I’ve got two requests for features and I wonder whether they could be implemented.
Is it possible to show the intro-time, as well as the overall duration, in the database?
Also, I would like to suggest to make double-clicking on an item in a playlist to play the song in the first available player. Currently it opens up the PFL window, but there is a way to get that through the right-click menu and there is a seperate programme to set intro’s and ramps, which also opens up the PFL window. That third option to get there, by double-clicking on a playlist item, is unnecessary. Yet, there isn’t an option yet to make files in the playlist play with a simple mouseclick. I would REALLY find this extremely handy.
Unless I’m doing something majorly wrong, I can’t find that option. I’ve got two players to one playlist, so I expect the option to be in config of the playlist, but there’s nothing there. There is an option called ‘Auto Load On Demand’ in the player settings, but even with this ticked in both players, double-clicking on the item in the playlist still shows the PFL settings screen (well another tab on that screen, but generally the same box).
BTW: this is mAirlist Personal Edition version 3.0.6.587
I assume when you say ‘intro time,’ you mean the Ramp duration(s), rather than anything else?
OK, let’s clear up a couple of misapprehensions first.
Currently, double-clicking a Playlist item opens its Properties dialog (not the PFL dialog: the two are different). Single-clicking an item’s icon in the Playlist opens its PFL dialog.
Also, I’m not aware of the ‘auto play on demand’ option Tony’s referring to. I think he means Auto-load on demand, which isn’t the same thing. (Remind me, Torben: what does that Player option do?)
I’m a bit confused, though. Unless you’ve changed the option to Auto-load in assist mode, the top items in the Playlist should auto-load into Players. If you instead want to play a different item, you can drag/drop it on a Player. Either way, to start that Player, you would expect to either hit the Start button on the Player; or click the Player if you have a Command when clicked of START set up for it; or press a Hotkey or raise the desk fader.
Is there a particular reason why you would find it ‘REALLY handy’ to have an ‘instant play’ function for an item in the Playlist by double-clicking it, because I can’t work out why you would need that (maybe I’m just being thick!)?
“Auto-load on demand” means that the players remain empty first, and are only loaded when you issue a “PLAYER 1-1 START” etc. command.
This resembles the way other systems, e.g. Zenon, work where the next item isn’t pre-loaded in any particular player, but you can just start it by opening the fader of any available channel.
I assume when you say ‘intro time,’ you mean the Ramp duration(s), rather than anything else?
OK, let’s clear up a couple of misapprehensions first.
Currently, double-clicking a Playlist item opens its Properties dialog (not the PFL dialog: the two are different). Single-clicking an item’s icon in the Playlist opens its PFL dialog.
Also, I’m not aware of the ‘auto play on demand’ option Tony’s referring to. I think he means Auto-load on demand, which isn’t the same thing. (Remind me, Torben: what does that Player option do?)
I’m a bit confused, though. Unless you’ve changed the option to Auto-load in assist mode, the top items in the Playlist should auto-load into Players. If you instead want to play a different item, you can drag/drop it on a Player. Either way, to start that Player, you would expect to either hit the Start button on the Player; or click the Player if you have a Command when clicked of START set up for it; or press a Hotkey or raise the desk fader.
Is there a particular reason why you would find it ‘REALLY handy’ to have an ‘instant play’ function for an item in the Playlist by double-clicking it, because I can’t work out why you would need that (maybe I’m just being thick!)?
BFN
CAD[/quote]
I’ll check. That was a question for a friend of mine.
You’re right. The top two tracks in the playlist do automatically load into the players and if you want another one you have to drag and drop.
Why I would find the feature ‘really handy’ is because I also have 4 jingle players in my skin (4 players, each with their own playlist). If the doubleclick function would work you can pre-load jingles in it’s playlist and if you need one fast, that isn’t at the top of the playlist, you can simple doubleclick on it to play. Drag-and-drop whilst doing a link in live-assist is just too unhandy to even contemplate.
Concerning question 1: I’ve asked and yes, the ramp durations are the ones meant. You can set up to three ramps and my friend would like them visible in the database.
What exactly does he mean by “in the database”? The database management application?
The problem is that all cue points are stored in a separate table, and the item list on Library page only displays information from the main table. Fetching data from multiple tables might slow things down significally.
[quote=“Torben, post:8, topic:6534”]What exactly does he mean by “in the database”? The database management application?
The problem is that all cue points are stored in a separate table, and the item list on Library page only displays information from the main table. Fetching data from multiple tables might slow things down significally.[/quote]
I’ve passed the info on to my friend.
Any more thoughts about number 2? The double-click on playlist track makes it play as a feature request?
It doesn’t really make sense to me (this is not Zararadio!), and it’s also not trivial to implement. And don’t you think you should use the cartwall for the instant replay of your jingles?
Nope. Because I would have to buy a mixer with 25 faders, one for each player in the cartwall, which is totally not cost effective. An example. You use a bed to talk over, which is 2 mins long. You use 1 minute of it, then you want to play a stationcall, before going to the music. If you have the cartwall on 1 fader, this is impossible, because the bed keeps running for another minute, straight over the jingle which is also in the cartwall. This is totally impracticle. Like I said, unless every player in the cartwall is put on a separate fader, which is possible, but not cost effective. This is why I’ve got 4 jingle players in my skin AND the cartwall.
I’m not sure why you feel attacked by my request and have to defend it by comparing your fantastic software with one the crappiest around. Of course it’s not Zararadio, but if you want to draw comparisons I can list you loads of extremely expensive, professional radio automation packages, used by professional and commercial stations across the world that all can do that simple task. (Dalet, PC-Radio, etc.). But I never wanted to draw any comparisons, because it’s irrelevant. I simply wanted to know whether it could be implemented in mAirlist, to make my life easier. No is clearly the answer.
Zararadio (and Raduga, of course) is actually a good software if you only want to play some files in a row through a single sound card. In that software, a “double-click to play” function makes sense, because it allows you to quickly jump to a particular items, all of which are played through the same “player” anyway.
The approach in mAirList is somewhat different, because you have multiple players, all of which should be routed to a separate channel on your mixing console. So the basic question is: When you double-click an item and you want it to be played instantly, how will mAirList know which player to use for that, and how will you make sure that the corresponding channel is actually open on your console?
I was wondering if what you are going to achieve works better through the cartwall, because the cartwall is meant for the “click and play” kind of playback of random items (while the playlist is meant for playing items in a row, usually in the same order as they appear in the playlist). And also, what’s the difference between having four jingle players with their own sound card and having four extra cart players with their own sound card?
Perhaps I need a little more explanation why you think this is useful.
What the station involved is doing: In config set auto load on demand as suggested earlier. But then using a hotkey to fire audio.
You’ll find that if a player is empty and you hit the relevant hot key it loads and plays the first item in a playlist - not quite what you asked so my apologies.
Actually, that’s not impossible: it’s very easy to arrange!
You can either use a Trigger or an Action On Start on your ‘stationcall’ cartwall player to FADEOUT the bed cartwall player automatically. If necessary, you can set your bed item to have a fast fadeout (I suggest 750mS). I use those techniques a lot, to do exactly what you describe!
Alternatively, you could use the Audio Devices setup in Config to route ‘some’ of your cartwall players to a different audio output (and hence to a different fader on your mixer). You don’t have to send ALL your cartwall players to the same output.
Cad’s suggestion of a couple of audio outputs for the Cartwall is sound (ahem). I know of a community station that has 2 columns for carts, I think 10 deep - 1st column is CartwallA, 2nd is CartwallB. They can then toggle each Cartwall item to start/stop as they decided not to bother with “triggers” as they are hard to set up “on the fly”.
It’s just another thing for people to remember - and when you’re not paying them, they tend to be very forgetful Each production bed doesn’t always need the same tag, they are universal… and if you think 3 mouse clicks is easy, try hammering the point home regarding: ARTIST - TITLE filenames I’ve yet to find a keyboard without an F2 key!
Each production bed doesn’t always need the same tag, they are universal… and if you think 3 mouse clicks is easy, try hammering the point home regarding: ARTIST - TITLE filenames