ACCESS Ideal for Idol!

Dallas, TX -- The pop culture phenonmenon, American Idol, setup camp in Dallas, Texas as Idol wannabes crammed into the long and torturous lines forming outside of Texas Stadium. Eager to display their talent for the producers inside, the potential contestants were just as eager to perform for the throngs of media on the outside. Nationally syndicated morning host, Kidd Kraddick, sent his cast members, Taylor and JC, into the fray to capture the excitement.

Armed with an ACCESS Portable Stereo BRIC IP codec, Taylor and JC interviewed the patient masses, some of whom had been waiting in line for two days for a 15 second chance to impress Idol producers. Using an AT&T 3G BroadbandConnect card plugged directly in the ACCESS Portable, Kraddick's crew was able to interact with the rest of the morning show back in the studio as well as sample some of the vocal abilities of Idol hopefuls.

Says Kraddick, "Credit the Comrex Access with opening all kinds of doors for our show. Since we’re nationally syndicated, we can no longer accept cell-phone audio for on the street bits, etc. The portability and amazing audio quality of the Access has made so many more bits possible that we could have never done in the past."

There were no engineers, remote trucks or pneumatic masts required on-site for the broadcast. Junior Kraddick staffer, Ryan, was briefly trained on the ACCESS Portable and sent out with JC and Taylor to handle the unit for the broadcast.

An estimated 12,000 people showed up at Texas Stadium for a chance to be on the popular TV Show.

Remote Broadcast "Unleashed" in Richmond

At Comrex we love great remotes and we love our animals, too! So you can imagine how giddy we were to receive the great story below from our friends at WDYL in Richmond, VA! In the midst of the allegations of illegal dog fighting, Atlanta Falcon's quarterback Michael Vick was scheduled to make an appearance for arraignment at a Richmond courthouse on August 26th. Enter Sludge and a few other "strays" from the Morning Sludge on Richmond's "Y 101 New Rock"!

Jon Bennett, Director of Engineering for Cox Radio Richmond sent us the details:

"This morning, our morning show team from WDYL was outfitted in dog outfits and did a live morning show broadcast from the front of the courthouse in downtown Richmond.

This was all to do with the Vick controversy and he coming in to the courthouse.

The live broadcast lasted for four hours straight using our new Comrex Access Portable and an EVDO card.

The morning show team was ecstatic with the system performance.

Sludge, the morning show host said, 'We could have not done the show with any other system.

We had total mobility to move freely around with the crowd.'

See the coverage on CNN, ESPN, WSB-TV Our COX Sister station in Atlanta and Inrich.com.

They were inundated with interviews from the many media sources on the scene.

Jon Bennett and Jeff Tharp, COX Radio Richmond

This was all made possible with the technology and expertise

provided by the Comrex Access system.

Also see the stations web site www.y101rocks.com

Thank You!

Kindest Regards,

jb

Jon Bennett CPBE

Director of Engineering – Richmond

COX Radio Inc.

Richmond VA

ACCESS Portable - Very Popular with the Ladies!!!

I mean, it must be the ACCESS that is attracting all of those beautiful women, right? We're pretty sure it's not the guy (although he doesn't seem to mind.)



Anyway, pictured here is Comrex employee, Chris Crump working hard. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. I am optimistic that when Christopher comes up for air, he will have a look at this blog and appropriately edit this story to tell you where he was, and what he was doing. (Aside from the obvious, that is. :o)

Chris Crump (in defense!) adds: "Wow! Tough crowd! But as a truly dedicated professional and seasoned "road warrior" I'm used to being misunderstood. My life on the road is NOT ALWAYS this glamorous! But at the recent Latin American Broadcast Show '07 in Miami, FL, ACCESS certainly attracted the attention of broadcasters (and supermodels) from Panama, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and several other South American nations. There were even a few broadcasters visiting from Spain! My colleagues, pictured above, served as "technical consultants" and translators for some of the more challenging dialects that were represented by conference attendees. Sandra and Lisset (to my left) were particularly helpful in explaining the features of the ACCESS Portable as well as our other products on display.

Now, if only I can convince my bosses that I needed Spanish-speaking technical consultants for the South Dakota Broadcasters Show..."

ACCESS Portable at Wembley in the UK - Thanks Vortex!

Here's a great story sent to us by the Comrex dealer in the UK, Vortex Communications. We love what they're doing with the ACCESS!

The childhood dream of many an Englishman is to one day play soccer on the hallowed turf of Wembley, the national stadium situated within the suburbs of London. To achieve this dream, however, is easier said than done. Unless you become one of England’s elite players and are lucky enough to be picked for the national side, your only hope of playing Wembley is to reach one of the league play-off finals. These are played at the end of each season between the teams who have topped their leagues and the winner is promoted to the next league up. Reaching the play-off final is a huge occasion, but particularly so this year because, having hosted nearly a century of soccer, the old stadium was recently demolished and a spanking new state-of-the-art replacement erected in its place. The new Wembley was ready just in time for this year’s play-offs which were all played over the May bank-holiday weekend.

One team who reached their play-off were Shrewsbury Town who booked a final with Bristol Rovers. Shrewsbury is a modest town with only 70,000 inhabitants but it seemed like pretty much all of these were trying to get to the game. For those not lucky enough to get a ticket, BBC Radio Shropshire were there to describe events before the game, interview fans and generally soak up the atmosphere. What they needed was a way for their reporter to be fully mobile but able to send good quality, low-delay live audio back to the studio and, of course, receive talkback at the same time. Cue the Access portable.

Jon Clark from our UK dealer, Vortex Communications explains the setup. “We’ve got very good 3G mobile coverage in the UK these days and most of the operators are now also upgrading their networks to the even higher speed HSDPA. This gives us 384kb/s up and 1.8Mb/s down so it’s possible to run just about every mode the Access supports, including the optional AAC codecs. In the case of the playoff, everything happened last-minute and there was no time to get an Access rackmount installed at the studio, so we used a unit already working at Birmingham instead and relayed the audio from there over ISDN G722. This meant that there was no point in using anything more than HQ1 because that already sounded better than the ISDN! Although everyone was thrilled at the quality, I was a little bit disappointed because I knew that the Access was capable of even more and that would have blown them away.”

The pre-match show was a full two hours long and the Access performed magnificently. Darren Shearer, the Broadcast Engineer taking care of proceedings sums it up nicely. “The Comrex Access was a lifesaver. It allowed us to get to places that other technologies couldn't. The portable unit was so easy to use and setup; Presenters described it to me as being as easy as "Turn it on, select connect, set your levels, then broadcast!” The Quality was amazing, so crisp and clear that you could mistake the reporter for being in a studio. The delay was hardly noticeable which allowed for talkback and phone callers to be interviewed by the reporter on the Access. This is a great piece of kit and, until now, I've only dreamed of it being on the market. Great job guys!!”