In times of pandemic when everything is turned upside down, there are a few landmarks we hold onto to keep the world go round. Sports, among others, help many of us keep some sense of normalcy: as sports calendars unroll with their lots of competitions and games, we find ourselves remotely experiencing the same adrenaline, excitement and even awe when following our favorite athlete or team. Let’s review these moments when we had shivers, felt sheer joy – or even disappointment – and dodged the setbacks of being confined (and well, Digigram products helped a little, too).

Not all sports events are easily accessible to their fans: high stakes games, finals, remote venues – more than often, sports amateurs stay home, sit back and relax while watching their favorite game on TV, or listening to a radio broadcast (that one especially when you are on the move!). The excitement in the reporter’s voice delivering the commentary, the contributing guests sharing feedback about the game or performance, interviews on-the-go – all this is part of the entertainment. 

IQOYA TALK AND THE TENNIS FANS

If you are fond of the incomparable, muffled-yet-tense atmosphere of tennis courts, read on: picture Roland Garros’s Central Court and the excitement of a Men’s semi-final game. Paris is bursting with spring, hot air and the arena is packed for the French Open. The silence that can burst into a victory cry in an eye-blink. Up there, in the journalists’ cabins overlooking the whole venue, commentaries are shushed to keep quiet and revert the actual atmosphere. And right on their desk, radio reporters are testing IQOYA Talk operating with 4G connection to deliver the most accurate, live message with no risk of losing the signal.
Forget the tech, all they have to do is focus on their core job of reporters for their respective radio stations.
Forget the media, all you have to do is jump out your seat when your favorite player wins the game.

IQOYA TALK, IQOYA CONNECT AND THE INDOORS EXCITEMENT

Complete change of scenery – Picture indoor Olympic swimming pools in beautiful Budapest, we are attending the LEN Water Polo European Championships. The jaw-dropping architectural gem Duna Aréna hosts the event and the Hungarians, all-time favorites and world top power teams, are under much pressure to make this game a success story (spoiler: Men won the gold medal and Women the bronze medal. But read on!). Throughout the tournament, Digigram IQOYA Talk will have proved their reliability, extreme user-friendliness and sturdiness in a wet environment while working long shifts to cover the event (extra batteries keep the reporters on the safe side). Broadcasts, thanks to IQOYA Connect and a SIP infrastructure, were successfully directed to radio stations in Russia, Malta, Croatia, Montenegro and Italy.

DIGIGRAM AND EQUESTRIAN FLAIR

Again, let’s move back outdoors and get acquainted to another high stake, sports event: the Jumping International de Valence: 270 top horse riders from over 20 countries, 700 incredible horses, 30 000 visitors, abundant sun and dust gathered in the outskirts of Valence, France, through a week of equestrian competition. The show also counts media coverage and radio talk shows hosted by France Bleu Drôme, the regional outpost of French Public Radio, Radio France. Sitting with a journalist, guests and contributors were able to live share their passion and reactions from a single IQOYA Talk set outdoors (sunglasses welcome). Operating thanks to a LAN connection, IQOYA Connect and a third party codec, IQOYA Talk proved once more its stunning versatility and user friendly character. 

(extra batteries keep the reporters on the safe side). Broadcasts, thanks to IQOYA Connect and a SIP infrastructure, were successfully directed to radio stations in Russia, Malta, Croatia, Montenegro and Italy.

Whatever the sport, game, venue, circumstances, technical environment: Digigram supports the broadcast and media industry in tailoring the most efficient, reliable, cost-effective and stress-free solutions. From interviews on the go, operated with a simple Q-Mic and a smartphone, to large infrastructures and OB vans packed with SERV/LINK or X/LINK, our solutions scale up to accommodate the largest, world-class live events – or your routine sound recordings. 

A year in sports with Digigram is undoubtedly a rollercoaster of emotions. Mostly, our pledge is to offer reporters and journalists ridiculously simple tech that enables them to focus on what they do best: cover a sports event with its share of excitement and emotion.

At the other end of the chain, we listen as the game or event unfolds, not losing a single minute. Yes, sports help to keep most of us afloat and it does hit home – that place we got acquainted to like never before.

Discover IQOYA TALK, The new standard for portable codecs

The Radio Mega Challenge

The goal of Radio Mega is to “make a link with the people”. Despite having a full-fledged studio in Valence, and another one in Romans sur-Isère, the station had very limited contact with the ground. Raphael Terribile, radio director and music pro- grammer from the station had the idea of creating a studio on a bicycle.

“Radio Mega conceived this studio-bike idea to broadcast and strengthen the projects within the territory to a wider audience.”

The success of this studio-bike, from the idea to the technical realization, is due to the perfect synergy of different assets. It started with the acquisition of a bike with electric assistance and its transformation to include a wooden canopy and seating. Meanwhile, the question of broadcasting was the most important point. The mobile studio must be able to stream reliably from anywhere, and sometimes even while on the move.

Digigram delivered 2 products, an IQOYA X / LINK AES67 – to be compatible with the Axia console in livewire – which can receive the stream in the studio, and an IQOYA TALK on the studio-bike to broadcast the stream. On 23rd, June, for the release of the bike-show, the IQOYA TALK fulfilled its mission with flying colors: it streamed for 7 hours and 30 minutes using cellular networks.

After that, radio Mega organized a five-day tour of the Drome region with the studio-bike, which was a great success: Radio Mega was able to stream comfortably thanks to the dual built-in 4G module and 2 hot-swappable batteries.

The easy user-interface is ideal and simple for a field reporter. The ergonomy, functionality, and “usability” was designed to be maximized.

IQOYA TALK works with a very simple touchscreen with icons, just like a smartphone. “I just have to plug my microphone and click a button to connect my TALK to the radio. I’m going to the town square market to cover a story and I have the option to simply record or broadcast” says Bastien Enard. The audacious studio-bike, conceived by Radio Mega and powered by Digigram creates a perfect synergy that has a bright future.

Discover more stories with IQOYA TALK on

A smart trick and flawless broadcasts from home thanks to Digigram’s IQOYA Guest Preview.

Basically, reporters’ job is to “report”, therefore they need to be on the field (preferably with an IQOYA Talk) to meet real situations and craft the news. But, in times of nation-wide lockdowns, when social distancing is a golden rule, how do reporters… Report?

Bypassing this new (and hopefully, temporary) normal and reporting from a comfy couch or cluttered garage is a thing: countless images have flourished over the web, depicting journalists happily working from home, with a ton of equipment imported from their usual studio.

However, shipping equipment to each journalist’s place and ensure a smooth news service is sometimes beyond possible. 

At Digigram, we have come up with a ridiculously easy trick – simply hijacking our IQOYA Guest Preview service and turning it into remote reporters’ best companion (beside the coffee shot)! Basically, that hands-down service was designed to host remote guests during a show or broadcast. Whether using a smartphone, tablet or being interviewed from a computer, the guest needs absolute no knowledge of any radio-specific tools, tunings and features.

All it takes is a reliable internet connexion and a web browser. Sound quality for the stream transmission is top notch (you know how much we care about sound quality) and the service has the simplest configuration.

Turning IQOYA Guest preview into a work sidekick is an easy-peasy operation that requires only minimal equipment. This lightweight solution takes no more than 4 steps:

#1 Choose the best place to broadcast

Is it your sofa? Your desk? The kitchen counter? You may roam your home to find the most convenient setting for your computer or smartphone as a scenery for your upcoming broadcast.

#2 Fix yourself a warm drink

Carefully choose the mug for your home made cappuccino – if you were to make a selfie while broadcasting, you’d certainly want to look at your best. So, discard that good ol’ chipped mug you received for your 12^th birthday.

#3 Clear the place

Kick the kids or the cat out of the place (but #stayhome anyway, ok?) – This is your workplace, after all. And you are about to broadcast your regular show.

#4 Open your favourite browser

Launch IQOYA Guest. Log in. Sip some coffee. Click on CALL to connect to the studio. Take another sip. Mic on. You are on air.

Discover IQOYA GUEST and broadcast from home (or wherever you want) today!

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ince 1985, Digigram has innovated in the development of sound processing software and hardware. From the famous PCX3 to its solutions for SIP infrastructures, discover 35 years of history at the heart of this company on the border between IT and audio.

SERV/LINK: one Rack Unit. No compromise.

In 2009, Digigram invented the first stereo audio codec dedicated to transport over IP networks which natively integrated the redundant streaming function on two separate networks.

Always at the forefront of research, Digigram sensed the need to go further in the design of its codecs. In order to develop a tool that would bring an indisputable advantage to the broadcaster, Digigram put the “user” above everything else. 

While radios already offered several simultaneous audio programs, Digigram chose to propose a codec with high channel density in only 1U. This codec had to manage talk-back channels and commentaries via IP. It had to support remote broadcasting of programs between remote studios and generate multiple WEB radio streams for CDNs. This led to the creation of IQOYA SERV/LINK, an extremely reliable and compact codec. 

This new generation codec was the first IP audio codec in the market to offer as many channels in 1U. IQOYA SERV/LINK accommodates Digigram’s professional audio cards and relies on the Fluid IP™ streaming engine developed by the brand. It is available in several versions with different format compatibility: MADI / AES67 / AES / EBU / DANTE / Analog.

The functional scope of the IQOYA SERV/LINK was then extended to support MPEG-TS streaming, followed by applications using DVB Audio transport and then for simultaneous live remote broadcasting applications.

In the “remote broadcasting” configuration, it is the only IP audio codec in the market capable of managing up to 64 mono or stereo full-duplex IP streams, regardless of the audio encoding format and the audio connectivity.

In the “program distribution” configuration, it is the only IP audio codec in the market which supports up to 128 mono, multiple-format, input and output channels with the possibility to simultaneously encode, decode and transcode IP audio streams.

Two redundant hot-swappable power batteries and the 1 + 1 redundancy functionality make the IQOYA SERV / LINK a very secure and reliable, program distribution (WEB radios, DVB Audio, FM) and remote broadcasting (commentaries, talk-back channels, inter-studio links) codec.

Bridging LAN Audio to external WAN: Security is key

Remote broadcasting, on-field coverage, live game commentary, audio distribution to transmitters or web radios – the audio production environment has multiple forms. These streams traditionally travel through dedicated analog/AES-EBU audio infrastructures. Those legacy infrastructures use audio codecs to interconnect the audio world with the Wide Area IP network – among which is Internet. Within a traditional company IT infrastructure, codecs are designed to remain in the so-called DMZ, the first security layer and farthest possible ‘exclusion zone’ from the company’s sensitive data – the latter being lodged into a ‘privileged zone’, a deep layer heavily protected by firewalls.

Simplifying and Reinforcing a DVB multiplex generation workflow with only 2 AoIP codecs

RCF is a network of Christian associative radios, which includes 64 stations in France and Belgium, followed by 630,000 listeners every day. It is the 1st independent generalist radio network of proximity in France. RCF offers local and national programs, implemented by 300 employees and 3000 volunteers, and is available in 5 broadcasting modes (FM, Mobile, Internet, Podcast and DAB +).The national structure, based in Lyon, generates the national program (20h of program / day) and the local radios broadcast 4h of their own program, according to a schedule common to all the radios.