5 April 2003, Las Vegas, Nevada

Telos Systems’ Zephyr Xport, the award-winning portable POTS + ISDN codec now shipping to clients worldwide, is on display this week at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas. Xport, companion to the industry-standard Zephyr Xstream ISDN Transceiver, uses new aacPlus MPEG coding to transmit FMquality audio to the studio using an analog telephone line.

Zephyr Xport also gives broadcasters added flexibility with a plug-in ISDN option. Adding ISDN compatibility to Xport makes it the perfect tool for broadcasts from nearly any location, enabling users to use any available analog or digital phone line for high-quality remotes.

Reports from Xport owners have been enthusiastic. “We just received our first Xport,” says Dale Machado, Chief Engineer at Clear Channel’s Honolulu station cluster. “I am amazed at the audio quality. We now have another Xport on the way!”

Zephyr Xport has a unique DSP-based custom modem that enables use of an ordinary analog (POTS) telephone line for transmission of high-quality mono audio to an ISDN-connected Zephyr Xstream. FM-quality audio is achieved by using the highest fidelity low-bitrate coding method on Earth: Coding Technologies’ aacPlus, which combines MPEG AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) and SBR (Spectral Band Replication), improving the efficiency of the codec by 30% over “plain” AAC, itself 30% more efficient than MPEG Layer 3.

For ISDN calls, Zephyr Xport connects using state-of-the-art Low Delay MPEG AAC (AAC-LD), which produces quality equivalent to MPEG Layer 3 with 75% less delay – perfect for high-quality two-way remote broadcasts.

The ability to use either analog or digital phone lines allows Xport owners the freedom to use any telephone connection available in the field while using the same Zephyr Xstream at the studio. Reducing the hardware needed for both POTS and ISDN remotes conserves router and console resources, cuts the total cost of remote systems for Xport users, and greatly simplifies remote operations.

Zephyr Xport contains a built-in mixer with mic and line inputs and selectable dynamics processing by Omnia, direct receive output, and a local mix of send and receive audio, available on both headphone and line level outputs. Ethernet provides remote control via LAN or WAN and enables online software updates; Xport also accepts direct PCM audio inputfrom a personal computer via its 10/100Base-T port.

Zephyr Xport is now shipping to clients worldwide. To see and hear a demonstration, visit the Telos Systems / Omnia in Booth N2618 at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas, April 5 - 10, and browse www.zephyr.com for more information.

Telos Systems, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with offices in Europe and Canada, is a leading manufacturer of ISDN, coded audio and telephone interface products for talk-shows, teleconferencing, audio production, remote broadcasts, and intercom applications.