several months back when i first got zara radio for my automation i found out a couple of useful remote keys that you can use the keyboard to activate remotely a song, like s is to stop the music, p is to play the music. n for next song on playlist, and a couple of things too,
in addition if theres any body using station playlist, can you give your opinion on the software, both playlist and zara radio
grately appreciate it.
I have not tried Zara, though
I have not tried Zara, though I have it, it is not installed because my stations are currently using SAM and Maestro.
But I have read a lot of great reviews about Zara. I may use Zara for my Long Wave automation…that is if it will easily read and interpret a SAM generated playlist…which it should if Zara can read standard M3U lists.
RFB
That Brings Up
That brings up the question of whether KDX radio.com should stay with Winamp or perhaps go with SAM or maybe Zara.
I consider myself smart, but I am unable to figure out the advantages or disadvantages of these various programs for programming a radio station.
He kneels down.
He prays.
“Please help me.”
He makes a sandwich.
That Brings Up
That brings up the question of whether KDX radio.com should stay with Winamp or perhaps go with SAM or maybe Zara.
I consider myself smart, but I am unable to figure out the advantages or disadvantages of these various programs for programming a radio station.
He kneels down.
He prays.
“Please help me.”
He makes a sandwich.
Advantages
The Main advantage Zara/Station Playlist is the ability to automatically trigger local events at specific times.
Such as the start of a program, station IDs, commercials, even entire playlists.
As far as I know, Winamp and sam lack these features without scripting of some kind or a plugin.
Nope
“As far as I know, Winamp and sam lack these features without scripting of some kind or a plugin.”
Actually SAM can trigger local events through the PAL script. The problem is lack of external triggering. SAM 5 is supposed to support both serial and USB port triggering for external trigger sources such as from a satellite feed with netcue.
In its current state, SAM needs to be told when to trigger via the PAL script.
I work around this by simply creating a playlist within SAM so that everything within the playlist times out correctly through a 48 hour period. The event scheduler then loads the next two days playlist, which is also created to follow the clock.
Since SAM cannot trigger externally nor can it accurately follow the real time clock because the players are not in sync with the real time clock, slight timing issues arise but this can also be overcome through the PAL script.
The main problem in SAM is the need for that PAL script and lack of external trigger porting. Other than that, it is quite reliable.
For those sure fire trigger times, I use the Maestro system which is so accurate with the real time clock it is kin to having someone sitting in the studio manually hitting the ID cart or other source. But the SAM is used 90 percent of the time in my stations daily operations. I switch over to the Maestro for joining live programs and returning to local programs.
RFB
Scheduled Event
I am in New Zealand and using zararadio. I am currently playing my station ID every 1 hour, but would like to change it to every 2 or 3 hours and Im not sure how to do this.
Can any one help here.
Other Hours…
If you have the ID running as a scheduled file or playlist, you can simply set “other hours” found under “Periodcity” for the hours you want the ID to play rather than “Play every hour”.
The minutes portion of the scheduled time set by the start time under “Date and Time” would apply to all hours selected.
Otherwise, you would have to have multiple schedules if you want the ID to come up at other odd times.
One Vs The Other
There are advantages to using an automation program versus a player running a playlist.
A standard player such as winamp running a simple playlist does just that and that only. Plays the playlist. With the
dsp plug ins it can also encode to a server.
An automation program such as SAM can do those two things along with a lot more useful things. SAM can generate html or php web pages from base template files within SAM. These pages can contain program information, time to air, durations, image logos, and upcoming programs.
For an example of this, visit my station’s website at http://krocksradioone.com and note at the top of the page right below the ad banner. There are two boxes, the one on the left shows the current program on air, and the one on the right displays 3 of the upcoming programs to air.
On each side of the page, about half way down is a “mini” version of the program title and image logo. This mini version is spooled from the big version generated by SAM, which can be seen by clicking on the menu item “Now Playing”, which the menu is on the left side of the website.
SAM uses a database for all its information. Most use the MySQL program, which works best.
SAM can trigger local events through what is known as a PAL script. It simply tells SAM to change program content at a specific time set within the PAL script. Although there are better ways to do this, the PAL script is not easy to work with and does require a little bit of coding knowledge.
SAM can also generate a program schedule in real time. That is, once a playlist is loaded, it generates a page containing everything in the playlist. If you decide to change something in the playlist, upon the next program that airs, it updates the program schedule!
It does all this without having to use a web page editor or fumble with different page files to upload to your site. SAM has within its setups a section to fill in your web site’s log in information and destination folder location for these generated pages.
The template files are easy to modify and customize. You can even create your own template files for SAM to use and generate custom page files for your site.
With a little extra effort and external html or php code, you can have SAM send twitter and facebook postings of your station’s programming. My webmaster discovered several ways to make this process incredibly easy and without having to resort to the painful and time consuming PAL scripting. In fact there is nothing special needed from the SAM program to do twitter and facebook postings.
SAM uses 2 decks for playback via automation and 2 aux decks in manual mode. Playlists can be created from within SAM or external, and loaded into their own unique catagory. Soon you will have a nice big inventory of program material all organized for easy access. SAM also has real time statistic displays and generates a log of what aired and when it aired. Useful for traffic purposes and invoicing.
SAM also creates a history log and event log, both in real time which allows you to keep tabs on whats happening with SAM itself, as well as “yptouch” stats and network condition stats.
Then there are the “bells and whistles” features such as sound effect insertion, line or mic insertion, an audio chain where dsp plug ins such as processors can be selected and set up.
SAM has built in stream encoders which can encode in different audio formats such as mp3, AAC+, OGG, WMA and mp3Pro, and encode in all of the different formats at the same time.
There are a bunch of other features that are a bit more complex but with these features mentioned above, clearly an automation program like SAM has many advantages over a simple player running a playlist.
RFB