Multiple output playlist on Mac with advertisements

[mcmadman]

Greetings.

 

I work at a theme park with a multiple zone audio system matrix handled by biamp audia products. Currently we are using a Digigram mixart 8 as the sound output for different playlists and the Digigram audio manager (with its programs schedule, announe etc) for playback on PC running Win XP. We have got multiple system crashes at the high season due to the PC hardware and we are not too keen on using the Digigram audo manager software because it just plain sucks. Scripting txt files to let the program know which outs to run and what playlists is not the way to go. Also each advertisement has to be manually inserted to the playlist scheduler and the music cannot be resumed back until a minute is full and the next event can be programmed in.

 

What we are looking for is a solution on a Mac that runs multiple playlists to multiple outputs and lets us fade out and in the music when ads are played (say every half an hour). I know of a program called MegaSeg on the Mac that can handle the ads and everything with the exception of multiple outputs. This could however be solved by running multiple copies of the program, but managing them I guess would be a pain and trying to synchronize the playback of ads in all the zones well, impossible (when we want the ads to be picked randomly by the program).. The best solution for us would be a program that can handle .m3u playlists so we wouldnt have to edit all the zones libraries again for the program. A bonus would be something that lets a user to override and fade out the music for a page at all outputs and then resume music again. However it is not necessary since we can get a paging mic that plugs directly to the biamp cobranet. I figure we could use almost any multiple output hardware on the mac and it would work with any program due to OSXs core audio.

 

TIA,

MC

[chris.ashworth]

What we are looking for is a solution on a Mac that runs multiple playlists to multiple outputs and lets us fade out and in the music when ads are played (say every half an hour). [...] The best solution for us would be a program that can handle .m3u playlists so we wouldnt have to edit all the zones libraries again for the program. A bonus would be something that lets a user to override and fade out the music for a page at all outputs and then resume music again.

 

Hi MC,

 

I'm the developer working on a piece of software that you may find useful for this task:

 

http://figure53.com/qlab/

 

I'll try to avoid being "markety" here, but just to summarize the functionality that is relevant to your needs:

 

- You can create arbitrary numbers of playlists.

- The audio in the playlists can be routed to as many as 8 separate audio devices.

- You can have a single fade-down and fade-up on an entire playlist

- You can trigger audio based on a "wall clock", so you could have ads played at particular times of day, i.e. do a fade-down on music, play the ad, do a fade-up at certain times of day

- Or you can do the same thing just at a certain interval, i.e. make an hour pause between ads, and loop it as such

- You could set up user-controlled commands to do a fade-down/fade-up on everything if it needed to be done manually at unexpected times

- other stuff too

 

If this seems helpful, or if you have questions about it, please feel free to write. (Email address is on the site.)

 

Cheers,

Christopher

Figure 53

[dbuckley]

Theme park multi channel audio playback, that sounds like the audiobox.

 

This is not the first query in the BR from theme park folk who seem determined to do things contrary to the way that theme parks work, why is this...?

[chris.ashworth]

Theme park multi channel audio playback, that sounds like the audiobox.

 

Heh. :P

 

Charlie was the one who actually pointed this thread out to me. The new product that is intended to replace the Audiobox is PC-based software called SoundMan Server. If you're looking for something in that flavor, I'm working to support SoundMan-Server with a set of control plugins that will allow QLab to be a controller for SM-S.

 

Of course, hopefully there will be many third-party options to control SM-S, so you wouldn't have to go with QLab for that. Granted, though, this would put you back on PC hardware, which the original poster was looking to avoid.

 

Anyway, whatever tool is best for the job. SM-S, Audiobox, QLab, or something else. I just wanted to drop a note to say that if you're looking for something that will run on a Mac, drop on by and check it out.

 

Cheers,

Chris

[mackerr]

FWIW John Leonard of Aura is a fan of QLab. In addition to audio it can do video as well. It is very easy to get around on.

 

Mac

[mcmadman]

Theme park multi channel audio playback, that sounds like the audiobox.

 

This is not the first query in the BR from theme park folk who seem determined to do things contrary to the way that theme parks work, why is this...?

 

How do you suppose theme parks work then? I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding where you are coming from with that. By having a quick look at the audiobox it seems like it is an audio matrix with hard disk playback capability etc. The soundman server system looks like a yet another "improved" version of this but requires licencing for more options. Proprietary systems are just what im trying to avoid. Besides I only need a software on a mac capable of the things explained before.

[dbuckley]

Theme parks equipment has two core requirements; safety and reliability, almost everything else is secondary to those needs. There are a number of companies who make equipment specifically gerared for that market segment, to satisfy those requirements. People who live in stageville generally will have at best a passing familiarity with these manufacturers, and most will never have heard of any of them.

 

You're in a theme park and have a non-trivial requirement to play audio with activities occuring at the right times. Looked at through that set of filters, the audiobox is an audio playback device with an integrated show controller and multiple output routing options, designed by and for theme park people. How much better a fit do you get than that?

 

Having said that, PC based systems are also widely used, but they don't crash, one wonders what is up with your system causing it to be unreliable?

 

There is a segment of the entertainment business that is big on Macs, but theme parks are not such a place. Macs are mostly used by creative people, and unsexy stuff like production running day in day out is pretty much the PC territory.