Provisional Support for those modems we've been promising

We've got test firmware for our LiveShot video codec that supports the latest LTE modems from Sprint and AT&T. As you might recall, I blogged about these over the summer, and although it wasn't easy, we've integrated the drivers and they seem to be working. LiveShot support is available currently only in our "unstable" branch firmware, but if you're eager for these contact our support department and they'll set you up.

ACCESS support is a bit more complex, but we're on the path. It required a Linux kernel upgrade on our side, which has the potential to break any number of the dozens of ACCESS features, so we're testing that now. We should have support for ACCESS 2USB within weeks, and ACCESS Portable Classic (Hopefully) sometime over the winter.

The UML295 is an ornery critter

Comrex cleverly added support for the Verizon flagship modem UML295 to our products the week it was released. We found the previous modem (UML290) lacking in several regards and were eager to have folks use the newer, better version as soon as possible.

But we got blindsided by a firmware update that's now being applied to these modems by "Big Red". In our driver for ACCESS codecs, it turns out we send a command that is interpreted differently once the new modem firmware hits, and the results aren't pretty.

Note the modems won't update on their own--you need to attach them to a PC and explicitly authorize that the firmware be updated.

But once that's done, the next time you apply the modem to your ACCESS, it will become locked in a mode that will kill future LTE connections. Even when attached to other devices. That's not good.

You'll notice a big banner on our website these days warning of this situation. We'd hate to be the cause of modem heartache, so we're trying to get the work out as quickly as we can.

The fix is easy--upgrade your ACCESS to new firmware (2.8p24 or higher) and the next time you plug in your modem it will instantly heal itself.  Other fixes are listed in our appnote on the topic.

The culprit

Off Topic-Adventures in Product Support

It's a pretty big challenge providing support for hardware in the broadcast market--we need to supply top level people at the basic support level (no script monkeys) with high amounts of training. This is expensive and not conducive to the current employment environment where people expect to work somewhere for a few years before jumping ship.

And our support is free to the customer, which means that the customer often now assumes you can grapple all his IT issues, related to product performance or not.

Another field where all this is true is consumer devices like phones and tablets. Unlike computers, the expectation of the customer is free support for their device, and I'm certain that with the vast spectrum of technical capability of the average iPad user, this can be quite the handful. Wouldn't it be tempting to aim your mother-in-law toward the local genius bar instead of trying to figure out why Facetime isn't working for her down in Florida?

I suppose folks like Apple have thought hard about this, and I imagine the prices one pays for their products builds this cost in, as do the products built and sold by Comrex.

I got a little education on this last night. Now, I'm an Android fan and have big issues with the restrictive nature of the iProducts, but I certainly see their value in equipping non-techie wives and children with devices they have less chance of messing up. But my wife's iPhone 5 went rouge this week, suddenly downloading multiple gigabytes of nothing from the app store for no reason I could discern. Verizon had no clue and couldn't tell me the nature of the data, so I found the switch within the OS to turn off app store capabilities over cellular.

Well that's not a very elegant fix, so when we found ourselves in the local mall, I thought to stop by the Genius Bar to inquire what could cause such a thing. My grouchy engineering nature always re-appears when met by those bluetooth wearing, iPad toting, way-too-eager kids milling around the Apple store, but I hunkered down and entered. The "greeter" asked if he could help, and I inquired if I could speak to a Genius briefly.

"Do you have a reservation?" he asked, the ear-to-ear grin not flinching. Odd, I thought, but pressed on. "No, we were just walking by". His expression changed to one of concern.  "Walk that way and talk to Johnny. I'm sure he can help".

"How to I find Johnny?" I asked. "Easy!" exclaimed the greeter, his smile returning. "Johnny has the green iPad cover!". Apparently, the color of your iPad cover signifies your rank in the iStore. Kind of like a Star Trek uniform. At least it wasn't red.

So we ventured further into the store, and found Johnny located near the end of the Genius bar, studiously tapping on his green-covered iPad. I re-inquired about talking to someone about the rouge iPhone.

"Do you have a reservation?" he asked, displaying what I started to label an iGrin. "No". Johnny looked down at this iPad, which I could now see was running a calendar system with lots of colored blocks on lots of grids. He started scrolling. And scrolling. Johnny scrolled for about 10 straight seconds. This was not looking good.

"The next Genius I have available is at 8:30 PM". It was 6:30 PM. I made my grouchiest engineer face (I'm very good at that, I'm told). I turned to my wife and told her (with no effort at volume reduction) "That's ridiculous and annoying. Let's go."

On my way out, I heard Johnny doing his best to appease. "If you make it back, call for an appointment ahead and you'll have an easy time" he called.

Although I left pretty unhappy, on reflection I can sympathize with Johnny and the gang. Offering deep tech support in a mall has got to be a challenging effort. And no doubt the support load comes in fits and spurts during peak hours. And there's also no doubt that the typical iPhone customer enters with an expectation that the "Genius" will solve all their phone or data-related issues, whether it's Apple's fault or not.  And I guess making a reservation isn't the dumbest idea given these factors.

At Comrex, we've taken to bringing one of our support personnel to our NAB stand. This is mainly due to the expectation that some customer's have that we're there to discuss issues they're having with our products. It helps us meet those expectations, while still able to do all the other good NAB stuff, like selling, learning about customer's needs, and general hobnobbing.

My experience at Apple was definitely colored by my personal "ick factor" when presented with overly-helpful staff. Maybe I'll give the Genius bar another try (with a reservation).

Change your password Dag-Nab it!

We're getting reports in the field of folks having their Comrex web-based products altered by unknown parties--in some cases making VoIP calls to "sketchy" locations.

It's a good time for a public service reminder. Comrex products ship with a default password.  It's a really bad idea to leave devices exposed to the Internet at default passwords. We've started implementing nag screens like that shown to encourage this, but lots of older products are out there and their addresses are associated with URLs. That means they can be found via search engines.  Even if no URL exists, there are hackers out there running search scripts for VoIP devices, which our products certainly are. Change those passwords today!

LiveShot 1.2 firmware arrives

When our LiveShot video codec shipped late last year, our entire focus was on video quality, and we'd managed to implement what we felt was a respectable first-go at a "network manager". That's the bit that makes the Internet work like it's "not the Internet". I.e. it handles the bad things about IP networks automatically and keeps things solid. With our extensive background in audio-over-Internet, we felt the stuff we'd learned over the years would be good enough for a first effort.


Well we learned quickly that moving a megabit or two over the Internet is a lot more challenging than moving a hundred kilobits.  We've been deeply sequestered most of this year hammering on that aspect of the product, and we're proud to say we're releasing new firmware that does, in our humble estimation, a fantastic job of dynamically adjusting all sorts of parameters to keep your video rock solid when your network isn't so much.

LiveShot 1.2 has a changelog that's about a mile long, but the heart of it involves a much smarter, more dynamic way of adapting the video to maintain stability. This involves better modem sharing (in applications that use a pair of modems) and dynamic adjustments to bitrate, resolution, and framerate when things go south on the network. We've spent the last couple of months taking it to a variety of ultra-congested locations and we're very happy with what we see. We think you will be too.

The question I get asked often is "When will these enhancements be coming to the audio hardware". The answer is: 2014. We're actively on that project and will have hard data around the time of the NAB show in April.

New updates coming soon!

We've been pretty quiet here this summer, and it's primarily because we're busy testing firmware for our products. Coming in September are new releases for ACCESS and BRIC-Link, STAC-VIP and LiveShot products.
ACCESS/BL- lots of bug fixes, new modem support and better compatibility with apps
STAC-VIP- Better support for PBX's, NTP locked clock, better audio processing
LiveShot- The long-awaited 1.2 release will dramatically improve performance over wireless networks, and provide the necessary hooks for some very enhanced functions coming later regarding the app control and LiveShot Central Server functions.

If you simply can't wait to try this stuff out, contact our crack support team for info on getting pre-release testing firmware.

New 4G modems on the engineering to-do list

It's always a challenge to keep our products that use third-party wireless USB modems (Like ACCESS and LiveShot) up to date with all the latest drivers. And the carriers certainly aren't making it easy--they seem to enjoy completely changing the driver structure for each new generation of USB modems they sell (and a generation lasts less than a year). Comrex codecs already support connecting to modems via ppp, DirectIP, Option protocol, custom drivers, and XML commands (not to mention a huge list of specialized drivers required for WiMAX compatibility).

Both AT&T and Sprint have changed up their USB offerings this summer. The new modems are shown below, and are currently the only 4G LTE modems offered by each carrier. AT&T calls their variant the "Beam"(340U)  and Sprint uses the model name of 341U.

And while they look the same (both are manufactured by Netgear, formerly Sierra Wireless), sure enough, each carrier has opted for a completely new, and completely different driver arrangement. And neither are simple upgrades (from a development perspective) to codec firmware.

We're on it. But it will take some time. We recommend not to upgrade to either of these modems for LiveShot or ACCESS until we can manage a firmware update for these. Keep an eye toward our website's update section for late details.

For now, we have a limited stock of previous generation LTE modems for use on the AT&T network for sale. And Mifi-style devices (compatible with the wi-fi modems that ship with our codecs) are still a good alternative for use on these networks.