater flexibility than wired belt-pack systems and they are easy to deploy, often requiring no base station or matrix, and only minimal attention to antenna placement, which can be powered by camera batteries. While reliability can be a concern, wireless systems benefit from multiple antennas that allow for seamless transitions if one fails, unlike wired systems where a single cable failure can disrupt multiple belt-packs. Although multipath RF reflections can pose challenges for some wireless systems, those equipped with Advanced DECT Receiver (ADR) technology can effectively filter out reflections and manage antenna connections and handovers in real time, ensuring optimal reliability.

Dave MacKinnon: One thing we’re finding is that wireless or wired, the network that the audio rides on can often be a contributing factor. A big advantage and standout specific to Clear-Com is that we have the technical experts available to help customers select, setup, and troubleshoot third party devices and systems at any given time. The average tenure of a Clear-Com engineer is 13 years plus, meaning we know our customers and our products very well.

What strategies can be employed to ensure clear communication through intercoms in high-noise environments?

Gary Rosen: For high-noise environments, the single most important feature is the dynamic range of the system. In a well-designed system, that range will help you more than any other aspect when dealing with high-noise applications.

Rick Seegul: For high-noise environments, two main factors need consideration: the ambient noise affecting the user’s listening capabilities and the bleed-through into the mic affecting the intercom’s audio, which impacts everyone monitoring that channel. To isolate users in noisy environments, one should look for headsets that provide high noise isolation and noise-cancelling microphones to prevent ambient noise from bleeding into the channel, affecting all users. Intercom systems that feature VOX circuits and noise gates to eliminate ambient noise when the operator is not speaking can help teams succeed even in the noisiest of surroundings

Dave MacKinnon: Having engineers who only design audio systems architecting and building our devices and headsets means that our products deliver exceptional audio clarity while filtering out the unwanted background noise that can become a distraction or problem from clear communication. Our headsets have high isolation ear cups as well as microphones and our belt packs and panels do an exceptional job delivering crystal clear voice communications. We extensively test, design, and build our products in the U.S. so we can guarantee and deliver high quality products to our customers.

What are the challenges of implementing a unified intercom system across multiple studio locations?

Gary Rosen: Smart phones can be a great benefit to an intercom ecosystem, but they are designed for two users talking to each other in a quiet environment and require network connectivity. Since intercom applications are frequently used in loud applications with many users that require reliable communications, phone apps have their place, but not in critical applications.

Rick Seegul: As broadcast systems expand to include multiple studios, control rooms, event locations, and REMI workflows, unification becomes increasingly challenging. Effective connectivity and source interchange between these diverse areas can be streamlined by adhering to industry standards, which minimize the need for complex signal transcoding. Innovations like “Synton Transmission” enable the transport of AES67/ST 2110-30/31 streams over long distances without requiring PTP (Precision Time Protocol), preserving original audio quality and minimizing delays and artifacts

What role does an intercom play in ensuring safety and emergency communication in a broadcast facility?

Rick Seegul: In live broadcast events, the emphasis on security is ever-increasing and a key element in protecting or reacting to security issues relies on how well teams can communicate during a crisis. Clear and reliable audio is essential in these situations. Systems with that have high speech intelligibility, and employ redundant power, CPUs and audio streams via SMPTE ST 2022-7 packet redundancy can ensure dependable communication even in critical moments.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of using smartphone apps as part of an intercom ecosystem?

Dave MacKinnon: Having a robust and reliable intercom app means that a user can always be connected, whether it’s to a partyline conference, a matrix, or IFB. Our app, Agent-IC, has really extended the usefulness and reach of our products outside of the studio. Now, with our recent launch of Gen-IC, we’ve made that app base workflow even easier to attain with a stand-alone or integrated cloud solution.

What strategies can be employed to minimize latency in IP-based intercom systems?

Rick Seegul: To minimize latency in IP-based intercom systems, two key factors are crucial: network design and IP audio format. First, optimizing the network to handle jitter is essential, as high jitter can degrade both latency and audio quality by causing IP packets to be received incorrectly or discarded. Second, selecting the right IP audio format is important; uncompressed audio, such as Riedel’s use of SMPTE ST 2110-30 Audio, avoids delays and artifacts associated with codec encoding and decoding.

What role does intercom play in coordinating complex multi-camera productions?

Dave MacKinnon: At Clear-Com we pride ourselves on being the most reliable intercom system on the market but we also have the flexibility to match. With our systems supporting wired, wireless, and app-based workflows it allows you to scale Clear-Com products to a virtually endless number of devices. For example, for large-scale live events such as the Olympics or large-scale news events such as the elections you can rely on a variety of end-point solutions to keep your entire production team communicating clearly and reliably both onsite and remotely.

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