DSA Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Hi, I have been in discussion with the Technical Manager of the University's Radio station who has a query, which I would like some advice on please. The statin subscribes to a news feed which provides news on the hour every hour for exactly 3 minutes. In between it plays a sort of 'audible standby ident'. Currently the presenter has to watch the clock, play the stations news ident 12s before the hour (via winamp on a PC) and then fade up the feed on the desk a few seconds before the hour. There are a few problems with this - the presenters are really bad at timing this right, and usually the news is either cut in a few seconds after it has started or is faded up early. (The root cause of this is a dodgy radio clock - but that is being sorted). At night the station is left unmanned with winamp playing a looped playlist. Clearly the news does not play whilst the station is unmanned. It would be nice to integrate the news feed into an automatic system 24hrs a day in which the PC automatically plays the news ident and switches to the news feed at the correct time. There would ideally also be some sort of feedback to the presenter as to how long is left until the auto switch. I am assuming that some software on the PC could enable this, but I am stumped when it comes to finding it! Alternatively can winamp itself do this? There may be other ways of doing this...I am asking for suggestions! Thanks in advance,David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.henderson Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 This may sound really stupid to all you programmers out there but could you make a program that was just a constant live feed then you could use windows 'scheduled tasks' or another type program (off the net) to trigger the program at every desired time. Sam (Who hasnt the fainest clue about programming- computers that is not lx boards!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSA Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 Sam that is a good idea which I had not thought of - however my first thought is how can one regulate the speed of the program opening on the PC etc.?? It is surely unlikely to be constant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomLyall Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Please whatever you do, dont use windows to 'schedule tasks' to automate this! Is the news feed over the internet? Is there a 'start' signal that a program could pick up on as apposed to using a clock and hoping that its in time, preferably with an advance warning. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSA Posted October 27, 2004 Author Share Posted October 27, 2004 No the news comes in via a satellite dish on the roof - it is then decoded using a standard SAT box and then appears at the desk by means of a line input. I believe the feed does transmit a start signal - see Here for more info (Hotbird 4). The station does NOT have a demux box I must add so probably a lot of what is there is irrelevant. I am thinking more like send it to PC instead of desk to regulate a switch on the hour - but it doesn't half sound like the task manager idea is not worth bothering with! David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_R Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 To make sure the computer reads the right time, if your on Windows, you could use the clocks internet time > Synchronize function. (Double click on the clock and go to internet time)Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronHorn Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 No the news comes in via a satellite dish on the roof - it is then decoded using a standard SAT box and then appears at the desk by means of a line input. I believe the feed does transmit a start signal - see Here for more info (Hotbird 4). The station does NOT have a demux box I must add so probably a lot of what is there is irrelevant. I am thinking more like send it to PC instead of desk to regulate a switch on the hour - but it doesn't half sound like the task manager idea is not worth bothering with! David <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So what you really need is some sort of program which can fade up the line in while fading down the PCM (wav) volume. I know you are not streaming but there is a program for winamp web streaming (Nullsoft's plugin I think) which will do this when you press a button.... There are also programs which will click a mouse button automatically, infact there are programs which can perform whole macros. I daren't say some of these (the good £££ ones) have built in scheduling. Depending on how handy with programming you are, you may be able to knock something up which can change windows volume settings (presumably a registry setting or a hardware register) and then call it using a decent scheduler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted October 27, 2004 Share Posted October 27, 2004 Assuming you don't want to pay thousands for a full automation system, This Link may be of use to you. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanG Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 Forget doing this with local timing, unless you have a accurate clock and aren't interested in any off the hour IRN programming. (breaking news etc) The way to do this is with a DTMF decoder which will trigger a GPI. This can then be used to switch a relay to air, in it's crudest form, or fire a MD and open a fader if you have hot start facilities and a desk with GPI ins. Or it can be used to drive a computer playout system to do it all for you. (The simplest way is to have the first GPI fire the jingle and the second un-mute the sat output to an already open channel) You don't need to buy the official dmux - you can make one yourself. Ask on mediauk.com or studentradio.org.uk - it's a much more appropriate forum than here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 Myriad is software by Psquared (Hull I think) will handle all this. Programmimg, jingles and news. It will run totally auto for days intellegently sorting music according to time of day day of week etc. To get any auto to work you MUST sync the PC clock. in the UK MSF Rugby is the official time standard, next best is the GPS satellite time signal. There used to be a software out of Norwich Hospital Radio that did everything, in a windows environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilf dLampy Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 The guys and gals at the University of Surrey Radio Station have some kind of automated "doohickey" (I'm not sure thats the technical term) and may be able to offer further advice- they can be contacted through This Webpage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 SBES.comis the trade show for all things Sound Broadcast Equipment Show November each year Psquared.net Make pro software for almost every radio use -- Highly Regarded Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickb12345 Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 From what I can see the best way would be to do it with a little circuitry and bypass the computer (still use it for the playlist etc) You need to take the feed from the IRN Broadcast Start (and the breaking news alarm if you want) relay on the Demux Unit (either buy the IRN one or another). You then need a basic circuit which when this is activated will fade the audio feed, un-mute the jingle (which could be on a MD with some sort of trigger), after x seconds (jingle length) it mutes that and un-mutes the sat signal. Once it recieves the end signal it will do the oppposite. Im sure there will be some diags for such device on the net somwhere, if not make one up, or get someone else to. I till take a look and see what I can come up with if you want (PM Me). With the Breaking news signal you would want the system to play an anouncement stating there is breaking news, then cut to the feed! Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickb12345 Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 You would also need to include a feature so that when the alarms are tested at 10:30 on tuesday the system is not activated! Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patesgeoffrey Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Speaking from a programmers point off view, what you suggest woudn't be to hard, as long as you could get the times accurate and you put the line in fro mthe dish into the computer. An api call could be used to fade up the line in on sndvol.ex (what you see when you click the speaker icon in the system tray) and then fade it down again an exact time later. With a bit of research I can probably find a way to manipulate winamp to fade that down at the same time as well. PM or get a message to me if you want me to have a go at it in time for oklahoma. Richard and Geoff This would only work if all the signals from the radio station and from the music went throught the pc before they went the the sound desk. I couldnt quite make out your first post, does the presenter have to play the ident that is totally separate from the news feed, or is it just so he can tell when the news feed (which also comes through the pc) is about to start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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