Rules-based playlists
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Patrick GibbsPatrick Gibbs
    Posts: 7Member
    I want to set Airtime to play Jazz songs from 1am-5am every Tuesday. I do not want to choose every song -- instead I want to make a playlist that 1) randomly selects songs from the Jazz genre, and 2) refreshes the playlist before playing it (so that the Jazz is different each Tuesday).

    Challenge: Need to avoid any algorithm that makes Airtime choose the same items each time it selects songs for a one hour block.

    I thought about setting up a work-around for this, using Amarok to generate the playlists (since it can do rules-based playlists), and a cron job and/or Amarok script to refresh the playlist. However, I found that playlists exported by Amarok and Banshee failed to import in Campcaster 1.4.1.

    I'd love to hear any ways to make this work, either within Airtime or using helper apps.

    cheers ~ Patrick
  • 3 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Daniel JamesDaniel James
    Posts: 844Member, Sourcefabric Team

    Hi Patrick,

    > I want to set Airtime to play Jazz songs from 1am-5am every Tuesday.
    > I do not want to choose every song -- instead I want to make a
    > playlist that 1) randomly selects songs from the Jazz genre, and 2)
    > refreshes the playlist before playing it (so that the Jazz is
    > different each Tuesday).

    We have a ticket open for this 'smart playlist' feature, it's been
    requested by a number of stations:

    http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CC-84

    You're welcome to log in and add your thoughts there. (Use the same
    username and password as for the Airtime forum).

    It should also be possible to include station idents in the the
    generated smart playlist if these idents are tagged as 'Genre: jazz'.

    > Challenge: Need to avoid any algorithm that makes Airtime choose the
    > same items each time it selects songs for a one hour block.

    That's possible if you update the metadata for each audio file with a
    'Last played' tag showing a date and time. Then you can have a playlist
    generation rule such as 'don't play any track that's already been played
    in the last month'. You're then in a position to offer listeners a 'no
    repeat guarantee'.

    I have added a note about this to the ticket:

    http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CC-54

    Of course this means you need a decent sized library of jazz, but you
    need that anyway :-)

    > I thought about setting up a work-around for this, using Amarok to
    > generate the playlists (since it can do rules-based playlists), and
    > a cron job and/or Amarok script to refresh the playlist. However, I
    > found that playlists exported by Amarok and Banshee failed to import
    > in Campcaster 1.4.1.

    The playlist import in Campcaster 1.4.1 was buggy. Airtime 1.6 is an
    extensive re-write of Campcaster featuring a great deal of
    simplification, so we will be in a much better position to address the
    bugs which remain.

    Also there's the issue that importing a standard playlist format (such
    as .m3u) does not guarantee that the linked audio files are actually
    available to the system at playout time. For example, audio files on
    removable media. Our solution to this problem is to have a playout
    'bundle' format which is a .zip archive containing both the .m3u file
    and the audio files.

    Cheers!

    Daniel
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Albert FRAlbert FR
    Posts: 1,978Member, Airtime Moderator
    always available as idea for airtime ?
    for the 1.9.1 or 2.0 ?
    ----
    Je peux le faire ;) [Pour vous] / I can do it [For You] Gnu/Linux & Media Architect
    Co-founder NessRadio.com
  • Vote Up0Vote Down YounesDesignYounesDesign
    Posts: 62Member
    YES!!! We all want this feature!!!! can't wait to have it!
    Listen to Ness Radio LIVE
    NESS RADIO
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