RadioBOSS - Best settings and order for the Event Scheduler

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

We will launch our new Event Scheduler settings and playlists for our daytime show in the next week.

Here is the plan:

1. Create static playlists for the daytime show of 1 hour duration (actually 50 minutes) for 6 hours per day and for 14 days without a repeat song (not doing this yet)

2. Use a static playlist for our top of hour news bulletins (currently doing this)

3. Use static playlists for our 12 blocks of adverts (currently doing this)

4. Use the event macro to insert each of the daytime show playlists (50 minutes each) between 9am and 3pm each day - typically at top of hour so:  09:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00, and 14:00  (daytime-show-?hh-?nn.m3u).  The Event Options will be set to:  "Enable Event", "Do not action this event when playlist is stopped", and "Clear Playlist"

5. Use the event scheduler to insert the news playlist as close to top of the hour as possible - most likely just after item 4 above so that the news can come first.  The Event Options will be set to:  "Enable Event" and "Do not action this event when playlist is stopped".

6. Use the event scheduler to insert the adverts playlists at hh:15, hh:30 and hh:45  The Event Options will be set to:  "Enable Event" and "Do not action this event when playlist is stopped".


We would like the news to start at exactly top of hour - so we would probably choose to use the option:  "Insert a sweeper before starting an event"

The news playlist contains the following tracks and it's important for us to keep them together without anything else being inserted in between them:  News Intro (10 seconds),  News (5 minutes), News Outro (20 seconds).


What is the best way to time and insert the 50 minute music playlist and the news playlist so that they happen at the correct time every time ?  Previously we have always run the news after the previous song has finished - causing the news to start anywhere from hh:00 to hh:05 depending on the previous song length.  We are trying to get around this now.

** EXTRA COMMENT **
So in summary this post is asking:  What is the best way to schedule these two events which are supposed to happen at the same time ?



Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

It should work the way you described...
* News event: use the "Run without waiting for current song to finish" option together with the Sweepers. Another way, depending on how important it is to start the news at exactly 00'th minute of an hour, instead of the "Run without waiting" option you can use the "Maximum time to wait..." feature and allow it to start at e.g. 01th or 02th minute.
* Event after news: use the "If there are tracks in the scheduler i the playlist, enqueue" option.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Timing is critical with this process because we will be using this method 24 times every day if it is successful.

With the event macro being inserted after the news playlist tracks I'm concerned that if the timing is not absolutely spot on that we will lose the news outro (news outro is 20 seconds) and the event macro will insert itself in between the news and the news outro.

What about:

hh:00:00  Event macro - including "Clear Playlist" to zap the previous content on the screen

hh:00:05  News playlist  (hence inserts itself ahead of the macro playlist if a song is already playing)


Or, we could include the news intro, news and news outro at the top of every event macro playlist so that there is never a worry about timing ... this is a messy way of doing it because it means we need to add those 3 files to all of the 126 playlists in the daytime show series.

Is there a better more robust way of doing this ?

The main reason we are using the 6 x 50 minute playlists and the event event macro is so we have tighter control of the music mix put to air every hour.  This 50 minute playlist strategy seems to be a good one.  Getting the schedule to be bullet proof is the tricky bit.


Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

I think you should insert the 50-minute music playlists with the "If there are tracks from the schedule, enqueue" option turned on - this way it'll go right after the currently playing News playlist.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Ah yes !  I had never considered that before.  I think that is a great solution.

So how about this:

hh:59:50  News playlist:  with Event Options set to:  "Enable Event" and "Do not action this event when playlist is stopped", "Insert a sweeper before starting an event"

hh:00:00  Event macro:  with Event Options set to:  "Enable Event" and "Do not action this event when playlist is stopped"


Is there a way to clear the left over music files before the news starts at hh:59:50 and still use the sweeper function ?  With our 50 minute music playlists we will over provision the music so there is no dead air time.


Thanks, working on this today,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

Is there a way to clear the left over music files before the news starts at hh:59:50 and still use the sweeper function ?  With our 50 minute music playlists we will over provision the music so there is no dead air time.

Yes. Just use the "Clear playlist" option for the News event. Sweepers should still work.