Favourite Smart Block Criteria?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down NaomiNaomi
    Posts: 228Member
    hey guys, working on improving smart blocks at the moment and was wondering what some of your favourite things about smart blocks are and how you use them the most?

    What would you like to see?
  • 27 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up1Vote Down NaomiNaomi
    Posts: 228Member
    The beginnings of a specification:

    Questions, comments, input would be welcomed!
    PlaylistClock.pdf
    200K
  • Vote Up1Vote Down Andy CourcierAndy Courcier
    Posts: 22Member
    For me, probably THE most important feature that is missing from Smart Blocks is the ability to say, 'This song has not been played in the last hour'. Something like being able to add a variable to the Smart block rule {1 HOUR} for example, or {1 DAY} or {1 WEEK} or whatever.

    Smart blocks need to be far more flexible than they are currently and this makes programming quite difficult.

    Ideally, there would be other options like: {UPLOADED > 1 WEEK} AND LAST PLAYED > {3 HOUR}. This for me is THE most important thing that Smart blocks need to be capable of.


    AndyC - BlastFM Internet Radio Stations
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    genres or folders by reverse date
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down NaomiNaomi
    Posts: 228Member
    what do you mean by reverse date?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    last added content first (or selectable I guess)


    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down NaomiNaomi
    Posts: 228Member
    yeah, I guess reverse date could work its way into relative dates somehow, such as searching on uploaded in the last day, can do by item as well. hmm
    Post edited by Naomi at 2014-02-27 16:32:33
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    Not everybody has a music channel. Some here have talk radio channels. When my content gets automatically imported onto a folder - it would be useful for it to play the last added ITEM - not the whole folder.

    I guess I could alternatively use genres, but watched folders would be more useful to me personally.
    Post edited by John Chewter at 2014-02-27 16:41:25
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  • Vote Up0Vote Down NaomiNaomi
    Posts: 228Member
    yep, thanks for this, I hadn't thought relatively on an item basis previously.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    It seems assumed that tracks are like 3 minutes long - mine are 1 or two hours each
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  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    Example suggested options:

    Random
    Order by date (asc or dec)
    The very latest file only.

    Those would be very useful to me.
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    Last Added Item is not in there. That would be the most important thing for me.

    My Ideal Smart Block - something like:

    Station ID Jingle
    Program Sponsor advert
    Last added item in show's watched folder. (I guess this could be genre for SAAS)
    Station ID Jingle
    Random Jingle
    Program Sponsor advert
    Random filler music from a named watch folder (I guess this could be genre for SAAS) until the end of the show
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  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    If you could wave a magic wand and have the stream fade down & paused while the Station ID Playlist played every 30 minutes and then the show faded back up - that would keep me legal in France.

    Something like:

    [Station-ID-Block Interval: 30mins File:Station_ID_Playlist]
    Main_Show.mp3
    [/Station-ID-Block]


    I have seen it said that you cannot have two tracks playing at once in Airtime - but as we saw in the (just fixed) scheduling repeat bug - it can be done and did happen. ;)



    Post edited by John Chewter at 2014-03-01 08:48:46
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  • Vote Up0Vote Down NaomiNaomi
    Posts: 228Member
    last item is there, it's just under uploaded - newest 1 item.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    Sorry, must have missed it :(

    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Daniel JamesDaniel James
    Posts: 844Member, Sourcefabric Team
    Hi John,

    John Chewter said:

    If you could wave a magic wand and have the stream fade down & paused while the Station ID Playlist played every 30 minutes and then the show faded back up



    Do you mean play the station ID between items, or within items, such as live remote streams?

    Cheers!

    Daniel
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    Between is easy.

    My problem is on, say, a 2 hour long streamed show from an mp3 or an incoming live feed.  How to get the station id (and adverts) in?

    For a playing long mp3:
    Idealy I would like a method to periodically fade down and then pause the streaming podcast - do Station ID and advert stuff - resume the show from say 20 seconds EARLIER than where we paused it - to give some continuity.

    For a live stream - fade down the stream to say 30% volume - overdub station id quickly - fade the show back up.



    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    I have had an idea for a new sort of block that may/would solve many of my issues. - A talk show block.
    I shall have a good think about it and report back. Maybe I can figure how to make it a smart block tickbox option, but first, I want to do some tests. It would solve some metadata issues specifc to talk shows also.
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hoerichhoerich
    Posts: 627Member, Airtime Moderator
    for now Airtime cannot handle them, but my favourie smartblock-criterias are...

    ... not played in last X days/weeks (Airtime is only able to create "not played since 2013-03-03")
    ... playcount smaller 1 (to create "real" dynamic linked shows with playlist always choosing the not played file)

    I am begging for these!
    Official Airtime Forum Manager
    --------------------------
    Most of the time an issue is located between keyboard and chair.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down NaomiNaomi
    Posts: 228Member
    Thanks for the input, yes I'm realizing these are some of the most important playlist criteria thanks to these forums :).

    I was just browsing this today


    an "order" rule seems like it could be useful.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Roger WilcoRoger Wilco
    Posts: 784Banned
    hoerich said:

    for now Airtime cannot handle them, but my favourie smartblock-criterias are...

    ... not played in last X days/weeks (Airtime is only able to create "not played since 2013-03-03")
    ... playcount smaller 1 (to create "real" dynamic linked shows with playlist always choosing the not played file)

    I am begging for these!



    THIS!

    Last Played "in the last hh:mm(:ss)" would be even better.

    Ideally, it wouldn't be tethered exclusively to a simple track ID, but would rather examine metadata like Title, Creator, Album, Genre, et cetera.

    Then users could build rules preventing, say, Titles from same Creator scheduling/playing more than every hh:mm.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    How about an advanced PostgreSQL query box for this? Then we could make our own :O

    Post edited by John Chewter at 2014-03-12 19:20:23
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Daniel JamesDaniel James
    Posts: 844Member, Sourcefabric Team
    Hi Roger,

    Roger Wilco said:

    Then users could build rules preventing, say, Titles from same Creator scheduling/playing more than every hh:mm.



    I understand this is a legal requirement in the USA and other countries. There are details in this blog post, I highly recommend it:

    http://brideswell.com/content/sci-tech/queuing-theory-and-radio-playlists/

    Cheers!

    Daniel


  • Vote Up0Vote Down Roger WilcoRoger Wilco
    Posts: 784Banned
    Excellent post! Hit on everything and then some.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Roger WilcoRoger Wilco
    Posts: 784Banned
    Yep yep yep
  • Vote Up0Vote Down René OomsRené Ooms
    Posts: 14Member
    For me when using dynamic smartblocks in linked shows they are not random enough to much of the same tracks in the playlists, so a better random tracks would do it for me :-)
  • Vote Up0Vote Down RIVEN OLIVEIRA MELITORIVEN OLIVEIRA MELITO
    Posts: 2Member

    hoerich said:

    for now Airtime cannot handle them, but my favourie smartblock-criterias are...

    ... not played in last X days/weeks (Airtime is only able to create "not played since 2013-03-03")
    ... playcount smaller 1 (to create "real" dynamic linked shows with playlist always choosing the not played file)

    I am begging for these!



    Second that!!
    Please!

    This post was created in 2014 (!!) and to this date still nothing?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down George BaskGeorge Bask
    Posts: 3Member
    RIVEN OLIVEIRA MELITO said:


    hoerich said:

    for now Airtime cannot handle them, but my favourie smartblock-criterias are...

    ... not played in last X days/weeks (Airtime is only able to create "not played since 2013-03-03")
    ... playcount smaller 1 (to create "real" dynamic linked shows with playlist always choosing the not played file)

    I am begging for these!



    Second that!!
    Please!

    This post was created in 2014 (!!) and to this date still nothing?


    + 1

    Both these additions would fix so many problems for me. Any chance of seeing something similar soon??



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