LAS VEGAS, NV (BOOTH #N7724 & #SU2321) / CLEVELAND, OH – 13 April 2017
The Telos Alliance®—innovator in broadcast radio and TV technology and parent company to Telos®, Omnia®, Axia®, 25-Seven®, Linear Acoustic®, and Minnetonka™—announced today that it will be celebrating Omnia's 20th anniversary at NAB 2017, April 22–27, Las Vegas Convention Center, Telos Alliance Radio Booth #N7724.
From napkin sketch to tradeshow premiere, the journey to the launch of the very first Omnia product—the Omnia.fm broadcast audio processor—took nearly a decade of research and innovation. Omnia.fm was launched in the spring of 1997 at the AES Convention in Munich. A few weeks later, the product debuted at NAB 1997, where it won both the Radio World Cool Stuff Award and the BE Radio Pick Hit Award. Now, the Omnia brand gets to mark yet another momentous milestone at the NAB Expo: Its 20th anniversary.
What would become known as the Omnia sound, however, originated a decade earlier in the 1980s, when Omnia founder and current Telos Alliance CEO Frank Foti created a customized audio processing chain while working at Z-100 that became legendary, sought after by broadcasters all over the world. About the same time, over at WMMS, Steve Church, founder of Telos Systems, was mastering the art of a technology new to broadcast—digital signal processing (DSP)—as he developed the Telos 10 telephone hybrid. Both went on to follow their ambitions in the technological world: Steve founding Telos Systems in 1985, Frank launching Cutting Edge Technologies (which would become Omnia) in 1988. Shortly thereafter, the two entrepreneurs joined forces. Steve and Frank decided to focus their energies on applying DSP technology to audio processing, ultimately leading to the launch of the Omnia.fm.
Since the introduction of that revolutionary FM audio processor, Omnia has evolved into a family of cutting-edge devices for the processing needs of FM, AM, and streaming audio. But Frank Foti and Team Omnia are not ones to rest on their laurels. Aside from being the first to design and offer alias-free processing, Omnia has also led the charge with: software-based processing; single sideband suppressed carrier for FM stereo; embedded pilot yielding 1dB of added (and legal) loudness; digital MPX connectivity via AES; µMPX high-quality MPX over a 320kbps IP connection; the first broadcast processor with a 48KHz audio sampling rate; updated algorithm methods that reduce harmonic and intermodulation distortion to extremely low audibility; and the list goes on.
"Innovate. Disrupt. Repeat. This is the mantra that guides Omnia, which, after breaking new ground all those years ago, continues to push the bar. While our technological heritage is part of everything we do, we always have an eye to the future," says Frank Foti, CEO of Telos Alliance and Founder of Omnia Audio. "And where processing resides is part of that future. We’re on the threshold of cloud-based processing, and this is something Omnia is pioneering. I can soon see the day where an unprocessed signal will leave a content playout system, venture out into the ether, and along the way, audio processing will be applied ‘auto-magically.’"
Please read the full story on the legacy and future of Omnia, and visit Telos Alliance Radio NAB booth #N7724 to celebrate this milestone.
Press contact: Krissy.Rushing@TelosAlliance.
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About The Telos Alliance®
For three decades, the brands of the Telos Alliance have revolutionized radio and television by pioneering disruptive, cutting-edge audio technology with the goal of helping global networks and local stations produce better programming, improve audience engagement, and bolster ratings. The Telos Alliance is made up of six brands—Telos® Systems, Omnia® Audio, Axia® Audio, Linear Acoustic®, 25-Seven® Systems, and Minnetonka™ Audio—that raise the bar for quality and innovation in the radio and television industries. The Telos Alliance invented Audio over IP for broadcast and contributed time and resources to the effort that led to the AES67 standard. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, with additional offices and dealers around the world, the Telos Alliance offers an industry-leading warranty and backs users' critical on-air needs with worldwide 24/7 round-the-clock support for all customers. A complete list of dealers can be found at TelosAlliance.com/Dealers.