Artist of the weekend

[doobeedoo]

Hi Bernd

We would like to start with an "artist of the weekend" on our oldies radio. So every hour would start with a song from this artist.

Our oldies radio runs on 5 scripts (A -> E) which are played in sequence.

I first created a playlist based media library which contains a copy of all files of that artist. The same files also continue to exist in the normal media libraries.

At the top of the A->E scripts I just added a entry playing a song from that media library. Unfortunately this didn't work because the global rules of the radio state that the same artist can't be played within 4 hours.
-> is there a way to exclude the global rules for a specific line in a script?

I then created a special script with only one line calling the specific media library (the global setting supressglobalhistorycheck and suppressglobalrestriction in that script were set).
This script was called as embedded container in de regular A->E scripts. Now the artist of the day is played at the start of every hour. Unfortunately I can't get the song title in the stream (it shows as [1 entries] - Embedded Container
-> is there a way to show the artist-title from within a embedded container?

Kind regards

Bernard

[radio42]

You can use the script-line option ‚SuppressHistory‘ check for the first line - I assume this is a history check, which prevents the Artist to be repeated within 4 hours and not a global rule of a rule set?! Else you can also set the 'KeepStreamAliveOrSuppressRestriction' option, which will also suppress any restrictions set.

For an embedded container you can only set a global title, but not dynamically based on its content.

[doobeedoo]

Hi Bernd

The option 'KeepStreamAliveOrSuppressRestriction' did the trick ... for 50%.

I'm testing with George Michael. I created a playist with 14 of his songs and ordered them by title (for test purposes).



I created a media lib "THEME" based on the playlist.
In my scripts I call this medialib sequentially ...



The songs are played sequentially but every time 1 song is skipped ... so only songs nr 1,3,5,7,9,11,13 are played...



Do you have any idea what I do wrong?

Bernard

[radio42]

Can you explain a bit how you are testing it exactly?! And if there are other conditions involved, as in your output (Last Screenshot) I can not see exactly your described pattern. As sometimes even 2 songs are skipped, sometimes it is sequential and then it again starts at #1 etc.
so maybe a restart of PF is in between or a manual interaction?

But Incan test the same scenario on a fresh system later today as well again…

[doobeedoo]

Hi Bernd

It's just running on one of our webradio's. The medialib is called as first entry in the scripts A->E.

I have tested the scripts and then everything seems OK, but at play-out it isn't. Perhaps our own sync of files (audio-files are synced from google drive once an hour) has something to do with it. Where is the pointer for the sequential playout stored? Perhaps I'm overwriting the file with an other version from google drive?

Bernard

[radio42]

The pointer is stored in memory. But is reset, when the media lib is (re)loaded.

[doobeedoo]

Does this also means that, after a restart of proppfrexx, the "sequential modus" will restart at record no 1?

[radio42]

Yes, of course.
But I also tested your scenario and created a playlist based media lib with 20 tracks 1..20.
Then I created a script in which I only use that media-lib with the sequential mode. All following script-lines are using different media libs.
I then started a program using that script 10 times...
Each time (as expected) exactly the sequential track out of that lib was picked: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
So no gaps or missing tracks.

As such, I can not reproduce your issue. Please double-check, that you have not used your media-lib elsewhere in between.

Note: Instead of using the Sequential mode, you might also use the LastRecentlyPlayed mode. The last play date is persisted in the entry statistic and as such is not reset even after a restart of PF.

[doobeedoo]

Hi Bernd

I think I found the error. The "special artist" is played at the top of the script. At the end of the hour the script looped back to line 1 (so the next special artist was scheduled to play, but was never played because it was scheduled after the top of the hour). I will set the loop line to 2 and I'm pretty sure this will solve the "missings songs".

Thank you so much for your quick and useful help!

Bernard

[radio42]

Ahh, yes, this is another very good explanation!
Thx