'Hey, Joe!' A New Era In Multi-Channel Audio Capture (Pt. 1)

JoeCo is perhaps most known in the industry for its BLACKBOX RECORDER, live multi-channel audio capture solution, which the company's research and development team worked on since JoeCo's establishment in 2007. Launched in 2009, it was quickly followed in 2010 with the the release of the BLACKBOX PLAYER. RFV spoke to MD Joe Bull on the company's latest developments...

Having just returned from NAB, how did you feel the show fared this year? How does it compare with IBC?

In terms of booth visitors and potential business, NAB 2014 was a successful show for JoeCo. Whether overall visitor numbers were up or down on last year is more difficult to assess, but I would say that our products had direct relevance to over 95% of our booth visitors, despite audio appearing to become an increasingly marginalised part of the entire broadcast spectrum.
This market is however a growing one for JoeCo and NAB is a great opportunity to meet both existing and potential customers. The majority of our NAB visitors are from the USA, our largest market, so we always have a colleague from FullScaleAV, our US distributor, working with us. This enables efficient follow-ups to be made, as well as providing customers with an immediate 'local' contact.
This year was notable for the number of visitors checking out the BlackBox Recorder/Player in detail, having previously only read about it. In that respect, the show provided a valuable evaluation opportunity for broadcast companies and location sound engineers spec'ing solutions for projects or installations. It was also a further opportunity for us to gain first-hand feedback from existing and potential customers, which proves invaluable in our product development.
IBC2013 was probably a busier show for JoeCo, but that was almost certainly down to the initial unveiling of our forthcoming BBR1MP recorder with mic preamps (see below). From a commercial perspective, we tend to see a greater number of our international distributors (especially those from Europe) at IBC. However, NAB still attracts those from the Far East, Australia and selected European companies whose specialism is broadcast.

This year JoeCo exhibited at CABSAT for the first time. What insights did the show give the company into the ever-expanding Middle East market, and how is JoeCo poised to capitalise on the new opportunities?

It certainly gave us a better insight into the Middle Eastern market – there's a lot to do. This market is interesting because there are a lot of new broadcasters who haven't honed their skills in the same way that the more traditional broadcasters in the West or Far East have.
These companies are utilising the new technologies as soon as they become available without the baggage, or benefit, of years of broadcasting experience. It reinforces the fact that there is also something new to learn and I think we are just starting out from a marketing perspective here, but this echoes conversations I've had with many other companies who export to the area.

The Blackbox Recorder and Blackbox Player are JoeCo's flagship products, the former having won a PLASA Award for Innovation. What has contributed to the products' success, and what was the main drive behind their creation?

I think the BlackBox's success is largely due to the fact that we have always listened to our customers and have focused on trying to do one thing and do it well. The Recorder and Player are both intended to do very specific jobs, i.e. record and play back multiple channels of audio – period.
When I first began to develop the BlackBox Recorder concept, I wanted to provide a reliable multi-channel recording solution for live shows (my original background was in live/studio audio engineering).
Its function was to negate the need to bring half a studio to a live venue, including a computer whose operating system can have its own inherent problems. The recorder had minimal set-up requirements for the engineer before simply hitting 'RECORD', walking away, mixing the show, and pressing 'STOP' at the end.
The choice of removable USB drive and the universally recognised BWAV file format (I was privileged to be part of the EBU committee that defined the standard) were again designed to make the subsequent re-purposing of captured material as easy as possible, wherever you are in the world. I also wanted to create as compact a solution as possible that could unobtrusively grace any front-of-house rack, so establishing a 1U footprint was imperative.
Those same features also appeal to the broadcast and location sound community. Some of the BlackBox Recorder's first broadcast outings were on reality TV shows, where multiple microphone channels could be effortlessly recorded for hours at a time, before being sent to post production for instant ingest. The compact dimensions of the recorder have proved ideal for use on location carts and in OB vans. The channel count has increased over the years from 24 to 64, still within the 1U housing, and we've developed a range of analogue and digital interface options for compatibility with any live or broadcast console. But five years on from its initial release, the BlackBox is still just doing what it does best; reliably capturing live multi-channel audio. That's why I think it's been so successful.
The drive behind our Player development was slightly different. It resulted directly from user feedback, due to increasing use of backing tracks in live performances and theatre shows alongside the need for playback facilities in installations such as museums and galleries. The concept of being able to replay synchronous multi-channel audio on demand (rather than just replaying a stereo track) using the BlackBox Player and mixing it to suit individual acoustic/audience conditions, has opened up many more possibilities for engineers and system integrators – especially as it's now available for our 64-channel systems. Again, we've worked carefully with customers to ensure that it does what's required and that the technology integrates reliably with synchronisation requirements, etc.

The interview is also available in Broadcast Film & Video online.

(IT/JP)