Sorry if this has been asked but id like some help… Anyone have any ideas how i can create the following “automation”?
On the studio PC id like a button that can enable and disable automation… On enabling automation, it will switch the playlist to auto and then populate the playlist with songs. It should keep populating the playlist and playing these songs until someone takes it off automation. When this happens it should put it into assist and remove all the songs!
On our database we have three main folders, A List, B List, C List. Can a script automatically chose songs from these three folders for the automation?
Ive heard of ways of doing this by creating .m3u’s… But it dosent make sense to have to keep creating .m3u’s when i could get the information from the database?
The Mini Scheduler built into mAirListDB does not pick songs on the fly, but it generates hourly playlists in advance, for any particular period (say, for the next 7 days), and stores them in the database. The playout module picks up the next playlist at the top of each hour using an event and the “Load and play database playlist” action.
The Mini Scheduler is usually run from the mAirListDB management window. However, a new action type “Generate database playlists” has been added lately (only available in the snapshot so far), so you can trigger the generation of new playlists from, say, hourly or daily events. Using this new action and an event, it is not necessary to open the mAirListDB management anymore, once the database folders and hour templates are set up properly.
I would propose a solution like this:
Set up mAirListDB, folders, at least one hour template, and the hour template assignment so that the mini scheduler works properly through the Generate button in the mAirListDB window. Setup instructions can be found in the manual.
In the playout module, set up an event that runs each hour at xx:55:00 and uses a “Generate database playlist” action to generate a playlist for the upcoming hour.
Add two button screen objects for toggling the automation. Besides the “Enable automation” and “Disable automation” actions, respectively, add another action that loads the current playlist from the database (for the AUTO button), or clears the playlist by loading an empty playlist file (for the ASSIST button).
Fantastic, this works great!
I have a query however… User clicks automation. It currently Loads the database playlist, sets to automation and starts playing however, each database playlist is only an hour (ish) long. I have an event that generates a new database playlist as you suggested every hour, however, it wont add this to the player/playlist when in automation.
I could add an event saying - If in automation and time is 56 minutes past, add the database playlist into the software playlist. However, automation for us will only be between 11pm and 10am. A presenter may for some reason have automation running in the middle of the day for 10 minutes because… Theyve ran to the shop to get something. If this is the case, then it would load the whole database playlist into the software playlist.
Is there some way of selecting certain hours to run an event?
For us it is similar. All Events (several per hour) only run in automation mode. So the automation mode is taboo for the presenters. Instead they shall use the link feature in the playlist if they have to leave the studio for whatever reason.
Cad - It is set to run in Automation, but presenters also use automation mode if they leave for 5/10 minutes for any reason.
radiorom - Thanks! I shall have a look at using Link instead so i can take ‘automation’ away from the presenters! Link seems to make more sense
EDIT: Hurray! It all works nicely. Just discovered the Link mode! Ha… I have an event that runs on the hour to clear the playlist then load the next database playlist which works nicely! Obviously this only happens in auto mode, but now were going to use link mode, we dont have to use auto mode during the day so presenters wont have a playlist randomly getting thrown in during the day!
One last question (I did search, i couldn’t find an answer though)… Can i remove the AUTO/ASSIST buttons from the toolbar but keep the rest of the toolbar?
