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Distributed Program Bus Scenario

Providing a Variety of Audio Options in all Zones

This example illustrates how to use a Distributed Program Bus to deliver a variety of audio inputs to all zones in your system. The only difference between this scenario and the most basic scenario is the addition of more inputs to the Distributed Program Bus and the use of control linking to provide end users with control over which input to play.

Example Scenario

You are designing the audio system for a large conference center that has many different meeting rooms as well as public spaces. One requirement is to provide five choices for background music to be played in any zone at any time. The five input sources come from a subscription to five different commercial music programs.

Because all of these inputs are required for all zones in the system, the Distributed Program Bus is the perfect solution.

Configuring the System
1. Configure the inputs.

The commercial receivers are located in the rack room with the HAL and are, therefore, connected directly to five HAL analog input ports.

  1. In the I/O palette in the Processing Workspace, locate the Analog Input Ports to which the commercial receivers are connected.
  2. Drag the five Mic/Line Input blocks into your Processing Map.
  3. Customize the Channel names for each block. We'll call them Classical, Jazz, Soft Rock, Swing, Folk.
  4. Configure the Sensitivity and Level appropriately for each Mic/Line Input block.
2. Configure the Distributed Program Bus.
  1. In the DSP palette, locate the Distributed Program Bus (in the Paging/Room Combine category) and drag it into the Processing Map, placing it to the right of the Mic/Line Input blocks you just configured.
  2. Wire the output from the first Mic/Line Input block to the DPB 1 input node on the Distributed Program Bus. Wire each additional Mic/Line Input block to the <Add> input node. To do so, simply click each Mic/Line Output node and then click the Distributed Program Bus input node. Each time you connect a new input to the Distributed Program Bus, a new <Add> node is made available.
  3. Customize the names of the input nodes on the Distributed Program Bus by clicking the node name and then typing the new name in the text edit box that appears. We'll stick with the same names we used for the input blocks: Classical, Jazz, Soft Rock, Swing, Folk.

    4. note: These names will serve as the initial DR display names when you link a DR to these inputs.

3. Add Zone Processors to the system.

The zones in this audio system include one for each conference room as well as a zone for the main lobby and for the office area. In reality, there would likely be additional zones, but we'll limit our scenario to only these zones.

  1. In the DSP palette, locate the Zone Processor block (in the Paging/Room Combine category).
  2. Drag 8 Zone Processor blocks (six conference rooms, the lobby, the office area) into your Processing Map. For identification, customize the name of each Zone Processor by clicking its name and typing the new name in the text edit box that appears. We'll call them Lobby, Offices, ConfRoom 1, ConfRoom 2, and so on.

    3. As you can see, the Distributed Program Bus is included by default in each Zone Processor.

note: At this point you would configure various aspects of each Zone Processor. But we're going to skip over most of that configuration as this scenario is focused on the Distributed Program Bus. Instead, we'll jump right to giving your end users remote access to the input channels delivered via the Distributed Program Bus. For details on working with Zone Processors, click here.

note: You would also, of course, need to wire the audio to one or more outputs, but we'll skip those steps as well to keep our focus on the Distributed Program Bus.

4. Provide end users with selection control of background music channels.

To give your end users selection control over the five commercial channels connected to the Distributed Program Bus, you simply configure a control link between a DR and a zone's selection of incoming channels.

  1. In the Hardware Workspace, configure 8 DR3s—one for each zone. We've chosen the DR3 as it will also give the end user control over the volume of the background music. (For details on working with DRs, click here.)
  2. We'll now walk through the creation of the control link for only one of the zones. In the Processing Workspace, double-click the Lobby Zone Processor (in the Processing Map) to display its properties dialog box—which contains a Priority Selector block, a Level block, and a Paging Zone block.
  3. Double-click the Priority Selector block to displays its properties, one of which is the selection of input channels for the zone. Notice that this selection list is linkable. To provide end users with control over these channels, you simply link this selection list to a DR.
  4. In the Control palette, locate the DR3 intended for the Lobby. Link its Selector control to the selection list in the Priority Selector block (by dragging the DR3 Selector link icon and dropping it on the Priority Selector selection list link icon).

There are other parameters to configure (the Priority Inputs, a link between the Level block and the DR3 Level control, and so on), but we'll save those discussions for another topic. As far as providing end users with control over the five incoming commercial music channels (supplied by the Distributed Program Bus), you're done! You would, of course, repeat this process for each zone.

See Also