hey Douglas

i'm sorry to tell you that after a few months of bug fixing, technical
adjusting and bugging people on the dev list and channel, we decided
Campcaster isn't working for us at Radio Rasia. what we were looking for was
a scheduler that can work with our files - playlists and single files
recordings. (mp3, ogg, m3u) and allow us to open a radio station on a linux
box with a mixer hooked up to a few microphones. this wasn't as easy as it
sounded.
we've ran into many problems, the just of them would be:
- scheduler not stopping promptly, sometimes refusing to stop at all
- can't read single files
- has to be in database and so it was impossible to remove, rename or copy
new files
(each time we had to delete the database and reimport everything from
scratch)
- no easy control over the services
- it didn't play some files
- non-intuitive and complex interface when you just want to put a file or
playlist at a specific time
- works with personal campcaster playlists and not .m3u's or .pls' etc.
- no randomizing
- no generic main playlists
- more, more, more... which our radio maintainer can provide

anyway, it just got to a point we realized Campcaster just may be not for
what we wanted it.
i wrote a 2 perl scripts that combine mplayer and crond together.
it took about a week or two to write, about 200 lines of code, and they work
perfectly.
the benefits of our tailored solution:
1. given a date and time you can put a file (any playable file) or a
playlist (any playable playlist)
2. you can decide on a main playlist to play between all the scheduled ones
3. you can decide on specific main playlists for each day (sunday has its
own playlist and monday uses the main playlist)
4. randomiznig for main playlists automatically
5. the scheduling works without a hitch
6. there is no database and no importing, exporting, rereading, or anything
of that sort
7. the scheduling construct is a text file that can be edited using any
editor
8. the scheduler is run once - and can be run through terminal (don't even
need X for anything)
9. only requirements are crond, perl and mplayer. 2 of which come in every
flavor of *nix and the third is easy to install for anyone.
10. plugins to render more formats are just generally installing them on
your *nix box and mplayer will play them
11. has a year in advanced scheduling option
12. very very very lightweight (very!)
13. easy to update and develop or to write a web interface for

so this is the update on us.
if you want me to send you the perl scripts i'm developing, that could be
arranged.
this isn't a full blown project for now, and it might just stay this way.
we're just developing it for ourselves, really.

good luck with Campcaster where it is found useful (apparently many places,
but not us

good day,
sawyer/Radio Rasia.