Snell Advanced Media (SAM) and Digital Alert Systems (DAS), a division of Monroe Electronics, have formed a new technology partnership. Through this partnership, DAS and SAM have tightly integrated the DASDEC Emergency Alert Systems (EAS) messaging platform with SAM's ICE family of channel-in-a-box automated playout solutions to enable a simpler yet more sophisticated approach to EAS messaging. The integration will be on display at NAB 2016.

Designed to increase efficiency while reducing complexity, ICE channel-in-a-box solutions include an extensive toolset to manage playout operations, including single-channel, multichannel, multiregion, and multiplatform environments. The EAS-Net protocol from DAS simplifies the integration and installation of DASDEC and ICE systems, allowing use of a "one-wire" interface across a network connection that enables the channel-in-a-box system to handle both playout and EAS alerting. In the United States and a growing number of other countries, this integration supports broadcasters in inserting the emergency alerting information they must provide by government regulation.

"Using an IP-centric EAS interface to connect our ICE solutions with the DASDEC system, we help our customers to bring critical EAS tasks into a more intuitive and streamlined playout workflow," said Karl Mehring, director of playout and delivery at SAM. "This approach saves our customers time while reducing their overall equipment and energy costs."

The DASDEC-II from DAS is the latest generation of emergency messaging technology. In addition to providing integrated receivers, advanced hardware interfaces, simple software upgrades, and network-based design, the system supports common information exchange protocols and offers the industry's broadest range of physical connections and third-party interfaces.