Axia Discussion Board

How is the best way to organise talkback between iQ studios, and also between iQ and element studios?

Thanks
Matt

There is more than one way to accomplish this. I don't think either is better than the other, just different. The best solution is up to the technician that is responsible for building it and maintaining it.

First, what is the interface that a user uses. There are the User buttons which in Element can either be the accessory Film Cap or LCD Smart switches. In iQ there is the single 6 Fader+Buttons expansion module. There is also GPIO and the customer wires up their own buttons. Then there is Pathfinder Panel designer where a customer can build a software based button interface that would run on a Windows machine.

Second, audio routing. What is the source and destination to be routed when a talk is triggered. Here their are many different ways to accomplish this but assuming a standard studio, I would lean towards using the built in Logic available with both the Element and iQ. If you refer to the GPIO chapters of either manual, you can find a table for Control Room logic (CR Monitor). Using this built in logic and some clever usage of audio sources, one can have the operator mic routed to the Preview mix of the other studio. This will also provide protection since muting functions are already in place in case the other studio is Live. In the CR Monitor logic table, GPI-4 is used to trigger a command that will take the operator's audio to a new source known as Talkback in the Engine and for iQ the same but the source is known as Talkback to External. You need to get this audio into the other studios External Preview (Show Profile setting) and if you have multiple studios, you may need to consider using a VMIX to sum all these locations into a single source. GPI-3 is the function which triggers the external preview. Triggering this will insert the defined External preview source into the preview mix and as long as it isn't muted, the receiving end can hear the audio.

Third, there is the Axia intercom system. This provides integration into Element, but not into iQ. In the iQ studio you would need to look into a rackmount or desktop unit -OR- a combination of what was mentioned above and an iCom unit in the Element studio.

There are some different ways to accomplish what you ask.

Thanks Milos

At the moment the priority is to finish installing the studios, once they are all in, I'll have a play around with the methods you mention and see how I go.

Cheers
Matt

I'm reading this, but I'm confused about how I'm going to get the logic from one studio to the next.

Seems a bit odd..

In my case I have 3 Control rooms, I want them to be able to talk to each other, and I'll put in switches so they can (hopefully) select the correct room.

What I don't see is how the command will get to the other room. If it does do I have to use another GPIO to pull I-3 of the CR monitor low?

When using QOR (the engine behind iQ), you may wish to look at using the virtual GPIO feature available in those devices. To learn how to use that, refer to link from Axia support. It may not apply directly to your case, but it should get you started on understanding how to use virtual GPIO and how this may help in what you are trying to do.

Is there a simple step-by-step procedure explaining how to configure talkback between two IQ consoles using only the 'talk to studio' button on the main console? We don't have the extension console with the user buttons.
Thanks!

I am looking at adding TB between two iQ's, but one does not have user buttons (I really don't want to build outboard unless I have to!). Is there any way to use the logic within the TALK TO STUDIO button for this function? I see that the GPIO Livewire channel that I am using for CR (tally) actually toggles output 2-DIM CR LAMP when I press the TALK TO STUDIO. Any chance of expanding this function to TALK TO EXT.?

Thanks,
Ken

wthiengineer wrote:I see that the GPIO Livewire channel that I am using for CR (tally) actually toggles output 2-DIM CR LAMP when I press the TALK TO STUDIO. Any chance of expanding this function to TALK TO EXT.?

Ken I haven't had time to play much with what I wanted to do yet. But I didn't find any easy way to get it to work. Basically speaking, "Talk to Studio" doesn't. These are such great consoles, to bad we don't have any active firmware support.

Yeah. Looks like I will need to do something with Pathfinder to make this happen. Thanks to anyone that has any other ideas!

Ken

wthiengineer wrote:I am looking at adding TB between two iQ's, but one does not have user buttons (I really don't want to build outboard unless I have to!). Is there any way to use the logic within the TALK TO STUDIO button for this function? I see that the GPIO Livewire channel that I am using for CR (tally) actually toggles output 2-DIM CR LAMP when I press the TALK TO STUDIO. Any chance of expanding this function to TALK TO EXT.?

As was mentioned in earlier post, Virtual GPIO Ports. In the case of two iQ studios, do the following.
1) in both studios, in the desired show profiles, define a Logic port for the Studio monitors and the CR Monitor.
2) in a Virtual GPIO configuration, assign in the first column the logic number of a CR Monitor, select Pin 13. Second column assign the logic number of the other studio's Studio Monitor, select pin 5. Do for each.
3) find the desired audio sources which are to be used for talkback, make these Livewire channels and define them as source profiles (allowing them to be recalled).
4) define these audio channels as External Preview in the show profiles.

example.
iQ-1 has a CR logic value of 1111
iQ-2 has a Studio logic of 2222
in virtual GPIO, 1111 and pin 13 followed by 2222 and pin 5
iQ-2 has Mic 1 assigned as a Livewire channel, 1234
iQ-1 has a source profile called TBfrom2 and the channel is 1234
iQ-1 show profile has TBfrom2 defined as external Preview.

Press Talk to Studio on iQ-2, you should head in iQ-1 the Mic 1 from iQ-2 in the Preview output.

Repeat the setup with appropriate settings so that iQ-1 can talk back to iQ2.

AXIA_milos wrote: As was mentioned in earlier post, Virtual GPIO Ports. In the case of two iQ studios, do the following.

Looks interesting, I'm going to play with this in the next few weeks.
Thanks Milos,