Adverts jumping in and playing over the top of me

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

It's Sunday and I'm here in the studio presenting a "Live and Local" program for 8 hours.

Here is our standard procedure:

1. Our live studio uses a hardware mixer with inputs from microphones and RB - and the output is fed to the transmitter

2. I am using a pre-prepared playlist with music only

3. Adverts and news is inserted automatically by the scheduler

4. The only play buttons I am using are:
a) The "Stop after this track" and the option for "One track only"
b) The "Play" button

5. The scheduler automatically inserts content as follows:
a) The news on the hour
b) Advert block at hh:15
c) Advert block at hh:30
d) Advert block at hh:45


I was on air giving an announcement between songs and had just about completed the announcement when the scheduler inserted the advert block at hh:15 and it played over the top of me.

If the playlist is stopped (and it was by the previous selection of "Stop after this track" and the option "One track only") then my guess is that the adverts should be inserted BUT not played until the "Play" button is operated.

True or False ?

I was sure this problem had been identified and fixed before.

We are getting very close now


Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

I was on air giving an announcement between songs and had just about completed the announcement when the scheduler inserted the advert block at hh:15 and it played over the top of me.

If the playlist is stopped (and it was by the previous selection of "Stop after this track" and the option "One track only") then my guess is that the adverts should be inserted BUT not played until the "Play" button is operated.

True or False ?

I was sure this problem had been identified and fixed before.

It's true that the problem was identified and "fixed" before - "Manual" mode was added for the scheduler

There's no solution which will suit everyone... If the scheduler won't start events (as it should), people will report "bugs" - "scheduler doesn't play events!". "Stop after this track"'s purpose is to prevent playlist auto-advance, it's not supposed to control scheduler.

Maybe we should introduce another option for the "Stop after this track": something like "Do not play scheduled events, only insert".

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Happy Birthday

So ticking the manual button will fix this ?  I think I forgot about what the manual tickbox actually does.  I will look at that on Sunday when I'm on air again.  If the manual button fixes it then it is a good solution.  Live presenters are spooked when things happen like this "playing over the top of me" type of stuff.


Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

Thanks!

When Manual is turned on, scheduler won't start any events (but it upcoming events will flash in the list and appear in the "coming up next" box) - presenters have to manually start events if they want using Run Now button.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Ah, okay on the manual button.  None of our presenters are capable of following that procedure - it's just too difficult for the average human to be able to do reliably without making a mistake in a busy studio environment.

We have 50 scheduled events loaded into our scheduler and none of our presenters would be capable of finding the correct one to start manually.  It even takes me a few minutes scanning up and down the scheduler window to find the correct item to run - and I know more about RB than all of the presenters.  The scheduler screen view is far too small to interpret and understand when you are busy in the studio.

The breakfast presenter is an experienced radio guy and has worked in the industry all of his life.  His solution to all of this is to turn off the scheduler when he starts the breakfast show and insert the adverts and news bulletins manually.  And as a result of doing it manually he puts the wrong adverts to air and creates more work for himself than you would think possible.

As we regularly say - "RadioBOSS works perfectly at Radio Dungog when there is no-one in the studio" - and unfortunately that's the truth.


Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

Ah, okay on the manual button.  None of our presenters are capable of following that procedure - it's just too difficult for the average human to be able to do reliably without making a mistake in a busy studio environment.

We have 50 scheduled events loaded into our scheduler and none of our presenters would be capable of finding the correct one to start manually. 

The event which is about to start will flash in the list, so it's possible to locate it. But I agree that Manual feature should be improved. Eg. show a list of events which are supposed to be started. Let me know what you think about it.

The breakfast presenter is an experienced radio guy and has worked in the industry all of his life.  His solution to all of this is to turn off the scheduler when he starts the breakfast show and insert the adverts and news bulletins manually.  And as a result of doing it manually he puts the wrong adverts to air and creates more work for himself than you would think possible.

His solution is very close to what Manual feature does In Manual mode, the scheduler won't start anrthing, it will only show events which are about to start.

As we regularly say - "RadioBOSS works perfectly at Radio Dungog when there is no-one in the studio" - and unfortunately that's the truth.

When RadioBOSS project was started, it was designed to operate in fully unattended mode. In the past few years it started to move towards live operation mode One-two more updates and things will be way better.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Yep, okay ... I've always tried to offer constructive criticism to help streamline RB.

The reason I took on the live on-air presenter shifts at Radio Dungog was to help put a human voice on air so  the station sounded live and a bit more in touch AND to see for myself how RB worked in live presenter mode.  I found it impossible to understand the reports of bugs and lockups from our other live presenters because there was not enough information from them - so I decided to sit in the chair and observe them myself.

In doing so I have observed a few bugs and crashes - but statistically not as many as the presenters were reporting - so I'm guessing there was a bit of the human element causing some of the problems too.  Some of the problems, if not most of them, have been caused by a lack of instructions and procedures on our behalf.  We at Radio Dungog need to create a few pages of "how to" information for presenters - and list only the features and actions we use.

The interesting thing about "adverts jumping in and playing over the top of me" is that over 12 weeks of live programs with a total of about 96 hours of on-air time this has only happened 3-4 times because the likelihood of being in the middle of a live announcement when the adverts are inserted is quite a rare occurrence.  However, when the planets all line up and it happens is it very scary.

I'll keep on thinking about a better solution ...


Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

Jamie,

When it crashes, it creates a bug report - please click Settings->Open Settings folder and send bugreport_*.txt files to support@djsoft.net. This will help to resolve crashes in the future versions.

As I said above, the next release will have an option to disable immediate scheduler event launch when "Stop after this track" is turned on.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

I don't understand what you mean by "an option to disable immediate scheduler event launch".  Do you mean playing the items inserted by the scheduler ?


Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

I don't understand what you mean by "an option to disable immediate scheduler event launch".  Do you mean playing the items inserted by the scheduler ?

Yes, so the event won't interrupt presenter while he's speaking. But I thought of it further, and I'm not sure if this is the good solution. The Manual mode in scheduler does this job already. And it's easy to locate an event which has to be started: it's marked with a small red dot.

 

[pety]

We never had problems with RB in live session. When is LIVE we work in manual mode. After LIVE we have Automation ON. I do not understand why looks complicate at Radio DUNGOG

 

[djsoft]

We never had problems with RB in live session. When is LIVE we work in manual mode. After LIVE we have Automation ON. I do not understand why looks complicate at Radio DUNGOG

One thing that looks complicated to me, is that there are actually two things that have to be turned on/off to switch from manual to automatic:
1. "Stop after this track" button
2. "Manual" in the scheduler
It's easy to forget one of those...

 

[pety]

We never had problems with RB in live session. When is LIVE we work in manual mode. After LIVE we have Automation ON. I do not understand why looks complicate at Radio DUNGOG

One thing that looks complicated to me, is that there are actually two things that have to be turned on/off to switch from manual to automatic:
1. "Stop after this track" button
2. "Manual" in the scheduler
It's easy to forget one of those...

Yes, indeed! Too many switches.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

It's simple.  When the live presenter arrives in the studio he sits down at the desk and operates the "Manual" button.

RB continues to operate as normal and runs automatically.

If the current track is still playing and the scheduler inserts an advert block then RB just continues as normal to play everything down the playlist.


If the current track is still playing and the "Stop at the end of this track (option 1)"  button is operated and the scheduler inserts an advert block then RB will stop at the end of the current playing track and wait forever.  If the scheduler inserts another advert block then RB remains paused .... forever.

The live presenter could be making a relatively short announcement, or a long announcement like reading the news or reading the weather or interviewing a guest - which could last for 5-10-15 minutes.  Whatever the case RB remains paused ... forever.

When the announcement is complete the presenter clicks the "Play" button and RB starts to play the next track in line on the playlist and goes on and on.

In technocal terms this is what happens:
1. The "Manual" button or tickbox signals that RB is in "Live Presentation Mode"
2. The "Stop at the end of this track (option 1)" button sets a flag to pause
3. The "Play" button clears the flag to pause
4. The flag determines whether an item inserted by the scheduler is paused or played.

When the live presenter completes his session he unticks the "Manual" button or tickbox and RB continues in it's normal automatic mode forever.


How's that ?


Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

Jamie, sounds reasonable. Something like this will be implemented in RadioBOSS 5.0. I've added your suggestions to the list.