Audio: Surviving the Wild West of WAN

Recorded at NAB Show 2026

How broadcasters are delivering reliable audio across complex IP networks

As IP-based media workflows become more unified across local and wide-area networks, audio remains one of the most challenging domains to fully standardize and interoperate. This session explores the realities of transporting professional audio across wide-area connectivity in live production environments, where packet loss, jitter, timing differences, and security constraints create persistent engineering challenges. Industry experts discuss current approaches, while examining why no single interoperable model yet fully satisfies global production needs. The conversation also highlights emerging requirements for adaptive clock recovery, resilience, and scalable audio channel transport across distributed production systems.

What you’ll learn

• How wide-area network conditions such as jitter, packet loss, and delay variation impact live production audio workflows
• Why existing audio transport methods behave differently across unmanaged and managed networks
• How adaptive clock recovery and timing correction are used to maintain audio integrity across distributed production environments
• Where current interoperability gaps exist in transporting multi-channel audio at scale across IP-based live production workflows