Working with Media Libraries
Posted: 10 Apr 2012 12:59
A media library is a collection (list) of media entries. Besides keeping a reference to the physical location of the related audio file, a media entry also keeps the meta data associated to it. The meta data for a media entry might come from different sources, e.g. the TAG data of the audio file itself, a dedicated .pfmd meta data file stored along side with the audio file, a dedicated meta data database table or it might come directly from the media library itself (whereas not all types of media libraries do actually support this, see below).
Media libraries are used mainly at two places:
1. Within Scripts to automatically query new tracks to a playlist whenever needed
2. Within the Find-Window to quickly find and locate a certain media entry (track).
As said: A media library is a collection (list) of media entries. So what is a media entry?
A media entry is a single object mainly keeping a reference to the physical location of a playable audio track. At least that’s all it needs. But a media entry is effectively a bit more, as it also keeps the meta data associated with it. Meta Data might be devided into two main groups:
a) TAG data assigned to the track (like the title, artist, album, duration, writer etc.) and
b) Additional Meta Data (like cue-points, hooks, track options, moderator info etc.)
Where a) is typically present for most tracks and commonly available for most standard media players (like Winamp, Windows Media Player, iTunes etc.); b) is very specific to on-air playout systems and often not available as standardized information. As such the additional meta data might also be something very specific for ProppFrexx ONAIR only. A details list of meta data used by ProppFrexx ONAIR is given below.
Media libraries might be small or large (depending for what they are actually used). There is no real limit of how many entries one media library might contain (the actual limit is effectively over 2.4 billion entries per library). However, it is typically usefull to group and organize your tracks into multiple media libraries, e.g. grouped by genre, age, type of tracks etc. Therefore the same physical track might also be present within multiple media libraries.
This is also a fundamental difference to other broadcasting, scheduling or playout system (which mostly only use one huge database or media library containing all your tracks and use a 'category' or other fields to seperate their grouping). ProppFrexx allows you to already define any number of media libraries and as such keep then separated in a more natural way.
As such all your defined media library entries build your entire logical ‘repository’ or ‘database’ (name it as you like) of available tracks which can be used wherever you want. However, you might also operate ProppFrexx ONAIR even without any media library defined at all. In such case you simply can not search for tracks, can not use media libraries within scripts and would have to add tracks to your playlists manually (e.g. by dragging them from the Windows explorer over to a playlist window). However, I assume you want to use media libraries!
So the very first step when working with ProppFrexx would be to setup your media libraries...
Media libraries are used mainly at two places:
1. Within Scripts to automatically query new tracks to a playlist whenever needed
2. Within the Find-Window to quickly find and locate a certain media entry (track).
As said: A media library is a collection (list) of media entries. So what is a media entry?
A media entry is a single object mainly keeping a reference to the physical location of a playable audio track. At least that’s all it needs. But a media entry is effectively a bit more, as it also keeps the meta data associated with it. Meta Data might be devided into two main groups:
a) TAG data assigned to the track (like the title, artist, album, duration, writer etc.) and
b) Additional Meta Data (like cue-points, hooks, track options, moderator info etc.)
Where a) is typically present for most tracks and commonly available for most standard media players (like Winamp, Windows Media Player, iTunes etc.); b) is very specific to on-air playout systems and often not available as standardized information. As such the additional meta data might also be something very specific for ProppFrexx ONAIR only. A details list of meta data used by ProppFrexx ONAIR is given below.
Media libraries might be small or large (depending for what they are actually used). There is no real limit of how many entries one media library might contain (the actual limit is effectively over 2.4 billion entries per library). However, it is typically usefull to group and organize your tracks into multiple media libraries, e.g. grouped by genre, age, type of tracks etc. Therefore the same physical track might also be present within multiple media libraries.
This is also a fundamental difference to other broadcasting, scheduling or playout system (which mostly only use one huge database or media library containing all your tracks and use a 'category' or other fields to seperate their grouping). ProppFrexx allows you to already define any number of media libraries and as such keep then separated in a more natural way.
As such all your defined media library entries build your entire logical ‘repository’ or ‘database’ (name it as you like) of available tracks which can be used wherever you want. However, you might also operate ProppFrexx ONAIR even without any media library defined at all. In such case you simply can not search for tracks, can not use media libraries within scripts and would have to add tracks to your playlists manually (e.g. by dragging them from the Windows explorer over to a playlist window). However, I assume you want to use media libraries!
So the very first step when working with ProppFrexx would be to setup your media libraries...