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The GRINS box is a plug-n-play server to run a community radio station. It enables radio station operators to schedule broadcasts, preview programs, make and receive phone calls, record live transmissions, and maintain an extensive semantically searchable library, all through a single user-interface. GRINS has been designed specifically for community radio stations in remote and rural areas, to keep costs low, provide extremely robust functioning, and enable rich features for greater community interaction. Existing or new radio stations only need to order a GRINS box, plug it into their mixer and sound system, connect the cables, and just switch it ON to enjoy an altogether new generation of radio!
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GRINS box
Screenshots
Uniqueness
Comparison
Get it!
Datasheets
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Screenshots
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Uniqueness: Some of the key features of GRINS that distinguish it from other radio broadcast platforms are as follows:
- Single management console: Radio stations have many moving parts, especially if rich features such as phone calls and conferencing have to be supported. GRINS simplifies the management and running of the radio station by providing a single console to archive conversations, schedule programs, receive phone calls, and search and manage content. This sets GRINS apart from any other commercial or open-source broadcast system available so far.
- Commodity hardware: GRINS does most processing in software to eliminate the need of buying expensive audio hardware, and yet imposes very low processing overhead on the system. For this reason, GRINS can be run off commodity PCs and single board computers, significantly reducing the costs of setting up community radio stations.
- Service oriented design: All functionality provided by GRINS is handled by different services, such as the Audio Service for playout, Archiver Service for recording, Library Service for storage, etc. Each of these services can be run either on a single machine, or off multiple machines. This makes the deployment of GRINS extremely flexible to be able to fit into any kind of a radio station setup.
- Application development platform: The open API of GRINS allows third party developers to build their own radio applications using the various underlying services that GRINS provides. For example, you can build specific applications for the broadcast of educational programs or health programs, that allow quick search and playback features for the respective topics. In the future, once GRINS begins to support the video and Internet planes, these applications can even be multiplanar in nature.
- Easy to use UI: The GRINS user interface has been especially designed keeping in mind the target population of rural areas in India and other developing countries. The use of large icons and simple navigation makes GRINS easy to use even for radio operators who are new to computerized systems.
- Diagnostics: A key feature of GRINS, the system can actually detect any network faults or audio cable errors or poor audio quality through Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and guide the operators on how to fix the problem locally. This reduces the down-time of the system so that radio stations located in remote rural areas do not have to wait for a technician to visit them and fix small problems.
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GRINS box
Screenshots
Uniqueness
Comparison
Get it!
Datasheets
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Comparison: Below is a feature-list comparison of GRINS with a few other radio automation systems. Keep in mind though that GRINS is not just a piece of software, but a philosophy of enabling a radio station to run through a single box under the supervision of a single person. Most commercial systems assume multi-console setups under the supervision of multiple people to run the radio station. Community radio stations in rural areas of India and other countries cannot afford such largescale systems.
v2 released expected in June 2010, v3 in Oct 2010
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Get it!
There are a number of ways in which you can use GRINS, mostly depending upon your existing setup. If you are:
- Already running a radio station and use a Windows or Linux machine for playout: Get a pre-installed GRINS box for a 2-machine setup. No changes need to be made in your existing setup, the box will simply connect to your computer over the LAN, and the GRINS console will run on your computer.
- Are starting a new radio station and can afford an additional computer: Get a pre-installed GRINS box and use it in a 1-machine setup. The console will run through the GRINS box, and you can use your other computer for audio editing and offline tasks.
- Are starting a new radio station and cannot afford an additional computer: Same as above, get a pre-installed GRINS box and use it in a 1-machine setup. But do not use the GRINS box for any other activity while playing live.
A pre-installed GRINS box with an analog-telephony-adapter, caller-id converter, GSM modem, a 250GB HDD, and a WiFi card, along with the necessary cables and switches will cost approximately USD 1000. An additional 1TB backup box which maintains a live backup of all your data (hghly recommended) will cost USD 500. You may also want to purchase a backup GRINS box, just in case something fails and you do not want to take your radio station off the air during the repair period. Note that the prices quoted here are bare minimum prices just for the hardware! The software itself is free, as explained below.
To place an order, just write to us: 
An alternative is that you buy all the hardware on your own, and download and install our software. But you need to be reasonably tech savvy to do it on your own. You must first go through the configuration wizard to understand how GRINS can be plugged into your radio station setup. And then follow the detailed installation and configuration instructions to setup GRINS.
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GRINS box
Screenshots
Uniqueness
Comparison
Get it!
Datasheets
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Datasheets
User manual
Experience report [pdf]
System architecture and development guide
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