Codec Answer Guy Presents: NAB 2024

Hey, Codec Answer Guy! It’s been awhile. NAB 2024 is around the corner. Anything new and exciting on the Comrex plate?

You mean besides our third generation BRIC-Link (the industry standard for IP codec reliability) or our full line of portable and studio-side audio codecs?

Sure!

We’re making some major enhancements to our Gagl cloud service. If you recall, Gagl is a subscription service that allows you to create a real-time conference with up to five commentators. The talent all use a computer or smartphone browser – no codec hardware required on their end. They all get mixed together in high fidelity and downloaded to your studio Comrex codec (ACCESS or BRIC-Link) with superb quality, high reliability, and low delay.

Now, we’re introducing a new offering, Gagl Solo, which is entirely free of cost. It will allow you to bridge a single commentator to your Comrex codec via their web browser. You can’t beat that price!

Free Gagl? Sounds amazing! Anything else new in Gagl-land?

You bet! The standard paid subscription offering for US customers is changing to Gagl + Hotline. This is going to shake things up!

For starters, Gagl + Hotline will now supply a phone line to each subscriber. Using this number, inbound and outbound calls can be made to telephones, and the caller will be treated like another Gagl participant, hearing the full conference and adding to the conversation.

That’s a pretty handy feature. It could replace your studio’s telephone hybrid.

Sounds great, right? Well, hold on to your hat. Have you noticed that Mobile-Mobile calls sound great these days? That’s because the carriers have all moved to Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) for their voice calls. The standard encoder for mobile calls is now wideband, as opposed to the traditional narrow-band “telephone sound” encoders.

But as they say, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And when these great-sounding mobile calls are taken off the wireless network and delivered to your studio via a wired phone line (POTS or VoIP), they are always cut down to “old telephone” quality for compatibility purposes.

Until now, there was no way to preserve the high quality of the mobile call all the way through to the studio. But Gagl + Hotline changes that. Calls made between mobile phones and your Hotline do not get transcoded down to “telephone quality”. They remain full-bandwidth, and callers sound as good as other Gagl participants (meaning VERY good).

It’s important to note, Gagl + Hotline doesn’t need to be used in a conference. You can set up Gagl to simply answer phone calls and transfer them to your codec (using an optional security PIN). So if you have a single contributor, it’s as easy as pie to make their mobile phone sound studio quality. No browser or app required, just dial the number and go on air.

It’s now even easier to get out there and Gagl.

Thanks, Codec Answer Guy. See you soon in Las Vegas!

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