Studio A

Studio B

to Router to Router

High-speed data transmission protocol TR-LINK

Simplified connections between units

Asingle-modeopticalfibercableisusedforTR-LINK.

Inadditionto512-channelaudiosignals,synchronous

andcontrolsignalsaretransmittedviaasingleopticalfiber

cable.

Therefore,thesynchronoussignalcableandcontrolsignal

cable,whichwereconventionallyrequiredforeachunit

alongwiththeaudiocable,arenolongerrequired,andthe

unitsareconnectedtoeachotherusingapairofoptical

fibercablesonly.

Easy maintenance

Separation of units

32-bit floating point data transmission

MADIwaspreviouslyusedforconnectionsbetweenthe

I/Ounitandtheaudio��processingunit.

MADIperforms24-bitfixedpointdatatransmissions,

however,andeveniftheDSPcoreperforms

high-precisionarithmeticoperation,somedatalossis

unavoidableowingtodatatransmissionusingMADI.

WhenusingTR-LINK,ontheotherhand,allaudiodata

aretransmittedina32-bitfloatingpointdatastate.

Thus,aslongastheI/OunitisconnectedtoDSPvia

TR-LINK,regardlessofthedistancebetweenthem,there

willbenodatalossatall,asiftheseunitsareconnected

inasinglecabinet.

AnalogaudiosignalstobeinputtotheI/Ounitare

convertedinto32-bitsignalsintheI/Ounit,whereas

analogaudiosignalstobeoutputfromtheLine-outcard

aredirectlyconvertedintoanalogaudiosignalsfrom

32-bitsignalsintheI/Ounit.

Amassivevolumeofdataissentandreceivedbetween

theDSPmoduleandtheroutingmodule,andamutual

connectionviathebackplaneinsidethesamecabinetwas

theonlymethodusedinthepast.

Whentheabovemethodisused,allmodulesareputinan

electricallyconnectedstate.Therefore,itwasnot

possibletocompletelyeliminatetheriskofatrouble

occurringinasinglemoduleaffectingtheothermodules.

Ontheotherhand,usingTR-LINK,whichcantransmit

512-channelaudiodataina32-bitfloatingpointdata

state,thedatacannowbetransmittedbetweenmodules

usinganopticalfibercable.Asaresult,theDSPmodule

androutingmodulecanbeinstalledascompletely

separateunits.

Theunitsarecompletelyelectricallyseparatedfromeach

otherandthusitispossibletominimizetheriskofa

troubleoccurringinasingleunitaffectingtheentire

system.

MaintenanceoftherouterunitandDSPcore,whichform

theheartofthesystem,isperformedbyunit-wise

replacementinsteadofthemoretroublesome

replacementofacircuitboard.

Becauseconnectionsbetweentheunitsaremadeusing

opticalfibercablesonly,afaultyunitcanbereplacedeven

whenthesystemisoperating.Connectingand

disconnectinganopticalfibercablewhilethesystemis

operatingdoesnotaffectthesystemoperation.

Hybrid Audio Processing

Higher integrated processor

Higher integrated circuit with 44-bit high-precision arithmetic

operation capacity

TheNTseriesadoptsTAMURA’sownhybridaudio

processingsystemusingtheDSPandtheFPGA.

Thecombineduseofsuperiorfeaturesofboththese

devicessignificantlyimprovesthearithmeticoperation

capacityandprovidesahigherintegratedprocessorwith

highprocessingperformancefortheNTseries.

Theentiresystemhasbeensignificantlydownsized,for

example,a1U-sizeDSPunitcanperform256-channel

audiosignalprocessing.

Powerconsumptionhasalsobeenconsiderablyreduced

comparedwithconventionalsystemsbecauseofhigher

integratedcircuitsandadownsizedsystem.

TAMURAhasdevelopedanewalgorithmthatcanperform

a44-bitfloating-pointarithmeticoperationforfunction

suchasanequalizerforwhichsoundqualityisparticularly

important.

Thedistortionproducedbydeviationisreducedby

increasingtheaccuracyofthearithmeticcoefficient,

makingitpossibletoachieveanunprecedentedlyclear

andtransparentsoundquality.

Availability and fault tolerance

Hot standby system

High-speed startup

Firmware-based system

Therouterunit,whichisacorecomponentofthesystem,

hasabackupsystemthatisalwaysonhotstandby.That

is,exactlythesameunitisinastandbystatewiththe

sameoperationstatusasthatoftheactiveunit.

Thestandbysystemalwaysstoresamirrorcopyofthe

activesystem’soperationstatus.Therefore,switchingto

thestandbysystemcanbeperformedimmediately.

Thisfeatureminimizesthesystemdowntime.

TheNTserieshasbeenbuiltasafirmware-basedsystem

withoutusinggeneral-purposeoperatingsystemssuchas

WindowsandLinux.

Becausethissystemdoesnotrequireashutdown

operation,thesystemcanberestartedpromptlyatany

time.

Furthermore,alloperationsarealwaysstoredinthe

backupmemory;therefore,thestatusimmediatelypriorto

shutdownisrestoredwhenthesystemisrestarted.

Evenwhenthesystemisinvoluntarilyrestartedaftera

powertroubleorotherunexpectedaccidents,the

operationstatuswillbesecurelymaintained.

Thestartuptimeoftheentireconsole��systemfromits

power-offstateisapproximately30seconds.

Evenwhenacriticalsystemerroroccursandtheentire

systemmustberestarted,thisfeaturecanminimizethe

systemdowntime.

IO Sharing

Sharing of input audio

TheaudioinputtoasingleI/OFramecanbeshared

betweenmultiplesystems.

Forexample,youcanconstructasystemthatallowsa

microphonetobeusedineachstudiofromeitherofthe

twostudios.

Thisfeaturemakesitpossibletomutuallyusethesystems

attwostudiosforemergencybackuporuseoneofthe

systemsasthePremixMixer.

Controls,suchasthegaincontrolofamicrophoneinput

sharedbymultiplesystems,areenabledfromanysystem.

Furthermore,thecontrolprotectsettingismadeatany

system,whichenablesthegaincontroltobeperformed

fromaspecificsystemonly.

Theinputaudiocanbesharedamongamaximumofeight

systems.

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