mairlist GmbH Announces Formation of BroadcastThings

Dortmund, Germany, September 21st, 2021 – mairlist GmbH announces the formation of BroadcastThings (www.broadcastthings.com), a new subsidiary company which will focus on the development of broadcast systems integration software.

BroadcastThings is led by mairlist GmbH founder and managing director Dr Torben Weibert. Its primary product, BroadcastThings Connect, supports a large number of control protocols from broadcast equipment vendors such as DHD Audio, Lawo, Axia, D&R, Prodys, Velleman and Elgato, plus a wide range of virtual connection standards. Support for Wheatstone and Tieline is planned for release mid Q4. Support for Lawo SAS is planned to follow shortly after.

“Software interfacing and digital interlinking have long been core elements of the media systems integration business,” Torben Weibert comments. “BroadcastThings Connect was originally developed for use with DHD Audio Series 52 sound mixers. We have since expanded it into a multi-protocol converter and monitoring tool which lets broadcasters, system integrators or administrators create rules that translate parameters between multiple device types. For example, it can be configured so that an incoming telephone call to a Prodys codec sends the caller’s number to a DHD Audio global label via REST or Ember+ for display on a DHD mixer’s TFT control screen. It is very easy to use and allows operators to create their own Internet of Broadcast Things.”

BroadcastThings Connect incorporates an MQTT adapter which translates device parameters such as logic data to MQTT messages and vice versa. Examples of its capabilities are:

  • Using Node-RED to design complex control systems and high-efficiency control dashboards.
  • Building hardware devices such as cough-mute buttons or red light indicators with MQTT-enabled microcontrollers.
  • Connecting broadcast equipment from multiple sites to each other via MQTT as a transport layer, either with self-hosted MQTT brokers or using a commercial MQTT cloud service such as AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub or Google Cloud IoT.

“With the ever-growing list of MQTT enabled devices and applications, BroadcastThings Connect elevates the integration of broadcast devices into your IT environment to an entirely new level of efficiency and versatility,” Dr Weibert adds.

BroadcastThings Connect currently supports the following devices and protocols: DHD ECP including all Series 52 devices as well as the RM4200D with a TCP/IP-enabled core, DHD REST API (52-8577), DHD RM2200D, Ember+ Consumer, Livewire Routing Protocol, D&R Airlite and Webstation, MIDI input and output, MQTT, Prodys ProntoNet and IkusNet. It also offers the following outbound protocols: DHD ECP server, Ember+ Provider, HTTP notifications via outbound webhooks, MQTT Bridge, SMTP-based email notifications, REST API with WebSocket support and XML.

About mairlist GmbH

Torben Weibert established mairlist GmbH (www.mairlist.com) in 2011 after graduating with a PhD in Computer Science from the TU Dortmund University. The company’s customers include radio stations, fully automated web channels and independent audio producers. mairlist GmbH products include mAirList Radio Automation, mAirList for MusicMaster, the mAirList Audio Logger and EmberBridge.