Studio A
Studio B
to Router to Router
High-speed data transmission protocol TR-LINK
Simplified connections between units
Asingle-modeopticalfibercableisusedforTR-LINK.
Inadditionto512-channelaudiosignals,synchronous
andcontrolsignalsaretransmittedviaasingleopticalfiber
cable.
Therefore,thesynchronoussignalcableandcontrolsignal
cable,whichwereconventionallyrequiredforeachunit
alongwiththeaudiocable,arenolongerrequired,andthe
unitsareconnectedtoeachotherusingapairofoptical
fibercablesonly.
Easy maintenance
Separation of units
32-bit floating point data transmission
MADIwaspreviouslyusedforconnectionsbetweenthe
I/Ounitandtheaudio���processingunit.
MADIperforms24-bitfixedpointdatatransmissions,
however,andeveniftheDSPcoreperforms
high-precisionarithmeticoperation,somedatalossis
unavoidableowingtodatatransmissionusingMADI.
WhenusingTR-LINK,ontheotherhand,allaudiodata
aretransmittedina32-bitfloatingpointdatastate.
Thus,aslongastheI/OunitisconnectedtoDSPvia
TR-LINK,regardlessofthedistancebetweenthem,there
willbenodatalossatall,asiftheseunitsareconnected
inasinglecabinet.
AnalogaudiosignalstobeinputtotheI/Ounitare
convertedinto32-bitsignalsintheI/Ounit,whereas
analogaudiosignalstobeoutputfromtheLine-outcard
aredirectlyconvertedintoanalogaudiosignalsfrom
32-bitsignalsintheI/Ounit.
Amassivevolumeofdataissentandreceivedbetween
theDSPmoduleandtheroutingmodule,andamutual
connectionviathebackplaneinsidethesamecabinetwas
theonlymethodusedinthepast.
Whentheabovemethodisused,allmodulesareputinan
electricallyconnectedstate.Therefore,itwasnot
possibletocompletelyeliminatetheriskofatrouble
occurringinasinglemoduleaffectingtheothermodules.
Ontheotherhand,usingTR-LINK,whichcantransmit
512-channelaudiodataina32-bitfloatingpointdata
state,thedatacannowbetransmittedbetweenmodules
usinganopticalfibercable.Asaresult,theDSPmodule
androutingmodulecanbeinstalledascompletely
separateunits.
Theunitsarecompletelyelectricallyseparatedfromeach
otherandthusitispossibletominimizetheriskofa
troubleoccurringinasingleunitaffectingtheentire
system.
MaintenanceoftherouterunitandDSPcore,whichform
theheartofthesystem,isperformedbyunit-wise
replacementinsteadofthemoretroublesome
replacementofacircuitboard.
Becauseconnectionsbetweentheunitsaremadeusing
opticalfibercablesonly,afaultyunitcanbereplacedeven
whenthesystemisoperating.Connectingand
disconnectinganopticalfibercablewhilethesystemis
operatingdoesnotaffectthesystemoperation.
Hybrid Audio Processing
Higher integrated processor
Higher integrated circuit with 44-bit high-precision arithmetic
operation capacity
TheNTseriesadoptsTAMURA’sownhybridaudio
processingsystemusingtheDSPandtheFPGA.
Thecombineduseofsuperiorfeaturesofboththese
devicessignificantlyimprovesthearithmeticoperation
capacityandprovidesahigherintegratedprocessorwith
highprocessingperformancefortheNTseries.
Theentiresystemhasbeensignificantlydownsized,for
example,a1U-sizeDSPunitcanperform256-channel
audiosignalprocessing.
Powerconsumptionhasalsobeenconsiderablyreduced
comparedwithconventionalsystemsbecauseofhigher
integratedcircuitsandadownsizedsystem.
TAMURAhasdevelopedanewalgorithmthatcanperform
a44-bitfloating-pointarithmeticoperationforfunction
suchasanequalizerforwhichsoundqualityisparticularly
important.
Thedistortionproducedbydeviationisreducedby
increasingtheaccuracyofthearithmeticcoefficient,
makingitpossibletoachieveanunprecedentedlyclear
andtransparentsoundquality.
Availability and fault tolerance
Hot standby system
High-speed startup
Firmware-based system
Therouterunit,whichisacorecomponentofthesystem,
hasabackupsystemthatisalwaysonhotstandby.That
is,exactlythesameunitisinastandbystatewiththe
sameoperationstatusasthatoftheactiveunit.
Thestandbysystemalwaysstoresamirrorcopyofthe
activesystem’soperationstatus.Therefore,switchingto
thestandbysystemcanbeperformedimmediately.
Thisfeatureminimizesthesystemdowntime.
TheNTserieshasbeenbuiltasafirmware-basedsystem
withoutusinggeneral-purposeoperatingsystemssuchas
WindowsandLinux.
Becausethissystemdoesnotrequireashutdown
operation,thesystemcanberestartedpromptlyatany
time.
Furthermore,alloperationsarealwaysstoredinthe
backupmemory;therefore,thestatusimmediatelypriorto
shutdownisrestoredwhenthesystemisrestarted.
Evenwhenthesystemisinvoluntarilyrestartedaftera
powertroubleorotherunexpectedaccidents,the
operationstatuswillbesecurelymaintained.
Thestartuptimeoftheentireconsole��systemfromits
power-offstateisapproximately30seconds.
Evenwhenacriticalsystemerroroccursandtheentire
systemmustberestarted,thisfeaturecanminimizethe
systemdowntime.
IO Sharing
Sharing of input audio
TheaudioinputtoasingleI/OFramecanbeshared
betweenmultiplesystems.
Forexample,youcanconstructasystemthatallowsa
microphonetobeusedineachstudiofromeitherofthe
twostudios.
Thisfeaturemakesitpossibletomutuallyusethesystems
attwostudiosforemergencybackuporuseoneofthe
systemsasthePremixMixer.
Controls,suchasthegaincontrolofamicrophoneinput
sharedbymultiplesystems,areenabledfromanysystem.
Furthermore,thecontrolprotectsettingismadeatany
system,whichenablesthegaincontroltobeperformed
fromaspecificsystemonly.
Theinputaudiocanbesharedamongamaximumofeight
systems.
6 7