I would like to buy as little stuff as possible. Perhaps I could buy the "ethernet audio encoder" in the sound booth, but I don't think an "ethernet audio decoder" for every is possible. It sounds like they are quite expensive.

Perhaps a shoutcast kind of thing with 320 kbps MP3 (or even better uncompressed) audio for the sound booth, and then picking it up on the editing systems with a player that is routed to a virtual device that is seen as sound card in Vegas and Avid. If I just could find a virtual audio device to test with...

Most consumer grade sound cards let you route any playing audio back into the card to be recorded. Pro cards often can accomplish this simply by plugging a jumper wire between the outs and the ins.

Heck, try it with any meeting/instant messaging/internet telephone software you already have installed just to see how it will work. The only place you can go from there is up to higher quality.

Another option that will give you virtually perfect audio can be done if you have a spare CAT5 run between the offices. You can buy a converter that lets you run analog audio over CAT5 (and baseband video as well). Basically it is nothing more than a unbalanced to balanced converter, with RCA connectors on one end and a CAT5 modular jack on the other. I use one almost every day to take audio from my main stereo system up to my editing office. I actually had to run the CAT5 because I'd already used up the three CAT5 runs into my office.

I also use this in the field. If I need to get audio from the sound board, I bring these two gadgets with me, along with about 300 feet of CAT5. The neat thing about this is that since the gadgets have transformers in them, and since the CAT5 is balanced, there is virtually no hum pickup.

Highly recommended.

Oh, the part number. Mine is a Unicom Video/Audio Adapter P/N VAA-U501-A. There are also models that accommodate S-video instead of composite.

[Edit] Here's a link to a picture and description. I got this from Google, so I am not necessarily recommending this particular store:

Unicom Adapter

Thanks for the suggestion. I've heard CAT5 cables work nicely as speaker cables too.

I don't think we can use it though as the network is a regular switched "star"-net and we don't have any spare lenghts in the office. Would have been cool though.

I am still conviced that it can be done with a virtual audio device of some kind on the editing systems, that listens to an audio stream from the sound booth...

CAT5 is a bit thin for the power that usually goes to speakers. I wouldn't trust it for more than maybe 10 watts.

There are also two different kinds of CAT5: solid and stranded. The stranded type is substantially better for carrying audio. However, most installations use solid.

Not to disagree with John's post, and i'm sure he's accurately relating his experiences, but using a nearly identical setup i've seen enough hum to be unusable. Maybe he's just got better transformers than what i was using. Or maybe his twisted pair had more twists than mine. *shrug* Try it. Your milage may vary.

I think the sort of setup you really need is a mic preamp in the booth feeding a sound card in a PC that's running some form of streaming software. Trying to stream audio packets over a typical network unless it's a switched network would be very problematic, you cannot afford to have contention issues causing packets to be resent.
Also to be workable your going to need talkback I think.
I know something like this is done with links that span the globe but they use dedicated bandwidth on ISDN, not a lot of bandwidth but the critical point is it's a dedicated pipe, no contention issues.

Digigram might have what you're looking for although most of their stuff would be overkill.

If you don't need real time streaming then of course piece of cake to do.

Bob.

CAT5 is a bit thin for the power that usually goes to speakers.

Not to disagree with John's post, and i'm sure he's accurately relating his experiences, but using a nearly identical setup i've seen enough hum to be unusable.

Two misunderstandings here. First, this is baseband video (1 volt P-P), and line level audio. You CANNOT drive a speaker using this setup.

As for hum, you must have had bad equipment. If you get any hum or interfernece at all, it will be WAY down in the mud. My CAT5 here is strung across (although not parallel to) power lines, and around various light fixtures. It goes through my equipment closet. Total length is well over 150 feet. The video DID have hum because it turns out that this cheap device did NOT have a transformer for the video. I had to add my own external balum to kill the hum bars. The audio, however, is quite clean. This has been true when I've used it in the field.

Of course, no matter what setup you have, hum can creep in from 100 different places. When I was trying to get this all set up about three years ago, I gave myself a graduate course in groud loops. However, I am sure that there are a few phDs on this board that know a whole lot more about it than I ever will.

I had to add my own external balum to kill the hum bars.

John, what did you use? Did you just pick one up at radio shack? I have a 75 foot long RCA cord going from our projector to the board and it is getting the horizontal lines running up the screen. I can run video through the VGA cord and it is clear. I guess I could always do some trial and error and place it/them throughout the setup, but popping those tiles back out sure isn't fun!

j razz

John, what did you use? Did you just pick one up at radio shack?

No, RS won't have what you need. The usual device is called a "humbucker." The one I use is "ISO-MAX, Model VB-1RR" and is called a "video isolator." It is actually manufactured by Jensen, which is how you will find it if you search using Google.

I actually pulled apart several junction boxes looked for shared grounds on opposite phases (one of the biggest culprits in ground loops) but couldn't track down the cause. I was getting some pretty hasty hum bars. I plugged this between my video input and the incoming video and the hum bars went away completely.

Here's a link to the Jensen page:

Jensen Transformers

I tried with Windows Media Encoder on he sound booth encoder but the delay was about 4 seconds. It was cool though that it is possible to stream uncompressed audio.

Is there any other tool with shorter delay (< 1s) doing uncompressed?