Digital Alert Systems
AMS Installation / Operation & Integration Guide
Revision 3.0
Page 3 of 31
Digital Alert Systems Audio Management System
Installation / Operation & Integration
Introduction
The
D
igital
A
lert
S
ystems (
DAS
) -
A
udio
M
anagement
S
ystem (
AMS
) –
is designed as a simple solution for the “
Twenty-First Century
Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010
”
1
(or simply
21CVAA) compliance, which requires television stations to provide audio
description in their Secondary Audio Program (SAP) channel to aurally
represent any “emergency information” appearing on the main channel.
This means any crawl or text displays on the main channel such as
weather alerts, emergency conditions, etc. – separate of actual
newscasts or EAS alerts – must be “voiced” on the SAP channel. In
addition, an “attention” signal or tone must be inserted on the main
channel to alert or indicate to viewer’s emergency audio is available on
the secondary channel.
The AMS is a two-part system consisting of a
DAS Audio Message Controller
(
AMC)
and its companion
MultiPlayer
™ whose
front panels are shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3 respectively; together provide proper message audio for both Main and SAP
audio streams. The DAS
AMS
is designed to aggregate information from a variety of sources, convert the text information to
audio using a high-quality Text-To-Speech (TTS) convertor, prepare it for playback on the different audio channels, then provide
audio and triggering signals on all configured channels under a single user interface.
Figure 2 Digital Alert Systems Audio Message Controller - Part 1 of the Audio Management System
Figure 3 Digital Alert Systems MultiPlayer™ - Part 2 of the Audio Management System
How it works
Both the Audio Message Controller and MultiPlayer are linked via a standard Ethernet (TCP/IP) network, which provides a
properly credentialed operator system configuration and control using any standard web-browser. Once configured, the AMC
gathers emergency information from a variety of sources by monitoring network file locations or by other systems transferring
files to it then applying input filters to retrieve the appropriate information for text-to-speech conversion and subsequent queuing
and playout.
Besides actively monitoring data sources, an operator may load a pre-produced audio file, enter message text directly, or cut
and paste message text for automatic Text-To-Speech conversion. The AMC then handoffs the .WAV file, or the TTS audio file,
to the MultiPlayer readying it for playback.
1
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111s3304enr/pdf/BILLS-111s3304enr.pdf
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Figure 1 Simplified AMS block diagram – incoming data is
converted to audio and played back on Main or SAP channels
