Using a countdown timer

[LanderdFM]

Hi everyone,

We're nearly ready with the deployment of Proppfrexx as our automation system and mainly very satisfied with the product.
We do have a question for our live programming, considering that some of our DJ's are a bit older and have difficulty to read what's on screen. Specifically, it's hard for them to know when their program ends and the overlays take over.

We have 2 overlays at the end of the program:
1 overlay (the news) which starts exactly at the first second of the hour. It has a dynamic duration.
The other overlay, is the advertising, it also has a dynamic duration, but this is set up to end at the first second of the hour.

The advertising overlay may not always be loaded as there's not always paid ads.

Our DJ's would want to know how much time they have before their program ends, which is at a dynamic point in time. And they need to know this at least 5 minutes in advance, so they can plan their songs accordingly.


What we have seen so far, is that the overlay player indicates the time remaining when it's loaded, and we can set the overlay player to load 5 minutes in advance.
There's 2 disadvantages in that:
1. the 'time remaining' timer is too small to read from afar.
2. Both the news and advertising overlay blocks would need to be shown and might get messy.


We've found out that there's a show_countdown option I can set under control commands in the overlay editor. I could put it when the overlay is shown. This has a nice and clear font and is easy to read when it loads. However, I need to set a time when the countdown ends. But this we do not know. Is it possible to set a time like "when overlay starts"?
For example, what I can think of is: when a live program starts, is it possible to make a control command to 'show_countdown' and use some kind of variable that tells the countdown timer when the next overlay will start?

Or is there a better alternative to show the live DJ's when their program ends (and the overlays take over)?


Thanks in advance!

[radio42]

Have you looked at the TimeCode Window?
That also indicates the remaining time til the next overlay or Program as well as the current track.

[radio42]

In addition you might also use the extra application/tool called "ProppFrexx RemoteView" - which 'mirrors' the main timecode information to a secondary window in a larger scale. This tool is contained in the installation folder and comes for free.