Broadcast Automation Open Broadcaster’s media management system provides simple and effective web-based automation with scheduler, conveniently managing your station from just about anywhere, creating content lists that can play out over both terrestrial or internet radio and TV, using a mobile-friendly 'drag-and-drop' interface. Setting up repeating content such as station identification, public service announcements or advertisements is 'point and click' easy, as web-based provides an excellent platform for the collaborative programming of shows with the ability to assign users time slots using remote management. Using Open Broadcaster's extremely secure permission system, station administrators can enable access for DJs and radio enthusiasts, globally, allowing them to log on and program their own shows anywhere in the world. Our radio automation system comes with a built-in logger application for maintaining detailed program logs for compliance with regulators, or just demonstrating to clients that their ads are getting the air time they deserve, generating the logs you require with only minimal effort, and extending the operating life of existing transmitters in service by for more revenue generating opportunities.
Truly fail-safe broadcast automation with community media from any browser. Decentralized file management Cloud infrastructure as a service provides fail-safe Broadcast Management System Automation with multi-channel command and control of unlimited play out channels and devices. Manage 100,000+ music and video files and large music collections with organized and searchable metadata. Manage multiple audio & video genres, categories, audiobooks, podcasts and home movies and recordings from your cell phones to share on-air or with a virtual SHOUTcast Icecast stream. Manage large media libraries.
Upgrading from your existing radio automation software system to OnAir Radio is an easy task with our FREE importing tool. This import tool will import all your current items, artists, categories, cuepoints and other metadata from your old radio automation software system to OnAir Radio.
IT asset management software digitally backs up media stored in a secure system, sending to a content delivery network. Your media stays with you, on you own private cloud. Intuitively tag artist, title, album art and other customized metadata. Enterprise cloud media asset management designed for broadcast. Easily find songs and media items with the built-in search engine. Virtual digital broadcast head end enterprise cloud decentralized asset management. Cloud automation with marketing automation widgets Radio Scheduling Open Broadcaster radio server and scheduling systems runs the internet radio webcast services and schedules API enabled widget.
Use scheduling rotations to create split feed programing, managing a network of schedules with local market ID/PSA substitution. It is really easy.
Radio scheduling software lets you do voice tracking bumpers, sweepers, stingers, drop beds and station IDs. Music scheduling software allows theme based music segments to be assigned to users updating from their home computer with a simple browser as part of an automated time based media broadcast scheduling system for accurate spot advertisement rotations. Video Streaming A real enterprise cloud service to automate your YouTube digital broadcasting channel and online internet radio stations with accurate spot advertisements on a time based schedule for seamless digital media playback in industry standard and open source formats featuring zone based playlist IPTV play out with marketing automation widgets.
Open Source Software We support open source software and giving back to the community with free media asset management software based on the Google radio automation project some years ago, tying in with other online media libraries and media buyers. Quality Equipment Manufacturers.
Yes depending on the database you use. I'll explain: You get 14 days to try SAM Broadcaster Pro. On the download page, you've to give up your name + email address for the trial link and subscription to their newsletter. SAM Broadcaster requires an external database, and you'll have three options: Firebird, MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server. Each database has its pros and cons: Firebird is included in the installer, so you’ll not download it or take extra steps to configure it. Time-saving isn't it?
However –it's slightly slower than the other two. And Spacial advises against using it if your music library will contain more than 20,000 tracks. With a large collection of music, you can’t go wrong with MySQL or the Microsoft SQL server. But, you must install and configure them before installing SAM broadcaster.
Don't worry if you're not a techie: Check out the SAM Broadcaster user manual for the instructions on how to setup the two databases. I’ll admit it, the user interface isn’t ultra-modern nor very attractive, in fact, it has remained unchanged over the years, but it’s one of the best I encountered during this review. Features are cleverly organized in three desktop views. In Desktop A, you get the two player decks, Queue, Playlist, Voice FX, History, and Sound FX. Desktop B has the Encoders, Event Scheduler, Pal Scripts, Event Log, and Static Relays Graph. In Desktop C, you'll get the Playlist, History, Queue, Request, Voice Tracking, and Aux Player.
Now here is the best part: By default, this is the configuration you get, but you can customize the desktops and add or hide any window. For example Let’s say you want Voice-Tracking in Desktop A. You select Desktop A Window Voice-Tracking.
A desktop can display all the windows, as long as you have space on your monitor. Auto DJ Mode In the Auto DJ, you need to create a rotation. Well, this is one of the easiest things to do: First, you specify the ‘Playlist Rotation Rules,’ which involves telling the Auto DJ not to play an album, artist, title or track within a time period. Second, you stipulate the ‘Playlist rotation logic module.’ There are three options:. The Clockwheel (Category rotation) logic module – which selects songs from categories. The Web scripting based logic module -which plays songs from online sources. The Weighted playlist rotation logic module -which prioritizes the most played songs.
Category rotation may be the most obvious choice during automation. You’ll have to tell SAM the categories where to select songs and how to play them. By this I mean, whether to enforce the playlist rules or ignore them.
For jingles and stations IDs, you may not need to enforce the repetition rules. Below you can see how I selected and added categories: And the rotation clockwheel format: Play queue, Manual mode In Play Queue mode, SAM plays music until the Queue is empty. It pulls music from the categories using the current logic module. Manual mode allows you to take full control of the program. You'll be likely using this mode during a live broadcast. You create events in RadioDJ using the ‘ Events’ tool. You access it by clicking the settings wrench at the bottom-left corner of your screen.
It can schedule more than one action at the specified time. To stay organized, you can create categories for your events.
What are some of the actions types? There are playlist actions, playback actions, automation actions, input actions, plugin actions, and other actions like launching an internet stream or running an application. After creating an event, you’ll see a count down timer under the Aux Players with the name of the event. SAM Broadcaster and RadioDJ are currently the biggest names in internet radio. So, which is better? RadioDJ interface looks better & way cooler. However, it lacks a way to visualize the microphone.
SAM’s decks are superior to the main player in RadioDJ. They have a slider, which you can use to skip to a particular point in a song. What’s more, you can configure the EQ for each deck. However, there have been reports by past users that the program is buggy and prone to crash, while RadioDJ has excellent stability. Well, neither program crashed during this review.
Some users have turned to RadioDJ, because it’s free. However, there is a plan to introduce a paid version that might see the come back of a built-in encoder, a feature missing in the latest versions of RadioDJ (2.x.x.x). SAM also supports PAL (Playlist Automation Language) scripting. But, you need to fully learn how to write PAL scripts, because a poorly scripted code can cause the program to crash. There are some programming articles on the Spacial website. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to learn how to use PAL. In my case, I enjoyed using SAM Broadcaster more.
But, try them both to form the best conclusion. PlayIt Software is a radio software company launched in 2011. Their initial product was the PlayIt Recorder released in 2011 —followed by PlayIt Live released in 2012. If you are looking for a free radio broadcasting software, PlayIt Live is one of the best alternatives to try. It’s not entirely free, because of the paid plugins and modules. The plugins include Audio Processing, Remote Start (which allows you to use a hardware device), Now Playing plugin (for sending the metadata of a playing song to a text file) and the Microphone Mix/Push To Talk plugin. In addition to the PlayIt Live software module, you might need its extra modules such as the PlayIt Manager, PlayIt Cartwall, PlayIt VoiceTrack, and PlayIt Recorder.
There are two ways to schedule in PlayIt Live. You can use the Playout Log which is similar to adding items in a playlist. Some of the items you can add in the Playout Log include break notes (a duration of silence with notes), fixed time marker (which helps keep time), tracks, track groups (to pick random songs from groups and play them as per the playout policies), aux input, and remote URLs.
Secondly, you can create hour-templates called clocks. For instance. Here, we have created an hour template.
Voice-tracking is one of the simplest things to do in PlayoutONE. This is how you do it. Once you create a playlist, you select the track that will precede the voice track and click on the microphone icon. Automatically, it will begin to play the last 10 seconds of the track. You can press the record icon to start talking immediately or wait until the song stops playing.
After recording, you will see three waves forms; one belonging to the preceding track, your recording and the next track's waveform. You move the waveforms for a perfect transition. Off course, there are things that I didn’t like. The encoder, which is lacking in RadioDJ, is a nice addition in StationPlaylist Studio.
It supports Shoutcast, Icecast and Windows Media Push. You can stream in MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis or Ogg Flac.
It sends the song’s metadata, but you can choose to update the song details manually. It’s noteworthy to mention that if you use a mixing deck, you'll need a standalone encoder. The StationPlaylist Streamer retails at $86 for non-studio users and $46 for previous Studio customers.
What I didn't like. Playlist Studio offers its programs separately or as software bundles. For instance: The Super Pro bundle (with Remote Voice Tracking, Studio Pro, Creator Pro, Streamer, Recorded Time & Temperature announcements, Web song requester script, Tone Detection plugin) goes for $699. Studio Pro will cost you $259 and Creator Pro $259.
However, you can buy the standard versions of the two programs at $135 each. In the Standard version of Studio, you get reduced features. You won’t have the ability to use the auto-speed function, song ramp overlapping, push buttons for carts and hooks. The interface wasn't spectacular. However, it’s highly functional. You have two players for your tracks and a third player in the top toolbar, which plays sweepers as overlays and automated song title announcements.
Below the players, is the categories section. And just below the categories, you have the four tabs; Playlist/Rotation Screen, PlayOut Only, Track List/Add Music and the Playlist Builder/Voice Tracking. Playlists and rotations you've created remain at the bottom panel. I liked having the sample buttons on the same window, which made them easy to access. Mixxx works with any microphone connected to your sound card or audio interface. What’s more, you can have up to 4 microphone inputs. The microphone section has various controls.
Pressing the talk button will mix the mic’s sound to the master output. You can also toggle the microphone’s input orientation to either the right side of the crossfader or the left. As you talk, you'll see the input strength in the volume meter. You also get a gain knob to adjust the volume. By default, the microphone section is hidden in the user interface. However, you can enable it from “ View” in the main menu.
You can broadcast your mixes in 4 ways as long as you're connected to the internet. First, you can create a unique link to share your audio with your listeners. If you have an internet radio station, Virtual DJ has a built-in encoder that can stream audio to a Shoutcast or Icecast radio server. But, you need a PRO license to use it. Thirdly, you can broadcast your show as a podcast directly to the virtualdj.com servers. And lastly, you can broadcast video directly to Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, Vimeo, Twitch, Musically, and other social media platforms. Before Virtual DJ 2018, you had to use a third-party app, which would act as a link between the program and the social apps.
Virtual DJ allows you to mix videos and add effects & transitions to them. But What happens if you’re playing an audio file without a video? No problem The program can use 4 other video sources. It can display the album art for that particular track, use your camera or play a slideshow. That's not all: One of the most talked about feature in Virtual DJ 2018, is the fourth way to add a video to a track using shaders from a site called Shaderjoy. There are 8 shaders by default, but you can download more.
Virtual DJ has a wide array of online tools such as AskTheDJ, CloudLists, Online Music Categories, GeniusDJ and LiveFeedback. AskTheDJ, for instance, allows you to receive requests from your listeners directly in the program. LiveFeedback recommends a track a few seconds after you start playing a song in one of the decks.
If you want more song recommendations than what LiveFeedback offers, you can use GeniusDJ to find a group of songs played together with a particular song by other DJs. Online Music is a music subscription service built-into Virtual DJ. It allows you to download thousands of songs and play them even when you’re offline. Finally, CloudLists are playlists saved online and shared by other users. Cross DJ avails its core features for free. Some of the highlights include; two decks, filters, tempo control, 3 effects, scratch functionality, and video playback.
But —the most exciting feature is: The ability to stream music from SoundCloud to the decks. The pro version has added features – including iTunes support, 11 + sound effects, four decks, remote control and compatibility with more than 80 hardware controllers. Since it lacks a built-in encoder like Virtual DJ or Mixxx, you will need to use a standalone encoder. Rocket Broadcaster is a paid standalone encoder –with a Free Edition. The free version supports the capture of audio from a mic/line input and playback device such as the speakers. It implies —you don’t need to set up virtual audio inputs.
Also It limits you to one encoder/stream with a bitrate of 128 Kbps. What about the paid version? The paid version has numerous advanced features including VST plugin support, Icecast SSL support, email support, logging, unlimited simultaneous streams plus more audio formats. Specialized radio automation software & systems We’ll briefly mention advanced programs used in big stations with costs in the thousands of dollars: 20. Zetta® It’s a radio automation software from RCS –the world’s largest radio software company. Official website: 21.
Master Control It’s a digital automation program for playing recorded audio from RCS. Official website: 22.
NexGen NexGen is also a radio automation software by RCS, currently used in more than 2,500 radio stations around the world. Official website: 23. Simian Simian is a playout and automation software owned by a company called Broadcast Software International, based in Springfield, US. BSI also retails complete audio & broadcast workstations and accessories like audio cards. Official website: 24. DAD It’s an audio automation system for playout and automation by ENCO. Official website: 25.
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OmniPlayer It’s a radio automation software with a-full-set of broadcasting tools. It’s meant for large-scale operations and multiple users. Official website.