Overlay following track scripting restrictions

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sokl1
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Joined: 15 Apr 2020 18:20
Overlay following track scripting restrictions

Post by sokl1 »

Hello Bernd,

We intend to use Overlay schedule feature to randomly insert announcements and jingles, because they have to vary in frequency and selection depending of the time. Rest of the time is a single script to generate a random playlist.

Is it possible for the recurring script used as overlay to take into account the scripting restrictions defined in the tracks? The overlay script is defined to choose randomly a track from a selected library. I expect it to follow for example the Time of Day, Day of Week, Month of Year, Date Range, etc. restrictions.

Is it a bug or the wrong way to do it? Can you explain us how to configure it ?

By the way, is it possible to filter the tracks (through the expression builder) using the current time of day compared to the track scription restrictions as a condition ?

Thank you in advance. Best regards, Jonathan
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radio42
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Re: Overlay following track scripting restrictions

Post by radio42 »

No, that approach doesn’t make sense and is of course not supported. As an overlay needs to have a start date and time to be started. It then detects a track via the script, as such it can not know a selected track beforehand, and as such it can not Use such track restriction time to start the overlay.
This is a chicken and egg problem ;-)
Same goes with the condition.

However, restrictions work exactly that way. Once the time is known, because the overlay/script is started, the track restrictions are applied and checked at/with this time.

To vary the frequency if Jingles and Announcements you can use the Jingle option in the Script settings.
As such I guess using the overlay scheduler for jingles is the wrong option.
sokl1
Posts: 33
Joined: 15 Apr 2020 18:20
Re: Overlay following track scripting restrictions

Post by sokl1 »

Thank you for your prompt reply. I fully understand your warning.

To be more precise, we would like to insert jingles and spoken 15-20 sec sentences alternatively every 2-3 tracks but they should never follow each other. Jingles are currently inserted as "Suspend Program" overlays with an Auto Start Type and +180/-180 early/late start, scheduled every 15 minutes. 7 minutes later, we have another overlay schedule for the spoken sentences with the same settings except that the program is not suspended but attenuated -20 dB. Again that overlay is scheduled every 15 minutes. The result is exactly what we expect, except that the time restrictions are not taken into account.

If we use Advertising and Jingles libraries with both count 1 and 2-4 range, it occurs that they're played consecutively.
If we use jingles function in the script and keep the spoken sentences as auto overlays, the same occurs sometimes.

How would you deal with that requirement please? Best regards, Jonathan
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radio42
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Re: Overlay following track scripting restrictions

Post by radio42 »

True in the Overlay processing of a script the track restrictions are currently not active.
I'l see, if I can change that in a next version!

Alternatively you might create special media libs for those times of the day, e.g. a Jingles-Morning, Jingles-Noon, Jingles-Afternoon, Jingles-Evening and Jingles-Night...
And than use special scripts for those times of the day using the related media libs and assign them to the overlays - which also means various overlays over the day not recurring every 15 minutes, but just every day...

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