As a longtime user of the Winamp Playlist method of radio programming I still do not understand what would be better about a “professional” program sequencer.
As a longtime user of the Winamp Playlist method of radio programming I still do not understand what would be better about a “professional” program sequencer.
SAM Broadcaster is being offered right now at a discount through Shoutcast, so I hope these questions have answers that can help me decide what to do.
IF a program is in progress but the clock indicates it’s time to start the next program, what if the program in progress is running late? Will SAM just cut it off?
WHAT IF a long program with built in commercials reaches a point where I want to drop in my own spots and then return to the original long program without stopping it and re-starting it at the beginning, is that possible?
TWO complex questions…..
Hmm…
Welll,
I’m not very experienced with SAM.
But I can tell you this, it was not meant to run a radio station.
SAM is intended to be live.
Your best bet for what you want would be Zara Radio.
If a program goes over the scheduled time Zara will wait for it to finish.
For your second question, well Zara does have a pause button, I guess you could do that.
A lot of shows are segmented so you could plop them in between the segments.
With that Scheduler built-in Zara can be a real good player.
Plus it was meant to be used for radio.
I use Zara Radio and Winamp
I use Zara Radio and Winamp with schedulers on both of them and the best thing about both of the programs IT IS FREE! so youll be satisfied with the program carl.
Just a quick comment about
Just a quick comment about Zara waiting for a track to finish – that is one option. You also have the option of cutting it off (with fade, I believe) to sync up your times (usually on the hour).
There are advantages to both. Cutting off a track is probably better for fixed length, static programming (otherwise, you run the risk of not playing that final track on that fixed length program if the previous hour ran over too long). Cutting off a song, however, does seem a bit pre-emptive – waiting works well for randomized playlists.
On Artisan Radio, currently we wait, but it does lead to occasional issues the next hour, as we are getting more and more static programming.
SAM
Carl,
I used SAM for a internet only station for a couple of years. I dropped it in lieu of the Raduga automation and then on to Zara Radio software. The SAM worked great for basic automation and was specifically designed for netcasting. To get it to do the more safisticated functions, similar to what your asking, the operator would have to write PAL scripts to make it happen. You may find yourself spending many hours learning PAL programming and scouring the forums for PAL scripts that may or may not work. If you are going to automate a Part 15 station, I highly recommend ZR.
Good Luck
MS
A Lot of Good Help
Thank you for so many suggestions.
I tried Zara in the past, but it did not win me over, but I forget now what the problems were.
ZR is something to look into.
Learning a programming language is harder than just running manually.
For awhile I had a fun plugin that allowed speeding up the program without changing its pitch, but the last update had a window popping up every time I used it reminding me to pay for it. I was going to pay for it, but so many pop ups seemed too zealous and I dropped it.
With the mostly talk format I am running, everybody’s program is a different length. That makes coming out on the hour almost impossible.
But I want to keep learning, because maybe every problem has a solution.
Thanks.
Time Goes By
It’s been 5 years since I asked about this and even with all the help I am still searching for a way to schedule programs.
The biggest question I have right now is about what ABmedia1 said in Post # 2 –
He said, “I use Zara Radio and Winamp with schedulers on both of them.”
What is a “scheduler?”
Also, how can you use both Zara and Winamp at the same time?