DM: Let’s start with basic visual radio as we all know it. We’re automating cameras and running video of the morning show out to social media. We’re tying camera automation into the AoIP, in our case WheatNet IP, so we can turn on and pan cameras when a fader is up and audio is present. What’s next?

FG: A much, much higher level of automation that lets us interact within the show, like all the graphics, roll ins, and the kind of video production that we’ve had for TV news for some time. Camera automation is the baseline. Every station is doing this. What’s new to radio is this merging of those two worlds and it’s kind of a paradigm shift.

DM: Explain what you mean by paradigm shift.

FG: Basically, broadcast quality visual programming as opposed to just a radio program that is streaming video. The project we just completed at Houston Public Media is a good example of this. They really took up the mantle of visual radio. Reporters were already using their phones for shows and if they weren’t doing video, they were grabbing still images and putting together a visual slide show to go along with the audio. So when they designed and eventually moved into their new studios, they leaned into online and interacting with the public through a multimedia approach that included NDI connectivity and a custom video production system to automate many of those visual elements into their new show, Hello Houston.

I should add that Houston Public Media is a somewhat unique operation in that NPR and PBS are under one roof, and their NPR station KUHF 88.7 is heavily news and talk, and all of that lends to visual. The shows produced out of the radio suite (which, we’d like to add, is an all new WheatNet IP facility with LXE consoles) are broadcast quality, they are that good. And it’s not just the video quality, it’s the professional level of production … like knowing when to cue the right graphic or clip or when to bring in the show or go to a break, all those unscripted things that happen during a live show that need a higher level of production than radio is used to.

DM: Can you break the system down for us? Houston Public Media is a WheatNet IP audio networked facility, so that’s familiar territory for most broadcasters. (Here’s a great tour of the facility and people, shot by RadioDNA: Tour Houston Public Media.) And, of course, our friends at SCMS handled the procurement and project management aspect. What are you adding onto their AoIP system for video production?

FG: We use a hybrid approach with both commercial and customized scripting components. The cameras are typically PTZ, sometimes [AI-powered] BirdDog or OBSBOT cameras with auto tracking capability. Then there’s the production component, the actual system that switches the camera … and not just the application that detects the audio and tells the camera to switch, but that integrates the graphics and so forth. We use a commercial software system that is widely used in government and schools; it has some good AI tools we can use. We use fairly inexpensive Ethernet switches that do a decent job and NDI connectivity between the cameras and the switch. But what makes that work for radio is software we’ve written within the actual video production system itself as well as scripting in the WheatNet environment.

DM: Tell me about the scripting you do to “radio-ize” the system?

FG: There are two sets of scripts that are sort of the secret sauce of what we’re doing. There’s the scripting in the WheatNet environment [and to some extent other AoIP systems]. WheatNet has that native scripting that the others don’t have so we can do some cool things with it. So yes, we have that unique scripting within the WheatNet environment, and then we made a big investment in scripting and programming that is proprietary to the video production platform to integrate with and take cues from the radio automation system.

DM: I take it you’re using our ACI protocol, which, as you know, is our control interface that lets other systems talk to WheatNet for controlling elements, triggering events, that sort of thing.

FG: Exactly. We have a lot of things happening with the console talking to the camera in the case of Houston Public Media. The part of the WheatNet environment we’re working in is sending commands over UDP to open the show, run the credits, go to commercial break, and so forth. Not only can we bounce around [the studio system from the console seat] to visually change things, but we can also do things like, say, if we want to stream a TV spot, we can mute the audio stream from the console so the on-air audio doesn’t compete with the TV spot audio. We can send UDP commands out from any computer onto the WheatNet network and push a command to a control surface, even if it’s just a bank of buttons. We can make any device do a lot more with macro functionality, and we can run sophisticated streams from multiple camera interactions and so forth.

DM: Fritz, thanks for your time. I’ll look for you at the NAB show next month. Did I see that you’re doing a BEIT presentation on visual radio automation at NAB?

FG: That’s right! My presentation Successfully Launching Compelling Visual Radio Automation starts at 9:30 am on Sunday, April 19, in N256. I’ll be sharing a few more details about the system and approach we used for Houston Public Media. See you there. 

We’ll continue our discussion with Fritz in our next issue of Wheat News, when he expands on AI, NDI and other visual radio trends. One final note: RadioDNA and SCMS, two key Wheatstone partners, recently joined forces to bring the kind of system mentioned above to other broadcasters expanding visual radio beyond studio cameras.