Dart Audio was the first digital audio delivery network for Australian commercial radio, setting up an ISDN network some 10 years ago. Recently DART was purchased by Adstream, which provides desktop digital asset management tools for the advertising industry.
Adstream is already shaking up the TV dub distribution market in Australia, as well as radio & TV dub delivery in the UK. The purchase of DART AUDIO allowed Adstream a quick entry into the Australian radio delivery market, and access to the industry knowledge of Paul Dengate and Sandy Campbell who were instrumental in the growth and success of Sky Radio’s Digital Courier in the late 90s. Ironically Paul & Sandy were competing with DART when Digital Courier’s PC network was launched, and then “crossed over” not long after Sky Radio was sold.
Adstream already had a radio distribution product ready to go, but saw strategic advantage in acquiring DART and it’s established client base and reputation for excellent service.
Now radio stations and advertisers alike will have access to a brand new interface for tracking and delivering radio commercials. Adstream Radio was launched in Australia in late July, and has already been rolled out to 40 destinations. By the end of August, the migration will be complete, and the DART network will be layed to rest.
While web based delivery is by no means a new thing, Adstream is leading the way by improving the audio quality of material delivered to radio stations. Uncompressed WAV files are the preferred master format, with compressed audio files available only at the highest bitrates.
Stations have the choice of receiving a WAV file at 44.1k or 48k sample rate, MP3 high bit rate, and soon an MP2 (Layer II) file for easy import into MP2 based playout systems. And clients don’t pay any more to have their masters stored in the AdBank and delivered to stations in uncompressed form.
MP3s may have become a defacto standard for Internet audio delivery, but the format is not great for broadcast, particularly when used at lower bitrates and subject to additional compression further down the chain. Paul Dengate has been evaluating the effects of audio transcoding (decoding and re-encoding files), and found an MP3 can quickly deteriorate, even at 192kbit/s.
The best results for compressed files were achieved using a MPEG Layer II (MP2) file at 384kbit/s. MP2 is much more suited to a broadcast environment than MP3, as MPEG Layer II will survive transcodings and post-processing with less auidble compression artefacts. This is particularly imporant to the industry as it relies on more digital / compressed components in the broadcast chain, and eventually delivers a compressed data stream to the listener when DAB hits.
“Advertisers are paying good money to have their spots broadcast, so it’s vital we give them good value for money with the best possible quality,” says Dengate.
“Stations that haven’t been migrated to Adstream yet will be hearing from us in the next few weeks, or anyone eager to try it out can give us a call.”
Sandy Campbell is Adstream’s Client Service Manager – Radio and
Paul Dengate is consulting to Adstream’s Radio project through his company Dingbat Technology.
For more info Email [email protected]
Contacts:
Adstream Pty Ltd
Level 4, 99 Walker St, North Sydney, 2060
Ph: 02 9492 4800
Fax: 02 9492 4811
www.adstream.com.au