In
broadcast engineering for radio or television, the airchain or transmission chain (UK) (sometimes air chain (US) or just chain (UK)) is the path or route an
audio or
video
Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
signal
A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology.
In ...
takes on its way through a
radio station
Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...
or
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...
.
The airchain begins with
camera
A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photograp ...
s,
microphone
A microphone, colloquially called a mic (), or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and publi ...
s,
CD player
A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital audio, digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such a ...
s,
turntable
A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding phys ...
s,
telephone hybrid
In analog telephony, a telephone hybrid is the component at the ends of a subscriber line of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) that converts between two-wire and four-wire forms of bidirectional audio paths. When used in broadcast faci ...
s,
video tape recorder
A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio signal, audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. ...
s,
satellite
A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...
and other
remote feeds, and other input devices in the
studio and
control room
A control room or operations room is a central space where a large physical facility or physically dispersed service can be monitored and controlled. It is often part of a larger command center.
Overview
A control room's purpose is produc ...
. These feed into a
mixing console
A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for Audio mixing (recorded music), mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals fro ...
, possibly via a router. The output then goes to an
audio processor, and finally to the
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...
,
feedline, and
antenna. Often, there is a
studio-transmitter link via
radio
Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...
or
broadband
In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...
dedicated circuit (usually
T1 or
E1 line).
The airchain may be all-
analogue, all-
digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Businesses
*Digital bank, a form of financial institution
*Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company
*Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...
, or most likely some hybrid of the two.
All-analog airchains typically use cables terminated in
XLR connectors between each device. All-digital airchains also often use XLR connectors, except carrying
AES/EBU
AES3 is a standard for the exchange of digital audio signals between professional audio devices. An AES3 signal can carry two channels of pulse-code-modulated digital audio over several transmission media including balanced lines, unbalance ...
digital audio instead. Alternatively, some digital airchains have significant portions of audio carried over
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...
, in which case
Ethernet
Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
is used.
References
Broadcast engineering
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