Multiple Overlay Plays

[PaskalG]

Hi,

I've searched for this in the forum but i didn't find what i'm looking for, so, here goes my question:


I have a main radio station , and I have another 30 local stations connected to me most time of the day, so when I play adverts, I need to play 2 things at the same time, each one in different players assigned to different mixer outputs, the main is a song with the same duration, so that my local stations disconnect from me, they play their own adverts of their places and then reconnect to me again when their adverts are played, and they listen that song until it ends, and at the same time that song starts to play, in another soundcard assigned to another mixer, I play the ads from my station and when played, I could use the "SND" command option to play the main signal again (where that song is playing)

The problem is that I don't know how to make proppfrexx to play 2 simultaneous overlays, I don't care if one as overlay, other as playlist insert, or using the Standby Players, just need that both are played at the same time. I've tried a lot but always plays the 1st overlay and the 2nd one waits until the 1st has finished, even if i set it to play one in overlay and the other as playlist insert.

Please, tell me, is this possible? I really hope yes...

Thank you so much for all your work.


PS: It would be something similar to this viewtopic.php?f=9&t=727&p=2237&hilit=ov ... ayer#p2237 but making it in the same computer, to be master and local at the same time but sending 2 different signals at same time in different players

[radio42]

There are ways to achieve what you are looking for, but only indirectly with the Overlay Player.

First, there can only be ONE (1) Overlay Player at a time! Thus you can only play one overlay at a time.
So in order to play 2 'items' in parallel you need to fall back to 'other' players.

The most obvious one is to let the current playlist simply continue and play the overlay as a real overlay in parallel. So your playlist might play this 'extra' song, while you overlay plays your local adverts.
This however (if I understand you correctly) would require you to change the routing of the playlist while the overlay is playing...so that the playlist for that time is using another mixer channel.
You might achieve this e.g. via the MAIN_ROUTE_DJA/B/C/D_SETDELAYED control-command. You can trigger this e.g. in the overlays 'On Overlay Played' event (see the 'Control-Command...' but in the Overlay Editor). Resp. you can reset the routing within the 'On Overlay Stopped' event.

The most elegant way might be to only use control-commands, e.g. the EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_CREATE and EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_PLAY, EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_FREE commands (see the User Manual Appendix for details). These commands allow you to play any certain track on any available mixer channel (like a virtual player which is being created on the fly).
Thus your playlist can be stopped/paused during the regular Overlay playout (of your advert) and you can use the same overlay events as mentioned above to execute the control-commands to play the extra music file in the virtual direct player.

The same is of course (as you already mentioned) possible with a STANDBY PLAYER; you might also trigger the playback of a certain Standby-Player via resp. control-command using again the above mentioned overlay events.

[PaskalG]

Hi Bernd,

Thank you so much for your quick response.

So, If I understood you well, there are 3 ways to do this. I've tried 2 of them, and I had some problems.

1st of all, what I exactly need to play is a Jingle with a DTMF, then a song with a duration of 3:30 exactly, and then another Jingle with DTMF to reconnect my local stations. All paralell with my local adverts.

1) Using the script with FixTime Element: I tried to do this, creating a new script with that base, DTFM+random song from a folder+DTMF and in the program's script I insert it using Fixtime Elements...
The problem is that the script has 3 elements, and it only plays 1, the other 2 doesn't appear until the next break. For example, y have 2 commercial breaks at 15:00 and 45:00 each hour, so, in the 1st it appears the 1st Jingles DTMF, in the 2nd break appears only the song, and in the next the other DTMF jingle, but what I need is that they appear together.
So, could be possible to play a script insdie another script, or it must be an unique file?


2) Using Command EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_CREATE: I've tried to configure this but always get this error "ERROR: Player could not be created (invalid stream or mixer)". so, I know I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what, so it would be great if you write me that command with a "real" example, to let me see what I'm writting wrong in my command.

3) The StandbyPlayers are ok, I've tried the command STANDBY_LOADSTACKSCRIPT and it works nice. The problem is that I need it in the other side, I mean, I would need that the adverts are loaded in the standby player and the 3:30 script in the overlay player, because the adverts most times are less than 2 minutes, but I need to wait until 3:30 to continue the playlist, so, if commercials are in overlay, when it stopps the playlist continues and the standby player too (both in the same channel).

To explain it well: I have 2 soundcards, and 2 channels, Channel 1 (Master) Channel 2 (Local/Slave) and what I would need is that all the time channel 2 is routed to the channel 1, but when overlay starts (the overlay sounds in channel 1) another player load and play the adverts and play them via channel 2 breaking the routing and creating it again after played.
So, I can't use the standby players because I can't load the adverts there, only tracks scripts or playlists =(

Also it could be valid if I can make the playlist wait to continue after the overlay until the standby player has stopped

Any idea?

Thanks!

[radio42]

You might create a little playlist file containing your 3 tracks (dtmf, song, dtmf).
Do not use the FTE solution, but try the EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_CREATE one
Use the small playlist file as the FileName to play.
Please post the command giving you an error to see what is wrong.
You can then use the SND function of the mixer channel to activate or deactivate the routing. There are appropriate control-commands to do so via the already mentioned overlay events.
I'll see if I can compile a sample over the weekend for you.

[PaskalG]

Ok, so it could only be via DirectPlayer option.

Is this different from Standby Players? I mean, is possible to load an advert slot in the directplayer or it can only load playlists? I would like to manage the commercials via advert manager automatically but playing them in another player (like standby or directplayer) and using the overlay to load a script containing dtmf + song + dtmf, so when the direct/standby player ends the sound changes to the overlay (using SND commands) and connects with the song (obviously already started).



I'll wait for the sample, because I use the parameters <name>|<filename>[|<mixername>|<loop>|<attenuation>] and it gives me this "ERROR: Player could not be created (invalid stream or mixer)" so I don't know whay I'm doing wrong. Could the mixername, loop and attenuation be empty or should I full all parameters? (anyway, filling all i get the same error).

Thank you for all your help Bern, I really appreciate it.

[radio42]

No I meant it rather the other way around if you read my mail.
Play the advert via the overlay player and the dtmf stuff via whatever.
I just guess it is more easy to use the direct player, but the other players will also work, that's why I explained all 3 options as options

[radio42]

As for the command: you need to replace the placeholders (eg <mixername>) by real values (eg OUT) - hope you did that?

[radio42]

Here is a sample command sequence:

1) Create the virtual direct player:
EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_CREATE MyPlayer|C:\Test\test.pfp|OUT

2) Start playback:
EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_PLAY MyPlayer

3) Stop and Free it:
EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_STOP MyPlayer
EXEC_DIRECTPLAYER_FREE MyPlayer

Note, that you can combine 1) and 2) in one command - just place both command in 2 sub-sequent lines.
The file "C:\Test\test.pfp" might be you small mini playlist containing the dtmf and song sequence.

[PaskalG]

Ok, understood.

That was quite similar than the standbyplayers option, I play the adverts in overlay player and the dtmf+song+dtmf in another player. That's correct. But that way has a problem... that's what I'm asking (I think I've explained myself so bad, I'm sorry about that).
Most times, my own local adverts (those played via overlay player) have less duration than the "dtmf+song+dtmf playlist" (the dtmf stuff must have an exact duration of 3 minutes 30 seconds), so, when an overlay player ends playing all, it closes and the playlist is reactivated playing the songs/program, and that's the problem, because I need that the playlist don't start until "the other player" with the dtmf stuff have ended, because if the playlist starts before, when my local radios reconnect they will find the song/program started, and also the other player and the playlist would be the same output so it would sound superimposed


So, the question is: Does exist any way to make the general playlist wait to play until both (overlay player & dtmf stuff player) have ended and played everything (specially the directplayer)?

I'm so sorry for making so much questions and I really appreciate your help.


Thank You Bernd

[radio42]

No, currently such an option does not exist.
I need to think about finding an appropriate way...

In the meantime you might simply ensure that your local adverts are long enough. Eg by adding some dummy jingles to your adverts slot eg using a dummy campaign.