Replacing files (news etc)
  • Hi Peeps!

    I know this has been covered before no doubt but can't think of the right terminology to search for so after the useful help I got last time I thought I would ask in here.

    We are setting up a number of shows but one thing we will have is news at the top of the hour.

    We get our news from FSN and it is available as an MP3 which we click a link to download.  They update their news at 5 to the hour and so I was hoping that there is a way of setting each playlist to play that file on the hour but auto updating it in the storage (some programme that can putt it off and upload it).

    Today I tried manually - scheduled two news plays - uploaded a file called news.mp3 and set it to play on both schedules.  After the 1st one had aired I uploaded the new news called news.mp3 also but clearly it didnt overwrite the old one as the 1st played again.

    A number of our shows are available to us in a similar way and some kind of automation to grab them from one location and just update the  file so the schedule plays the new one would be so useful as we are a not for profit doing this for a charity and man hours are expensive!

    I am sure this is something many people need and do (and I know a lot of people talk about this) but for someone with LIMITED knowledge if anyone knows a user friendly way to do this I will ... well marry you... buy you choccies at Christmas... sell my soul to the devil himself - name it!

    Thanks for your help!
  • 7 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hoerichhoerich
    Posts: 627Member, Airtime Moderator
    This would be possible if the news-files are organized in a watched subfolder.

    You could set a watched folder as a Filter Criteria in a SmartBlock and change the news-file(s) in this folder hourly/daily.
    And if there is always only one file in the folder this one would be picked by SmartBlock.

    I already requested this here http://forum.sourcefabric.org/discussion/14634/possibility-to-make-filepath-usable-in-smartplaylist
    but the dev-ticket http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CC-4551 has been closed as "Won't Fix" - I don't know why... maybe a mod can tell us!?!
    fg, hoerich
    Official Airtime Forum Manager
    --------------------------
    Most of the time an issue is located between keyboard and chair.
  • Thanks - could you explain this watched folder thing in more detail? i looked at this but there is a lot of confusion... does this mean i create a new folder on my server and when i upload it gives me the option to put it in there?

    sorry to sound thick!
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hoerichhoerich
    Posts: 627Member, Airtime Moderator
    We are a terrestrial Radio Station and run Airtime on a local server beside the studio.
    In this case, I can let Airtime watch a folder (on local hard-disk, NAS, FTP? etc) and monitors its media content and imports the files to the Airtime database.
    http://en.flossmanuals.net/airtime/manage-media-folders/

    If you are running Airtime on a Cloud-Server remotely, you should create a folder via FTP and let Airtime watch this one. Then you can upload via FTP and replace the news.mp3 with a news.mp3 without asking for overwrite.

    By the way:
    If you use a certain MP3-Tag (f.e. tag the news-file with Genre "News") as a Filter Criteria and set the correct genre before upload, waiting for dev-ticket http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CC-4551 is not needed.

    and if I did really help you, I choose the xmas-cookies ;-)
    Post edited by hoerich at 2013-04-05 15:19:20
    Official Airtime Forum Manager
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    Most of the time an issue is located between keyboard and chair.
  • well - you are certainly heading for a cookie!  can i ask something else... the file is auto updated on this link http://www.fsnradionews.com/FSNNews/FSNHeadlines.mp3 (one of them).  This is where I download it from, so assuming I set up a directory on an ftp server do you know of any cloud based automation to keep updating the file every hour and transfering it to the watched folder?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hoerichhoerich
    Posts: 627Member, Airtime Moderator
    this should be explained here http://en.flossmanuals.net/airtime/automated-file-import/
    I do not use this yet, will implement this in may. But many members use it.
    cheers
    Official Airtime Forum Manager
    --------------------------
    Most of the time an issue is located between keyboard and chair.
  • ooh this is beyond the realms of me lol


    is there anyone on here I can pay to make it work for me?  :) 
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hoerichhoerich
    Posts: 627Member, Airtime Moderator
    just go for it!
    it doesn't need that much work and knowledge. just 7 commands ;-)
    Official Airtime Forum Manager
    --------------------------
    Most of the time an issue is located between keyboard and chair.