Remote Calls - Some Possibilites

As part of AllDay DJ 3 - I'm looking into ways of handling networked programming. My understanding of most setups is that a single machine will act as the "server" and the "clients" await control commands. Well, that would seem a reasonable enough model to me.

 

However, to implement this, I need some way of sending information from the command carts to the clients. (Yeah - command carts - you will be able to have a cart send a network command, play a user cart and wait for a hardware signal to continue - cool, eh?). Now, I could sit there creating my own message passing system then hope and pray I didn't screw it up.

 

A preferable alternative is to look at existing message passing APIs. There's two for Java that I'm lookin in to - RMI and XML-RPC. We used RMI for the class team project and I must say it worked. However, it's java specific (I'm looking at doing other little bits in other languages) and insanely "chatty". A few minutes with an RMI session and WireShark would put you off. :)

 

The other option is XML-RPC. So it's a bit more open (I can get language bindings for things other than Java) and less chatty (a godd thing I suppose). The only down side - who wants a streamlined XML-RPC server running on their playout box?

 

Ok - it's not that bad an idea on a secured network. Certainly going to be more secure than opening a port up and hoping the String / Tokenizer libraries do the job.

 

On another topic alltogether - does Myriad v3.5 have any way of mass importing and finding the track ends as well? It currently tops the tracks but at Radio West Fife, we've not yet found a way to tell it "the end of the track is the last point the volume is above x%". We've got a rather sizable stack of music to import into the system - we're looking to avoid doing things manually (ignoring jingles). I've been informed we've asked P-Squared, so I'll await results on that one.

Exams

Finally, they're over. For the next wee while anyway. So that means I'm making the final preperations to go to Bath for the summer (yes, I'm being serious). I managed to land one of those internship things, so it's a working summer. Down side is I'm not going to be presenting while down there (or at least as far as I can tell). But then it's the old trade off of money vs. fun. :P

Prep and Show Notes

It's pretty much a requirement in radio - you need to do some show prep. For one, you need to know what you're talking about otherwise it's going to be a very boring show. I may go a bit far though, major links with notes and almost two sides of A4 per hour once the show's airing. That's insanely prepared.

 

However, there is also an ongoing argument over going in/out of songs. The official line where I do shifts is "do NOT talk over songs that end". Simple rule that I've never broken, even before I took the role on. But how do I know how songs end? Some playout systems will tell you, but that's usually unreliable at best.

 

My approach - PFL is key. I listen to the start and end of the song.  I've then got little symbols I put on the show notes to indicate how the song starts / ends. As this may be useful to some other people, here is the key:

 

Song Outros

 Song fades out.

 Song ends.

 Song ends with a sustained note.

 

Song Starts

  Song has no intro.

  Song has an intro. A number in a circle will be used to indicate the intro length.

 

In addition to the into time in seconds, I usually mark the first thing I'll say over an intro with an asterisk (*). This is quite useful to prevent me overfilling that intro. Most time, I've only got one or two lines in the intro. It allows me to enjoy the music as well. :)

Weekend On Air and Calling Out The AA!

So, I'm currently covering drivetime as well as my usual weekend shows at work just now. That means 7 days a week on air for a few weeks. It's doable and should be a bit of fun. This weekend also saw the team taking a trip down to the local highland games.  It went well enough... if you ignore answering a phone leaving the mic up in the studio. "Hello, <name> speaking...". Rather entertaining hearing it on air actually.

 

As for the AA. Well, I lost my alarm remote for the car. I could get in with the key but it set the alarm off and imobilised the vehicle. The guy turned up, used the small key (I had no idea what it was for - I bought the car second hand) on the box under the steering column and the car came to life. Ah well, you learn something new every day.

Stream Tags... The Good and The Bad

Online radio streams, you can do a lot with them. As well as carrying your station's output, you can attach all sorts of metadata. Usually you stop at Artist - Title, e.g. currently playing on my internal test stream is "Bon Jovi - Always".

 

That's the basics. At STAR we used to go a bit further with "Now Is Always by Bon Jovi followed by UB40". That's now and next which is on a par with some DAB stations. However this generated complaints! This was due to people using stream rippers and getting annoyed by the tracks getting tagged with the extra information!

 

As much as we are not to really cater for steam rippers (it does boost our listener stats though), I can't help but think we maybe went a little overboard. It also forward announced the next track which most of the time on STAR doesn't happen until the track is playing. Good or bad... you decide!

My Music Collection Is Wierd...

It's true, I've got all sorts. Heavy rock (I can't stand thrash mind you) through to the cheesiest of pop. I just heard the playout system segue Tom Jones into Van Halen into Britney Spears and finally ACDC.

 

I'm also exploring it at the moment to find out exactly what I have. What better way than AllDay DJ. I get to do a sustainer test and hear almost everything I have. So, I've scheduled a fairly random mix consisting of some categorised tracks and the "A to Z" (i.e. everything else) category. Let's see how long I can stand it...

 

I'm also facing issues with my wireless connection (still as ropey as ever) so the test box is directly wired into the router. I'm also streaming online (no, it's a private stream, I'm not going to give you access).

 

Though I did learn this week that (unsurprisingly really) you can get access to the DAB output of a station via. web stream (though it's locked down from what I hear). How did I find out - a phone call from somebody at the other end of the country monitoring the station output. Makes sense though, it is just an MP2 stream.

End Of A Busy Week

So that's it, Hospital Broadcasting week is over. I can get a rest. 9 days solid presenting... I've managed it! Not 9 days 24/7 mind you (that would be a bit mad). 7 breakfast shows and 2 afternoon. Ah well, it's done now.

 

I've also got most of the way through the team project stuff for university. The code should display and update the required information. I say "should" as the standard for accessing logs seems not to have been agreed on! Great with such little time to go... Though, a lot of it is down to the sudden major change of system more than half-way through the project.

It's *still* Hospital Broadcasting Week

Okay, that's day 2 over. I'm stil having fun. Who thought getting up early could be ok. Anyway the "smell" disappeard from yesterday (a rather unpleasent smell appeared in the studio just as I left). Though unlike my colleage at Perth FM, I can't complain about the cold - we're right in the centre of the hospital. No windows or anything. So it can get rather warm!

 

So, Bridge @ Breakfast continues at 8am tomorrow. I've been prepping away the last hour or so and I 've got some cracking content. Though, unfortunately the I'll actually have to buy a local paper at some point. Do the "local" thing. Hanging around Dundee yesterday didn't get me much in the way of stories to talk about...

 

That reminds me - I ought to do some coursework. I've done some team project stuff (a rather funky web interface with graphs to track "blobs") and have "THE MALLOC PRACTICAL" to get done. Its name is in caps as it seems like it'll be a killer.

"It's Hospital Broadcasting Week..."

No trip south of the border this week for me this time. Last year I was at the awards pushing my playout system. This year, I'm presenting breakfast at Bridge FM, where for the last few years they've done an RSL covering the city of Dundee to celebrate.

 

So it's an early start all week. Oh, all right, 8am - it's not too bad. It should be rather poppy music as well (I'm aiming to wake myself up as well). Now, let's see if I can give this pen on my desk away as a prize... well, the budget is tight! :P

Levels, Levels, Levels... and More!

Gah! It annoys me a bit. Peaking constantly for any period of time. It sounds horrible and sadly it's a bit of a habbit among STAR's on-air team. Even if it's not too loud it tends to be levels all over the place, almost as if PFL had never been discovered. 

 

Hopefully my new notice may get them to pay attention. It has large lettering, angry underlines and the required expletives (well, not really). I can accept mistakes that are corrected when you catch them, I do it from time to time. But listening to the output and not doing anything about distortion for minutes at a time... I'm not so happy about that.

 

And for the "more" bit. I've picked up the position of President of WiredSoc (Computer Science society). Let's see what we can do with Wired this year...

Election Results In

Well, they finally counted the votes. It's Phil to head up STAR. Is it unexpected? Not really, but it does mean STAR will now edge further into Musfund's territory with Starfields.

 

We disagree on music policy but it's completely in his hands now. I only ever disagreed on the basis we were too specialist - we're not competing with Kingdom, Tay or Wave but iTunes. Hopefully this year we will see money dedicated to a rotation based playout system (currently it's on select a random track from collection X).

 

Where will STAR go this year... who will know? But let's just hope we can get the listener figures up. :)