The SBE Ennes Workshop is the traditional kick-off for the NAB Show. (Here are all the SBE events and activities at the convention.) In 2024, it will span two days on April 12 and 13. There will be two separate educational tracks: RF 101 Bootcamp and Media Over IP Essentials. The two tracks will combine at the end of the second day for a joint session on how to work with management.
RF 101 Bootcamp is designed to give those with a predominantly IT-oriented background the foundational information regarding transmission methods and equipment so that they can effectively function in these disciplines. Media Over IP (MoIP) Essentials introduces the essentials of IP-delivered media, covering video and audio implementations. Individuals involved with non-broadcast media delivery, whether a house of worship, post-production facility or as an audio-visual professional will also benefit from grounding in the installation and maintenance of modern non-analog facilities.
The last portion of the Workshop will bring the tracks together for a combined session on management skills: How to speak in terms of ROI, cost of acquisition and cost of ownership/operation, using language that owners, managers and financial colleagues understand, with a goal toward helping bring engineering back into the management team.
The Ennes Workshop will be held in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Register at the NAB Show website. The Training Only Registration of $259 includes a free exhibits pass and access to the Broadcast Engineering and IT Conference opening session on Saturday morning, and a registration code for SBE members that offers a free exhibits pass or $150 off the NAB Show Conference pass. The two-day workshop includes lunch breaks.
A rundown of the two educational tracks follows. The schedule is subject to change. Information about the presenters is also available.
The NAB Show registration options are available online. The SBE Ennes Workshop is listed under Workshops and Training. Use SBE24 for the SBE member free exhibits-only code + $150 off core education collection (the main conference bundle).
Quick Links:
RF101 Day 1 | RF 101 Day 2 | MoIP Essentials Day 1 | MoIP Essentials Day 2
Thanks to these SBE Sustaining Member Sponsors
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| April 12 – RF101 Bootcamp – LVCC W219 | |
| 7:30 a.m. | Continental Breakfast |
| 8:30 a.m. | Welcome Jeff Welton, CBRE; Regional Sales Manager, Eastern U.S.; Nautel |
| 8:45 a.m. | Basic Electronics Fundamentals This looks at Ohm’s Law and the principles of electronics theory that can make troubleshooting faults a lot easier. Greg Buchwald; Technical Staff; Motorola Solutions |
| 9:15 a.m. | Propagation This is a discussion of how radio waves travel covers AM, FM and TV, and discusses polarization, antenna gain and more. Karl Lahm; Principal; Broadcast Transmission Services |
| 10:00 a.m. | Break |
| 10:30 a.m. | Modulation How does the audio get onto the radiowave and what’s different between AM, FM, TV/ATSC, QAM/COFDM and others? John Kean; Senior Engineer; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace |
| 11:15 a.m. | Audio Audio-over-IP requires different treatment than conventional audio. This sessions talks about processing, distribution and other aspects to know. Kirk Harnack; Senior Solutions Consultant; Telos Alliance |
| 12:00 p.m. | Lunch |
| 1:00 p.m. | Regulation The FCC takes licensing seriously, and the role of the chief operator is to protect the license. This sessions discusses FCC considerations, STAs, NOTAMs and various other situations. Kevin Trueblood, CBRE, CBNT; Associate General Manager for Technology & Operations; WGCU Public Media, Florida Gulf Coast University |
| 2:00 p.m. | Proof of Performance There are various tests performed to prove a station is operating within proper parameters. This session explores audio proofs, MER, and related topics. Greg Buchwald; Technical Staff; Motorola Solutions |
| 2:30 p.m. | Test/Measurement This is a discussion of test equipment, and measurement techniques specific to broadcast facilities, such as how to operate a spectrum analyzer. Rick Daniel; Rohde & Schwarz |
| 3:30 p.m. | Break |
| 4:00 p.m. | Passive Components Whether we want to pass a signal that should be present or block one that shouldn’t, broadcast equipment uses filters: pass/reject/LPF/HPF, combiners. All are discusses. Stephen Wilde; President and CEO; AAT/Shively |
| 4:30 p.m. | Troubleshooting When it comes to finding out what’s wrong, there’s a process. This session covers that process and discusses stocking spares and look at when to call for help. Greg Buchwald; Technical Staff; Motorola Solutions |
| 5:30 p.m. | Studio Tips Getting a signal from here to there requires some skills. This session looks at audio routing, cable distribution, wireless IP and related topics. Josh Bohn; The MaxxKonnect Group |
| 6:00 p.m. | Program Ends |
| April 12 – Media Over IP Essentials – LVCC W225 | |
| 7:30 a.m. | Continental Breakfast |
| 8:30 a.m. | Welcome Review the importance of being trained in the new IP world of media, and learn what to expect from this Ennes Workshop. Martin Dyster; VP of Business Development & Product Director; Telos Alliance |
| 8:45 a.m. | TCP\IP Basics and Review A review of the building blocks and basics of hardware, protocols, specifications, and organization of “IP speak.” TCP/IP, UDP, unicast, multicast, IPV4 addressing, and so forth. Andy Butler, CPBE; Director of Engineering; PBS |
| 9:20 a.m. | Media IP Troubleshooting Tips and Tricks Micheal Liebman will share his handy bag of tips, tricks, tools, and shortcuts for repairing, maintaining, and configuring media IP networks. Michael Liebman, CEV, CBNT; Principal Engineer; SiriusXM |
| 10:00 a.m. | Break |
| 10:30 a.m. | SNMP and Monitoring Protocols Including 2110 Integration Dive into the pervasive SNMP protocol used extensively in media and broadcast products. Get to know MIB browsers, how to set up remote control systems, and learn newfound integration tricks in the realm of pure AOIP and SMPTE 2110 installations. Nigel Brownett; President; NFB Consulting and Suitelife Systems |
| 11:10 a.m. | The Various Flavors of AOIP: Dante, AES67, Livewire, and Wheatnet The four major Audio-over-IP formats will be discussed and how they are utilized in professional media. Learn the latest compatibility breakthroughs and capabilities of Dante, Wheatnet, AES 67, and LiveWire. John Davis; Technical & Systems Engineer; Wheatstone Greg Shay; Chief Technical Officer; Telos Alliance |
| 11:50 a.m. | Lunch |
| 12:50 p.m. | Video Acquisition in an IP World: Managing SDI, NDI, and 2110 Environments A highlight of the industry’s latest field video acquisition file and IP streaming format capabilities, cross format transcoding concerns, and how to manage hybrid SDI, NDI, and SMPTE 2110 facilities efficiently. Michael Bergeron; Senior Product Manager; Panasonic |
| 1:30 p.m. | A Taxonomy of Audio Codecs This focuses on the categorization of audio codecs. Often mistakenly given a back seat in significance in the importance of the overall quality of a program or media product, the importance of understanding the complexity of human hearing and perception as it relates to viewer and listener retention and sales is reiterated. James Johnston; Chief Scientist; Immersion Networks |
| 2:05 p.m. | Understanding SMPTE 2110 The intricacies of the SMPTE 2110 standard and its sub-sets. John Maihot; Systems Architect for IP Convergence; Imagine Communications |
| 2:45 p.m. | Break |
| 3:00 p.m. | Greenfield 2110 Facility Buildout Including Network Topology Insight into the design, configuration and building of a Greenfield complete IP/2110-based television station from bare walls. It will cover the lessons learned, show the progression, provide a model to follow on best practices, and showcase a tangible implementation. Jim Beahn; VP Engineering & Operations; WTTG/WDCA Fox Television Stations Nik Kumar; Engineering Director; Advanced Systems Group |
| 3:45 p.m. | Day-to-Day Operation in the Hybrid World of SDI and 2110 This walks through a typical day in the life of an engineer in managing quality and reliability in a hybrid SDI/2110 facility, which is where most of us will be the next few years. IP is just another I/O interface: It’s a way to get video, audio, and data to or from a switch. This covers what operators and engineers need to know. Steve Holmes; Solutions Architect and Application Engineer; Leader |
| 4:25 PM | Break |
| 4:40 p.m. | IP Troubleshooting for Media: From the Network Layer and Beyond This covers higher-level analysis and troubleshooting of media-over-IP installations. This session will explore how to use Wireshark effectively for media applications, as well as how to complement it with other tools and techniques to increase the tool arsenal. Eduardo Martinez; VP of Technology; StreamGuys |
| 5:20 p.m. | Audio Loudness in Radio, Television, Streaming; and Introducing AES 77 The quality and efficacy of any broadcast, stream, or program that includes sound should use accepted measurement and control of its human-perceived quality to be market successful. John Kean; Senior Engineer; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace |
| 6:00 p.m. | Program Ends |
| April 13 – RF101 Bootcamp – LVCC W219 | |
| 7:30 a.m. | Continental Breakfast |
| 8:30 a.m. | Welcome Jeff Welton, CBRE; Regional Sales Manager, Eastern U.S.; Nautel |
| 8:45 a.m. | Transmitter Site Safety We do more with less, and safety should be a top concern. Karl Lahm; Principal; Broadcast Transmission Services |
| 9:30 a.m. | Broadcast Transmitters This session presents an overall discussion of transmitters, looking at cooling (liquid and air), maintenance considerations and other aspects. Glen Hurst; Rohde & Schwarz |
| 10:15 a.m. | Break |
| 10:45 a.m. | Site Optimization Whether a new site or an existing one, keeping equipment cool, clean and well-grounded will significantly extend the lifespan. This session looks at grounding, lightning protection, air handling and site layout as a whole. Jeff Welton, CBRE; Regional Sales Manager, Eastern U.S.; Nautel |
| 11:15 a.m. | Remote Control This is a discussion of transmitter site monitoring, both conventional and over IP with SNMP. Tony Peterle, CPBE; Manager; Worldcast Systems |
| 11:30 a.m. | Translators Translators are subject to different rules and protections than full-service transmitters. This session looks at the difference between parts 73 and 74 of the Code of Federal Regulations. John Kean; Senior Engineer; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace |
| 11:55 a.m. | STL/Microwave When setting up an STL or microwave shots, there are considerations to be made, including path plotting, Fresnel zones, discrete vs IP and more. John Kean; Senior Engineer; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace |
| 12:15 p.m. | Lunch |
| 1:15 p.m. | AM and AM Directionals While AM radio is more than 100 years old, there’s always something to learn when it comes to antenna systems. This session will discuss theory and tuning, as well as maintenance. Stephen S. Lockwood, CPBE, AMD, PE; Senior Engineer and President; Hatfield & Dawson Consulting Engineers |
| 2:00 p.m. | FM/TV Antennas FM antenna systems also require some thought. This covers bandwidth, tuning, transmission lines, all of which play a role in the performance of a station. Stephen Wilde; President and CEO; AAT/Shively |
| 2:30 p.m. | SFN FM analog and HD Radio stations can be synchronized for on-channel booster use, but there are considerations, such as audio synchronization, terrain shielding and interference. Tony Peterle, CPBE; Manager; Worldcast Systems |
| 3:00 p.m. | Break |
| 3:30 p.m. | ROI and How to Speak It For years, the engineer has been that person in the back room who shows up and fixes stuff. This session delves into ROI, cost of acquisition/operation/ownership and related terms. Kevin Trueblood, CBRE, CBNT; Associate General Manager for Technology & Operations; WGCU Public Media, Florida Gulf Coast University |
| 4:00 p.m. | How to Talk Like a Manager Bringing engineering back into the Management Team: This panel of engineering managers discusses ways to help engineers make themselves part of the management team, whether on a contract basis or as full-time employees. Kevin Trueblood, CBRE, CBNT; Associate General Manager for Technology & Operations; WGCU Public Media, Florida Gulf Coast University Cindy Cavell; Director; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace Gary Cavell; Director; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace |
| 5:30 p.m. | Closing |
| April 13 – Media Over IP Essentials – LVCC W225 | |
| 7:30 a.m. | Continental Breakfast |
| 8:30 a.m. | Welcome An overview of the day’s sessions, including a state of broadcast update and and overview of SBE events at the NAB Show. |
| 8:35 a.m. | Working with Fiber: Hands-On Demo Including Measurements and Specifications The fiber optic control circuits for lights translate to high-bandwidth media-over-IP interfaces and SFPs. This is a primer on fusing connector on various light guide types, OTDR measurements, testing, and handling of this unique high-bandwidth medium. Javid Butler; Senior Engineer; HDR Consulting |
| 9:20 a.m. | Media Streaming Basics In any serious study of media-over-IP, the ultimate consumer format preprocessing recommendations and the formats’ technical limitations require comprehension to produce programs, streams, and broadcasts that are successful in our business. Greg Ogonowski; Founder; StreamS/Modulation Index |
| 9:55 a.m. | Production Quality Streaming: Web RTC, WAN, and Intra Organization Distribution The pro video transport and streaming realm. Signals that need to traverse the internet, across campuses, and between editors and postproduction and live video facilities require low-latency, fixed-lossless or low-loss algorithms, with rock-solid reliability between and cross production and broadcast networks. Andrew Osmond; Director of Business Development for Media Transport; Evertz |
| 10:30 a.m. | Break |
| 11:00 a.m. | IP Execution in Internal Comms: IFB, Hybrids, Telephones, and a Cloud-Based Future Go inside the internal communications systems within production and broadcast facilities. This includes talent IFB systems, scaling these systems across wide area networks, past and future of hybrids and IP telephone systems, and how IP-based communications are being implemented into cloud and hybrid applications. Martin Dyster; VP of Business Development & Product Director; Telos Alliance Kirk Harnack; Senior Solutions Consultant; Telos Alliance |
| 11:40 a.m. | Working with Documentation and Having a Documentation Mindset We know we need to document our facilities, but we struggle with how, when, and who will do it. This session introduces a set of rules that govern our approach to documentation, looking at at different approaches and discussing the pros and cons of each. Christian Holbrook; CEO; WireCAD |
| 12:15 p.m. | Lunch |
| 1:15 p.m. | Report from the Field: Lessons Learned Building IP Islands This presents a view from an onsite, daily operations engineer perspective into integrating, cross connecting, and upgrading sub systems in a typical hybrid SDI/IP broadcast facility. It also looks at AoIP in the real world: compatibility between different types from behind the racks, and tales of what has and hasn’t worked. Dave Donaldson; Director of Broadcast Operations; Gray Media |
| 1:40 p.m. | IP STL and MPX formats: Media Aggregation in an IP World This session starts with a short review on analog multiplex broadcast standards, their digitization, and packetization to IP, which is then followed by a treatise on the new transmitter STL-TP standard and the IEEE-proposed Aggregated Content Delivery Link (ACDL). All the wrapped multi signal “out the door” protocols to transmitters, streaming engines, distributed transmitter repeater systems, and RF uplinks are covered in this session. S. Merrill Weiss, CPBE; Owner; Merrill Weiss Group |
| 2:15 p.m. | Break |
| 2:45 p.m. | Media Over IP in the Cloud Much of broadcasting is headed away from hardware and more to distributed virtual production, transitioning broadcast operations to the cloud. The session explores cloud concepts, including contribution, processing, and distribution, the Well-Architected Framework, and best practices. Noor Hassan; Principal Partner Solutions Architect, M&E; Amazon Web Services Jonathan Solomon, CSTE, CBNE; Principal Partner Solutions Architect, M&E; Amazon Web Services |
| 3:30 p.m. | The Future of Media Over IP Capstone This session encapsulates everything covered in this Ennes Workshop with an eye to the direction the media industry is headed, and its impending career and business opportunities thereto. Chris Lennon; Director, Standards Strategy; Ross Video |
| 3:55 p.m. | Break |
| 4:00 p.m. | How to Talk Like a Manager Bringing engineering back into the Management Team: This panel of engineering managers discusses ways to help engineers make themselves part of the management team, whether on a contract basis or as full-time employees. Kevin Trueblood, CBRE, CBNT; Associate General Manager for Technology & Operations; WGCU Public Media, Florida Gulf Coast University Cindy Cavell; Director; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace Gary Cavell; Director; Cavell Mertz/Capitol Airspace |
| 5:15 p.m. | Closing Remarks |
| 5:30 p.m. | Program Ends |
