[GreenKeys] ITTY PROBLEMS

[George B. Hutchison]

GreenKeyers - - -

Last night around midnight the NATIONAL net server hard drive 
decided to retire.

It did not take long to get another computer on line and running, 
but then it was decided to resolve the differences in audio quality 
between ITTY News, ITTY National, And ITTY Autostart.

The problem as I saw it was all manner of crappy artifacts in the 
audio of Autostart and National.

After tearing out what little hair I have left and trying all manner 
of different audio input configurations with no effect whatsoever, 
and causing a number of interruptions in the process, the problem 
was found.

ITTY News is encoded by some excellent MP3 Pro encoders that come 
with the SimpleCast.

The audio was/is extremely clean.

National and Autostart were using some legacy dirt-bag encoders that 
are also an optional part of the encoding system, that I had 
forgotten about.

I was astounded, appalled, and openly wept at finding this.

After selecting the MP3 Pro encoders and setting up for the low 
sample rate as ITTY, the levels were all set to the same indications 
on each server.

I think you will find the audio quality of all channels is now 
comparable, as are the levels.

Please give me some feedback and let me know how the channels 
compare at your location.

ITTY News is at http://65.243.191.51:8000

ITTY National is at http://65.243.191.51:8040

ITTY Autostart is at http://65.243.191.51:8030

ITTY employs a very low sample rate and runs in mono, so as to allow 
those who have dialup internet service the capability of copying 
ITTY services on a dialup connection.

The low sample and bit rates also allow for the capability of more 
simultaneous listeners, because we are minimizing each channel's 
bandwidth. This is analogous to putting smaller, lighter straws on 
the camel's back so that it will not be broken so readily.

Hopefully everyone had a superb Thanksgiving. We did here at ITTY.

I have a couple of surgical procedures scheduled for this coming 
Wednesday, so there might be some interruptions in the editing and 
news offerings from Sequim.

There are a couple of new edit folks coming on board shortly, and 
that will sure help.

I am again going to publicly thank Wayne LeTourneau, Tom "Gramps" 
Tillson,  and Don "Iceman" House for helping so well and so 
consistently. Also, soon to be regular will be Jonathan O'rear, Joe 
Montano, Nita Lyman, and hopefully a seasoned, retired professional 
broadcast news man  from Greensboro, NC.

Y'all take care, and

73,

George - W7TTY - ITTY Central/WLO Newsfeeds