I've been reading the many threads on automation and understand that Zara seems to be the favorite, but the answer I am looking for I haven't found, so here it is:
Setting aside the fact that Zara allows inserting timed messages such as "The Time," what is the advantage of Zara over a plain Winamp Playlist?
If you simply want a player that runs a playlist, none.
But, if you need the features Zara or other automation programs provide, Winamp itself is just a player. Zara and other "packages" are already designed around a broadcast operation. Add-ons and/or user intervention are not needed depending upon how complex your requirements are.
Zara can automatically end a playlist at a scheduled time. This way if the program content varies in timing, Zara can maintain a time table for top of the hour (or any other time) announcements.
Zara can schedule starting and stopping internet streaming to run programming like The Radio Dan Show or The Kevin Smith Show.
Zara can schedule starting and stopping an audio line input to the PC to run programming from another source.
Zara can import weather data for temperature and humidity announcements. This allows it to "announce" the current weather info.
I've used Zara for a few years now and still haven't utilized its full capability. I developed my playlists based on what I needed to do and have not been limited by what Zara can do.
Zara Studio doesn't run under OS X, so if you're a Mac user I suggest MegaSeg:
http://www.megaseg.com/
Thank you for addressing my curiosity MRAM1500. Thanks to your website I have installed and started testing Zara and am using the Sam Encoder Plugin.
What became disorienting for me was getting the Zara audio to drive the Sam Encoder, complicated by the fact that I run two streams from the samw computer.
With Winamp & Sam I could run double streams that did not interfere with each other, and my on-board soundcard allows two outputs to two Part 15 transmitters.
But with Sara + Sam, my test version picked up the Winamp stream and ran its own stream mixed together.
I as yet haven't tried running two instances of Zara side by side.