Migrating cue points from heavily outdated playout software

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LanderdFM
Posts: 11
Joined: 04 Jan 2016 14:39
Migrating cue points from heavily outdated playout software

Post by LanderdFM »

Hi there,
We've been running Proppfrexx for a while, but we never imported the cue points from our old system. Proppfrexx does a pretty fair job in mixing the tracks anyway, but there's always room for improvement. Especially if we want to let the jingles run through the song that's just starting.

The thing is: there's about 9000 songs that we'd need to set. Sure we can do that manually, but the old playout system (Mouse music) already had the cue points set.
The problem with that is: these are in a database, and the software has no export option.
I can however access the database and extract the data.
I have the following data available:
- Track duration in milliseconds
- Fader start: milliseconds from the start of the file (the track should start from this point)
- Fader jingle: milliseconds from the start of the file (the moment where a jingle should end, i.e. vocals will start)
- Fader end: milliseconds from the end of the file (the moment the track should fade into the next)

I can likely build a script that would convert this data. My question is: where can I put this data so that Proppfrexx recognises that data and uses it.
Ideally, I'd like to put it in the mp3 metadata (should be possible with ffmpeg), so when I move the files, the cue points remain inside the files.
But then I'd need to know what it should look like.

Thanks in advance
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radio42
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Re: Migrating cue points from heavily outdated playout software

Post by radio42 »

To migrate meta data isn't that complicated, especially when you have certain coding skills.
The easiest way is to prepare your own PFP playlist file. The format is attached.

The only mandatory field is the <location>, which denotes the relative path and filename.
All other fields are optionally, e.g. you can add just the ones you need, e.g. only the cue-points.
Examples are also given in the doc.

ProppFrexx Playlist Format:
http://www.proppfrexx.radio42.com/downl ... Format.pdf

Once done, you can open this playlist in ProppFrexx - mark all files (CTRL+A) and then right-click and select 'TAG and MetaData -> Save MetaData TAGs' in the context menu. This will persist all meta data in the files TAG data structure - so that the playlist isn't needed anymore.

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