DirectOut has expanded the capabilities of its Prodigy Series with the release of new firmware for both Prodigy.MC (Modular Audio Converter) and Prodigy.MP (Multifunction Audio Processor). Originally planned solely for Prodigy.MP, the update considerably expands the potential application scenarios of Prodigy.MC by adding FastSRC and EARS (Enhanced Automatic Redundancy Switching).
‘The lockdown had a huge impact on all of us; it has changed and will continue to change the industry,’ says DirectOut CEO/CTO, Claudio Becker-Foss. ‘Considering the circumstances, we are extremely happy that we could use this time to continue our work on the Prodigy Series in order to provide customers with this exciting update.’
FastSRC is a bidirectional, low-latency asynchronous sample-rate converter for Madi and Network I/Os that allows two digital interfaces of a device to work in different clock domains. It combines good sound quality with very low latency of less than 0.15 milliseconds, and is invaluable in live sound applications and a life-saver in critical situations.
‘Besides finalising the already large feature set of Prodigy.MP, we also added a bunch of new functions,’ Becker-Foss adds. ‘Some of them, like the Levelmeter speed configuration or the LTC-to-MTC converter, were implemented as an immediate response to the increased remote production requirements that have arisen from the Covid-19 pandemic. The new firmware makes the product unequaled on the market, and ready to face those new challenges. The quality of the FastSRCs exceeded our expectations, and we are thrilled to implement this outstanding feature into Prodigy.MC.
‘Thanks to the co-operation between DirectOut and the globcon team, we have been able to increase the usability and versatility of the DSP functions of Prodigy.MP still further by adding parallel compression and stereo link to the dynamics, and introducing new IIR EQs including All-Pass filters,’ says Luca Giaroli, Product Manager at DirectOut and at globcon. ‘The processor combined with its control software is absolutely ready for any audio challenge.’
A new version of the globcon control software is available for free download, and is required in order to manage all of the new functions brought to the Prodigy Series by the major firmware updates.
