Problems importing advertising from AdMaster

[CROOZEmaster]

Hi everybody,

We just started using AdMaster for our advertising scheduling. AdMaster exports .tpi files , one per hour, which look like this (only 1 spot in this block) :

01:40	N	B	40
01:40	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3

In my music playlists I have included the advertising blocks, each one in a container.
I think this should work, buth when I “Update Advertising” in the mAirListDB, I get the message : “Advertising Containers Inspected: 0, updated:0”

The advertising containers remain empty.

What a I doing wrong here?

Thanks for your help.

[RuVo80]

when creating blocks in Admaster don’t set the time to the actual time but each block on the next minute, but the first block in the hour to **:01 and the second block at **:02. and so on
then mairlist accepts the right blocks:

08:01 N B 1
08:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
08:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
08:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
08:02 N B 2
08:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
08:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
08:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:01 N B 1
09:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:01 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:02 N B 2
09:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3
09:02 N F C:\Commercials\commercial name.mp3

Then in mairlist set the blocks on Source 1:
make that source look for the TPI file and ‘split hours’ and ‘split blocks’ to automatic.

Filename is like you have exported the file
example file :2022-06-28.tpi
then in mairlist filename : %Y-%M-%D.tpi

in mairlist for each block you assign the blocknumber. now blocknumer 1is first block, blocknumber 2 is second block etc.

[CROOZEmaster]

Thanks for your reply.

I tried what you suggested, but it does not work. The result is the same.

This is what file 2022-06-28.tpi looks like:

01:02	N	B	2
01:02	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3
02:01	N	B	1
02:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V2.mp3
03:01	N	B	1
03:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3
05:02	N	B	2
05:02	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V2.mp3
07:01	N	B	1
07:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3
09:01	N	B	1
09:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V2.mp3
10:02	N	B	2
10:02	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3
12:02	N	B	2
12:02	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V2.mp3
14:01	N	B	1
14:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3
17:01	N	B	1
17:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V2.mp3
18:01	N	B	1
18:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3
20:01	N	B	1
20:01	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V2.mp3
23:02	N	B	2
23:02	N	F	M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3

So, that is exactly what you suggest I suppose.

Any other suggestions?

[RuVo80]

When i am home later i will send u the settings withing admaster and mairlist.
For me it’s running without any problems.

Have u set tpi for mairlist in admaster?

[CROOZEmaster]

Yes I have.

I contacted AdMaster about the problems I have and they told me that from their side everything should be OK and that I had to look for the problem in mAirList.

Thanks for helping me out.

[RuVo80]

I have admaster running with smAirlist for several radiostations.
I am not yet home, but when i am home i will make a guide to have admaster working with mAirlist wich i will place here on the forum.

[RuVo80]

I’ve made a whole tutorial on how to get AdMaster’s tpi files read by mAirlist.
I have made a separate topic for this so that others can easily find it later.

Import (AdMaster) TPI files as commercial blocks

Despite mAirlist now being a more extensive advertising scheduler, Lots of people would like to use a specific piece of software. AdMaster is a well-known software that offers many extensive functions to plan an advertising campaign. I won’t go into the features within AdMaster here, but I will explain how to setup Admaster TPI playlists that can work with mAirlist. One small caveat in advance, AdMaster will ask you to create a number of new playlists after adjusting many settings. You can ha…

[CROOZEmaster]

Thanks for the detailed manual, Ruud.

Frank

[RuVo80]

Maybe there is an issue?

Earlier today I was working on the commercial blocks for a radio station and did indeed find something strange in the processing of the tpi files.

The tpi file is read when the playlist is generated by the mini scheduler.
If you change the contents of the tpi file(s) after that time because a new advertising campaign happens to start or stop that week, the updated tpi file will no longer be read but the advertising block will be played as at the moment the playlist has been generated.

It would perhaps be desirable to let the tpi file determine the content of the commercial block while loading the playlist.

a kind of do not prebuffer, but then with loading the tpi file.

There is no option anywhere within the commercial settings, nor playlist to automatically reload such items.

[CROOZEmaster]

Indeed, that’s what I saw yesterday and why I thought that the .tpi files from AdMaster were not working, but they were OK. It’s the ‘Update Advertising’ in mAirList that does not work.

I also have the impression that, when a new playlist is loaded into the playout system, the advertising containers should be scanning the .tpi files again to see if there’s an update, but the system does not find any new commercials then. In my case, as I did the commercial planning after the playlists were allready made, the commercials were not loaded into the playlists.

@Torben , @UliNobbe , I think this is something you should look into. Thanks.

Frank

[Torben]

When you run “Update Advertising” manually from the menu, it should end with a message “Advertising containers inspected: [number], changed: [number]”.

What are these numbers? In particular, does it have the first number right (number of advertising containers in the playlist)?

[CROOZEmaster]

Hi Torben,

No. I have 2 advertising containers in each playlist, but the result is always : Containers inspected: 0, changed: 0

Thanks for your help.

Frank

[Torben]

Then the containers are probably not Advertising Containers, or not recognized as those. You can check by looking at the XML (save as .mlp or copy to clipboard and paste into text editor) - if the XML says <PlaylistItem Class="Container" ...>, then something is wrong, It should be AdContainer.

Also make sure you have configured your advertising settings and hour templates like this:

In the Advertising Settings, make sure that “Always create container” is checked:

And in the hour template item, make sure that “Create a container if nore than one item” is unchecked:

If you have it the other way around, you will end up with regular containers instead of advertising containers (which carry additional hints about the hour and block number) - and Update Advertising will fail.

[CROOZEmaster]

What do I have to save as .mlp?

When I want to export the Advertising settings, it is always exported as JSON.

There I see:

“Blocks”: [
{
“RegionCount”: 0,
“Closer”: “”,
“ImportBlockNumber”: 1,
“Name”: “”,
“ContainerColor”: “#FFFF00”,
“ProjectedTime”: “00:00:00”,
“AliasNumber”: 1,
“Inliner”: “”,
“AlwaysContainer”: true,
“ContainerArtist”: “Advertising”,
“Source”: 1,
“Opener”: “”,
“ContainerAutoFillMethod”: “None”,
“ContainerItemType”: “Advertising”,
“ContainerTitle”: “PUB-1”,
“ContainerFiller”: “”
},
{
“RegionCount”: 0,
“Closer”: “”,
“ImportBlockNumber”: 2,
“Name”: “”,
“ContainerColor”: “#FFFF00”,
“ProjectedTime”: “00:00:00”,
“AliasNumber”: 2,
“Inliner”: “”,
“AlwaysContainer”: true,
“ContainerArtist”: “Advertising”,
“Source”: 1,
“Opener”: “”,
“ContainerAutoFillMethod”: “None”,
“ContainerItemType”: “Advertising”,
“ContainerTitle”: “PUB-2”,
“ContainerFiller”: “”
}
]

My advertising containers are exactly like on your screenprint. “Always create a container” is checked.

But in the Edit Template Item screen, I have unchecked “Create a container if more than one item” , but “Always create a container” is checked.

[RuVo80]

My issue was probably caused by creating the new events in a rush. forgot to enable the advertising update on insert / append a new playlist.

The first lines of the commercial container in the .mlp file is this;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<PlaylistItem Class=“AdContainer” AdDatabase="mAirListDB:

So the container is set as an AdContainer at my place.
For me it is working now i guess. will be testing this week some more for that radiostation, so I will do some testing on this as well.

[Torben]

@CROOZEmaster

What do I have to save as .mlp?

The generated playlist with the containers in them.

[CROOZEmaster]

OK, thanks.

This is what an Adcontainer looks like:

<PlaylistItem Class="Container" ID="{A53290B9-185C-4D8D-8255-B4AF93A2838D}" State="Normal">
    <Playlist>
      <PlaylistItem Class="AdContainer" AdDatabase="mAirListDB:4FAE913CC17154E01BAD59A4FA608FCD" AdStation="1" AdSlot="2022-06-30T12:00:00" AdBlock="1">
        <Playlist>
          <PlaylistItem Class="File">
            <Filename>M:\Spots\DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1.mp3</Filename>
            <Amplification>-4,76238041933329</Amplification>
            <Title>DAB+ Spot 2022-06_V1</Title>
            <Duration>29.941</Duration>
            <Customized>true</Customized>
            <Levels>
              <Peak>0.015</Peak>
              <TruePeak>0.063</TruePeak>
              <Loudness>-18.238</Loudness>
            </Levels>
          </PlaylistItem>
        </Playlist>
        <Title>PUB-1</Title>
        <Artist>Advertising</Artist>
        <Type>Advertising</Type>
        <Duration>29.941</Duration>
        <Options>
          <FailsafeContainerPlayback/>
        </Options>
        <Color>#FFFF00</Color>
      </PlaylistItem>
    </Playlist>
    <Title>Container</Title>
    <Type>Container</Type>
    <Duration>29.941</Duration>
 </PlaylistItem>

[Torben]

Ah, it’s an ad container inside a regular container. That won’t work. The ad container must be a top level item, or Update Advertising won’t find it.

In addition to what I wrote above, also make sure that you have “Always create container” disabled in the template item properties.

[CROOZEmaster]

OK, I unchecked “Always create container” in the template item properties and recreated the playlists. It looks as it should be now.

Thanks for your help, Torben. And Ruvo80