One of the warnings I have put in the new Wiki page regarding Regional Containers is: “Note that only the longest Region is calculated - If one of the splits is not the same length, you will not know unless you open the Properties window…” I wonder if it’s possible for the Duration column to inherit each “region” duration (in the same way the Ramp works).
This would allow the presenter to easily determine if there’s a timing issue with the scheduled container.
Over the weekend I was showing somebody how Regional Containers work and going into the Wiki (which has been idle for several months) via this thread, I noticed that there is still no “idiot proof” way to expand a Regional Container and thus show the contents in a simple fashion on the GUI (ie: not having to open the Properties window). A typical issue for concern is incorrect break lengths per region should the scheduler get out of sync (or human error) as the Duration column is always calculated from the longest region.
Here’s an example from BCX2 (a rather dated bit of kit yet still being used in the UK) - The adverts are loaded from a separate “AdLog” file (in the same way #mAirList INCLUDE works) and they are displayed as a single item yet show all the items in the “stack”. I’m guessing that some extravagent way of displaying the information is this was is outside the scope of the Playlist GUI object ?
Well, the playlist GUI object is actually a very powerful one. For example, it can act as a tree, and the container content (any container, not only regional container) could be displayed as a child nodes of the actual playlist element.
But I must admit that the regional features are not really mature at the time being. I doubt that anyone uses them at all
Yes indeed; and I think this would be an excellent new feature (allow display of any container’s contents as child nodes) which should be enabled by default, with a big + sign on the Container Item to indicate it can be expanded. Going in to Properties to do that seems a little ‘clunky’ compared to the rest of the mAirList GUI.
:o [FX: stands back to avoid steam blasting out of Charlie’s ears …]
Well, the last time I tried - I still couldn’t get the regions and the devices to work (result: silence) I need to spend some time re-checking my device.ini file as I’m sure it’s a silly mistake on my part somewhere
True that the regional features may not be in use but they are still fairly well hidden, aren’t they? My only concern is that the way they are currently presented within the Playlist is that they could be a bit more “informative”. My colleague’s questions mainly concerned “so how would a jock re-jig the break with 2 extra promos?” and I had to show him how to edit the containers. Also, if you really went to town and had a 4-way split (Classic FM uses 6, btw) you have to fiddle around to see if all the regions are being broadcast to.
In the end, we favoured the more flexible/reliable solution of a Playlist per split.