Station Manager Technical Requirements

The requirements/recommendation table below is exactly the same as others found elsewhere in this document; they are repeated here in order to provide a summary for Station Manager customers. This section also includes information on signal acquisition and evaluation benchmarking.

For the full list of required functionalities and requirements for subscribed services and/or Tap and Revenue services, see Required Functionalities.

Station Manager Software

Signal Acquisition

There are three solutions for signal acquisition:

• Acquisition done by sound cards installed in PC or Server-PC equipment, via Triton Digital's Station Manager application.

• Acquisition done by IP Audio, via Triton Digital's Station Manager application

• Acquisition using Triton Digital supported appliances. The supported appliances are: 

  • The Telos Alliance Z/IPStream R/2 or R/20. See Using Z/IPStream R/2 or R/20 from Telos Alliance, below.

  • The Streamblade and Wheatstream appliances from Wheatstone. See Using Streamblade and Wheatstone from Wheatstone, below.

There are some differences in requirements depending on the components required to deliver your services.

Signal Acquisition with Station Manager

Triton Digital Station Manager is typically installed on a PC, or server PC equipment, that you provide. It requires one or more sound cards that act as the hardware interface for acquisition of the audio signal.

Sound Cards for Streaming

Sound card configuration is the most important factor in determining the quality of your audio stream.

Selecting the proper sound cards and applying audio processing to your signal can really make a difference in the original overall quality supplied to the digital encoding portion of the Triton Digital Station Manager.

Triton Digital provides limited sound processing within the Station Manager software. Audio engineers have full flexibility in using their preferred tools to provide the best original sound quality. However, you need to consider that Station Manager is the last element in the processing chain, so any processing, including insertion of audio watermarking, must already be present when the signal reaches Station Manager.

The sound card must be seen in Windows as a Direct-Show or ASIO compatible sound device and be available to all users on the computer. (Although we support ASIO sound card drivers, we prefer the station use Direct-Show as it is less likely to have implementation issues.)

Although Triton Digital does not officially recommend any specific equipment, the sound cards listed below are readily available in the professional audio streaming market and are known to have models that work well with Station Manager. Note that to stream multiple stations you need multiple sound cards and/or sound cards that support multiple inputs.

Important!

Unless otherwise noted, these third-party sound cards were tested with our solution. However, we cannot guarantee that they will be fully compatible with all updates (drivers, etc.) provided by the vendors. If issues arise at implementation time, you may need to acquire a different card.

Sound Cards with Audio Processing

• Audioscience has sound cards that can provide audio processing.
  http://www.audioscience.com

Sound Cards without Audio Processing

• Digigram has sound cards available without audio processing.
  http://www.digigram.com

Virtual Sound Cards and Professional IP-Audio

• AES67 / Livewire through the Audio IP Driver
  http://www.telosalliance.com/Axia/Axia-IP-Audio-Driver

Not Recommended

• BlackMagic Decklink. Although BlackMagic Design does provide WDM drivers, these drivers directly conflict with some components in the Triton Digital Station Manager software and are therefore not supported and not recommended.

• MOTU devices. A number of users have experienced audio distortion when using MOTU devices with Station Manager.

Not Supported

USB Sound Cards. Triton Digital does not support external USB sound cards. Some USB sound cards have been shown to work with Station Manager but the overall reliability in a live streaming environment is insufficient, especially when combined with operational issues such as cable and connector faults.

Signal Acquisition with Supported Appliances

This section describes the signal acquisition requirements for Triton Digital supported appliances. 

Using Z/IPStream R/2 or R/20 from Telos Alliance

Triton Digital services are integrated into the Z/IPSTream R/2 and R/20 appliances from Telos Alliance. If you choose this signal acquisition option, all you need is your Triton Digital station names and passwords; the Z/IPStream R/2 and R/20 already meet or exceed the minimum requirements. There are no known issues when upgrading from the R/2 to the R/20.

For more information on the Z/IPStream appliances, see https://www.telosalliance.com/legacy/telos-alliance-zipstream-r2 and https://www.telosalliance.com/stream-encoding-processing/stream-encoding-processing/zipstream-r20

Using Streamblade and Wheatstream from Wheatstone

Triton Digital services are integrated into the Streamblade and Wheatstream appliances from Wheatstone. If you choose this signal acquisition option, all you need is your Triton Digital station names and passwords; the Streamblade and Wheatstream appliances already meet or exceed the minimum requirements.

For more information on Wheatstone appliances and Triton Digital, see the Wheatstone press release.

Evaluation Benchmarking

Performance can vary depending on CPU types (server CPUs like XEON are generally more powerful than standard ones). If in doubt about your system's performance you can run a "Geekbench6" benchmark test to extract a performance score. The Geekbench6 score for your equipment is based on measuring CPU and RAM performance. It helps determine the limitations of your equipment.

https://www.geekbench.com/download/

Although it is possible to run essential Station Manager components with lower scores than recommended, most issues that seem odd or unusual in nature can be traced back to lower grade equipment. This makes it very difficult to correctly support and identify issues. For best results, use the recommended configuration hardware.