Blackfire Research
How Blackfire’s Real-Time Packet Management Keeps Your Music Together

How Blackfire’s Real-Time Packet Management Keeps Your Music Together

The Tech
FireCat
Share

Back in November, we took an in-depth look at Traffic Independent Synchronization (TIS), a Blackfire Research technology which allows precise syncing of your wireless speakers. Today, we’re going to look at another Blackfire technology: Real-Time Packet Management (RPM) for streaming music to your speakers without excessive buffering.

 

We’ve all been there: you finally find that perfect song only to click on it and have the “spinning pinwheel of death” appear. Or worse still, trying to watch TV with wireless speakers that play several seconds out of sync – like a bad art-house dubbed foreign movie. Those are the effects of buffering.

 

Some wireless audio systems are so susceptible to signal interference that they compensate by pre-loading (or buffering) the signal data before they start to playback. Without buffering on these systems you’d hear sporadic gaps in the audio (called drop outs) due to the lost audio data. So how much data is needed to buffer in order to prevent gaps or drop-outs?

 

Today’s most popular wireless speakers use conventional WiFi protocols which have to queue the data. When you select a playlist from your smartphone or tablet, it takes several seconds for the first song to fill the buffer before it begins to play. While the first song plays, the system is already buffering the next song to minimize gaps. This is fine until, of course, you change the queue (say, by hitting “play next”) before it can re-buffer. In which case, hello spinning pinwheel.  Additionally, because of the delayed playback, you won’t be able to use these popular wireless speakers as a soundbar with your TV without a wire (i.e. an optical cable connection).

 

Real-Time Packet Management (RPM) is the Blackfire solution to buffering: RPM uses a special multipoint, real-time feedback signal from each speaker to monitor the effects of noise on the audio data stream. This allows a much shorter queue and much less buffering.

 

Hear the difference for yourself! RPM is embedded into all Blackfire enabled products, including The Harman/Kardon Omni Series and Pioneer MRX Series. Next week, we’ll look at Dynamic Stream Balancing (DSB) and how it works with TIS and RPM to create FCP: Firecast Protocol – Blackfire’s solution to conventional wifi protocols.

Leave a comment
Music Review: Sampha Sisay, “Process”

Music Review: Sampha Sisay, “Process”

Featured Music Friday
FireCat
Share

Very rarely is a debut album as powerful as “Process.” For the soft-spoken, English born Sampha Sisay, who was introduced to the piano at the age of three, music creates for him a means of self-expression. For Sampha, whose wavering voice commands sober sovereignty in “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano” a masterfully stripped down ballad about finding one’s voice and coping with grief through the comfort of music, tragedy strikes at every turn. Both of his parents were taken by cancer, and their absence fills the lyrics and quiet spaces of the album. Sampha too, was faced with his own mortality when he suffered a cancer scare not too long ago, discovering a lump in his throat, which he chronicles in “Plastic 100°C.” Previously, Sampha had lent his talent to big name artists, like Drake, Kanye, Solange and Frank Ocean, but with his debut album, Sampha begins anew. The album’s title can be seen as shorthand for “the grieving process,” or can refer to Sampha’s ongoing journey of self discovery. Either way, we’ll be right there with him.

 

 

Leave a comment
Throwback Thursday: Peter, Paul & Mary Release “Puff The Magic Dragon”

Throwback Thursday: Peter, Paul & Mary Release “Puff The Magic Dragon”

This Day in Music History
FireCat
Share

On this day in 1963, American folk group, Peter, Paul and Mary, released their beloved single, “Puff The Magic Dragon.” The lyrics of the song were written by Leonard Lipton, a friend of Peter’s at Cornell University, back in 1959 while they were in school. “Puff” recounts the story of a little boy, Jackie Paper, and his imaginary dragon friend, Puff, who go on adventures together during Jackie’s childhood. But eventually, Jackie grows up, leaving Puff to retreat back into his cave, awaiting his next child companion. The song was an instant success, reaching number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming another standard in a broad series of Peter, Paul and Mary folk hits that dominated the 1960s. However, as early as 1964, speculation over the song’s true meaning arose, leading many to believe that the seemingly innocent lyrics about childhood and growing up actually serve as a veiled metaphor for smoking marijuana. The group, as well as the lyricist Lipton, have since vehemently denied the allegations. But the song, to this day, remains heavily associated with drug culture.

Leave a comment
Let’s Go Crazy – Prince is now on Spotify

Let’s Go Crazy – Prince is now on Spotify

For Your Entertainment
FireCat
Share

In the wake of the sudden passing of Prince last year, there has been an overwhelming demand for the legendary music icon’s body of work to be made available on music streaming services. As of February 12, many fans got their wish. Warner Bros, who owns the rights to much of the late musician’s work, including renowned albums 1999, Purple Rain, and Dirty Mind, has reached an agreement with Prince’s estate to allow all his music (released prior to his 1996 split with Warner Bros) to be made available on music streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and Pandora. The February 12 release date coincided with the Grammy Awards, which honored Prince with a tribute performance by The Time and Bruno Mars.

Warner Bros has also announced that, on June 9th, they will release a remastered version of Purple Rain, as well as two previously unreleased Prince albums and two concert films from Prince’s personal vault at his Paisley Park recording complex.

Prince did once have his music available for streaming on some digital platforms, but, with the exception of Jay Z’s Tidal (which gives artists a larger share of profits) took his music down in 2015. An advocate for artist rights, Prince split with his long-time record label, Warner Bros, in 1996 because, as a prolific songwriter, Prince wanted to release new music as soon as it was ready, but Warner Bros refused his request. This dispute and eventual split was what prompted the singer’s infamous name change to the un-pronounceable emblem combining the astrologically inspired Mars-male and Venus-female symbols. In a press release at that time, Prince wrote: “Warner Bros took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music I wrote…The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros.”

Once the Warner Bros contract expired in the year 2000, Prince went back to using his name, creating his own record label and innovating new ways for fans to access his work, becoming one of the first artists to sell their albums online.

Listen to Prince on Spotify here.

Leave a comment