IBC 2019 Recap

September 19, 2019

IBC is Europe's largest trade show for the broadcast and media technology industries, akin to the NAB Show here in North America. Our team of Joe Prout and Joel Guilbert attended the show on Dale's behalf - read on for some of the new and exciting things we saw in the convention center halls!

RTW unveiled their new immersive metering package for live production. This new "instrument" (in RTW language) for the TouchMonitor series will show a graphic representation of the base 5.1/7.1 layer with the highest layer laid on top. Objects loudness are displayed in groups of 2+1+1+1+1 channels, representing objects that are traditionally used in live production.

Tieline showed their new TLR6200 Gateway Codec. This 1 RU box offers 16 mono or 8 stereo channels. The box is compatible with all Tieline and standard SIP (G722, 711) Codecs.It has internal storage for recording incoming content, as well as a front panel SD card slot or more storage. AES67, Wheatnet and Dante options are available.

Glensound showed what we deemed the "Dante Batphone" - a red phone with a Dante connection that was of particular interest to remote broadcasters who still have to rely on hard wired phone connections for certain critical communications.

We also got our first look at (and listen to) the production model of the Divine - the modern-day production confidence monitor you've been waiting for.

Trinnov show a new desktop remote control for the entire range of its audio processors. This remote will allow the line to be used as monitor controllers as well as room correction devices.

Linear Acoustic/Telos showed their new Dolby Atmos encoder/decoder, the LA-5291. Aimed towards live Atmos production, this 1 RU box will encode/decode/transcode between a number of PCM and Dolby formats, and create applicable Atmos metadata for Television production use.

Yellowtec showed a couple of refinements of it’s line, bringing items into a more appealing price and feature-point. The Intelimix Focus mixer has a $1200 reduction in price, with some functionality reduced. The iXM Podcast had a $200 price reduction, aimed at a budget more suited to podcasting folks.


Dolby will be refreshing their software offerings to offer Mac 10.15 Catalina support (expect Catalina to disrupt a lot of software, as it is the first to require 64 bit ONLY applications for Mac). The Dolby Media Producer package will also be getting some additional functionality.

Clear-Com showed their new Freespeak Edge wireless intercom system. Based around the Eclipse frame and the E-IPA card, this system allows more available channels and more beltpacks per transceiver(up to 10) than previously. There are buttons for 8 channels on the beltpack, and interesting no push reply key (just lightly touch). The beltpack now features a mic and speaker built in, so it can be used on a desktop without a headset. The system uses 5Ghz range, which theoretically has more room available that other frequency ranges. The new transceiver is passively cooled, with no fans, and transceivers can be daisy chained together, so a home run back to splitter/base station no longer required. 

Audinate unveiled a new version of Dante Domain Manager (DDM) 1.1, that offers support for SMPTE 2110 devices. When SMPTE 2110 "domain" in DDM is created, and devices placed in this domain, these edge devices can be set to be slave only devices as far as clock is concerned, allowing a master PTP clock to exist (previously a big problem with the Dante clocking paradigm).

Joel reflects on the show overall: "The 2019 IBC was the first for Joe Prout and I to attend, and it was a very worthwhile endeavor. Despite sharing some similarities to the NAB show we all know and attend, this show was quieter(SPL) with less of a breakneck pace. This really helped encourage dialogue, and we had quite a few lengthy discussions that we simply aren’t afforded the time to have at AES or NAB."

Dale Pro Audio is proud to be a leading provider of solutions for the Broadcast and Field Audio markets since 1956.

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