[RDD] Serial Out vs GPIO

[Jim Stewart]

We've been using GPIOs on an ACS 8.2 for many years now.  I have 4 GPIs and 4 
GPOs connected to a Telos Z/IP One CODEC for use on remote broadcasts.  The GPI 
do things like "Go live after next event", "Return to automation play", "play a 
Legal ID", and "Cough/Talkback" from some simple push buttons on at the far 
end.  The GPO's light up LEDS at the far end for things like "Talkback active", 
"Will go on Air Next" and "On Air Now" status indications.  It has all worked 
great, once I dealt with the timing problems in the Rivendell macros where 
command steps are sometimes skipped over unless you put in some sleep "SL" 
statements in various places (and all these "places" and timings of them seem 
to change with each Rivendell update!!!).  We are using a computer with a 
"real" serial port (not a USB one) however.  We are also using Debian Linux 
instead of Ubuntu or CentOS.

-Original Message-

Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 08:23:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rob Landry <41001...@interpring.com>
To: Wayne Merricks 
Cc: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: Re: [RDD] Serial Out vs GPIO
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="koi8-r"; Format="flowed"


In my experience there seem to be a lot of RML commands that run fine in 
external scripts but not directly in RDAirplay.


Rob

-- 
? ???, ??? ?? ,
? ???, ??? ??? "??",
??? ? ??? ?
??  .

On Mon, 16 May 2016, Wayne Merricks wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I have a BT ACS 8.2.? I initially tried to set up the switcher in Rivendell
> but something about Ubuntu didn't like to reliably do it (the serial port
> stopped accepting commands after a while).
> 
> In the end I settled on using RN to call a script that used screen's stuff
> command to do the same thing.
> 
> Its been running fine for about 6months. I wrote it all up here:
> 
> http://rivendell.tryphon.org/wiki/Switchers
> 
> 
> 
> On 13/05/16 19:12, Ben Blevins wrote:
>   Just curious to see how others are using GPIO.? I have a
>   Broadcast Tools SRC-8 III and Star Tech USB to RS232 adapter.?
>   Are you setting up the SRC-8 in the Switchers/GPIO or just
>   controlling via a Macro with an SO RML command directly? ? I'm
>   just trying to send relays out to my backhaul for local
>   automation.
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
>

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[RDD] USB audio woes

[Jim Stewart]

We've been using a Presonus Audiobox for years and only recently did the 
motherboard on get flaky and quit working with it (motherboard was many years 
old BTW), changed it and now back up with no problems.
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[RDD] Best way to import daily news into playing log

[Jim Stewart]

Yes, I also do some of this kind of stuff.

Normally you would just use RD-Catch to get all the online sources.  But in our 
case I needed to edit the content first (we only broadcast the 1st half of the 
file), so I did a Linux "bash" script the uses tools like wget and mp3-split to 
automatically get and cut things up, then used the command-line RD-import to 
import what is left into a cart.  Then I used the Linux cron scheduler to 
schedule this.  Hopefully you don't have to do all this, but you could if you 
needed to.   My point here is that if Rivendell can't do something you need, 
you can use some Linux tools behind it to get it done and even call it within 
Rivendell if needed.

As far as intermixing your locally produces elements with your online 
downloaded elements, I would try scheduling lots of carts around your online 
elements that would just get skipped over if they weren't filled.  If you do 
this, you probably need to schedule some sort of cleanup task (perhaps another 
bash script that simply deletes the carts) so that you don't end of airing old 
news if the cart never got filled.  Perhaps your whole news montage is more 
organized than this such as a single local news cart after a national news cart 
(perhaps with a local "intro" in front) is all you need so you won't have to 
get so fancy.

The concept of "donut" carts (intro and outro, with empty space in the middle) 
might work for you too (remember to set the seque point at a normally 
ridiculous point to make a donut cart work, and turn off the auto fade mode for 
it too). I wouldn't rely on making your staff do this to a cart that needs to 
be replaced everyday however.

In any case let us know exactly what you wish to do and we should be able to 
help you do it.  

-Original Message-

Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 14:25:23 -0500
From: Tom Van Gorkom 
To: Rivendell-Dev 
Subject: [RDD] Best way to import daily news into playing log
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I'm looking for ideas on how to import the news casts for different hours of a 
given day that are produced the morning of the day they are to air. We can add 
them manually to the playout log but is there a way to create an event that 
imports from a file just before it airs or somehow automate this so the 
producer can just drop it into a folder?

We are a Spanish station and we get our news from online sources as well as 
live recording by staff, connect the pieces, edit it, and drop it into the 
playing log, but there must be a way to automate this better.

Thanks,

Tom Van Gorkom
Radio Esperanza Engineering, KRIO AM/FM, KOIR FM
Office: 956-380-8150
Cell: 865-803-7427

Rio Grande Bible Institute
4300 S US Hwy 281
Edinburg, TX 78539
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[RDD] HTML Riv Tools (Proof of Concept)

[Jim Stewart]

Such a great idea!  I'd love for this to be the future of Rivendell as I'm 
concerned about it long term issues of it being "stuck" on an old version of 
QT.  Also having these "auxiliary" programs run in OS independent web browsers 
makes a lot of sense to me in operations where they can't quite use (or at 
least I can't convince them to) Linux on the other desktops in the operation.  

In fact I probably wouldn't mind if rdairplay itself moved to this.  I would 
think the way to do it is to leave the core of it still on the Linux server 
(that of course runs all the time), and then just "connect" to it via web 
browser only for control using its GUI.  By moving rdairplay's GUI to an OS 
independent web based service, then perhaps a typical installation would be to 
run the GUI part on a touch screen tablet (like an iPad or Android device) that 
would be very "clean" in the studio, as well as a godsend out on remotes.  I 
have similar functionality to this now by running it on a fully detached VNC 
session that then you just connect to from where ever, including from the Linux 
"server" itself.  


Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2016 23:30:51 +0100
From: Wayne Merricks 
To: 
Subject: [RDD] HTML Riv Tools (Proof of Concept)

Hi all,

I have created a small set of HTML/Javascript/PHP pages as a proof of concept 
for using Rivendell's back end tools in a browser.

So far I only have part of RDLogManager going, namely Grids and Clocks. 
It works with the current Trypon repos 2.10.3 but will have issues if you go to 
newer versions as tables have changed since then (tested in Firefox).

The reason for doing this is I think QT/C++ is a barrier for most people here 
but maybe javascript, HTML and PHP is not so much.  It also means that with the 
age of QT3 perhaps more people could rally around HTML tools (or other things) 
to lessen the burden on Riv for whenever it is they have to move to QT5+.

I'm not implementing Riv behaviour verbatim as I've tried to simplify the 
clocks in particular to make inserting items easier.  Anyway hopefully this 
will get a few cogs churning among fellow Riv users, if not I'll continue to 
keep plugging away at replacing rdlogmanager (event editing is next and 
possibly log generation after that).

https://github.com/waynemerricks/rivendell-html

If you want to check it out, just download the pre alpha release above and 
shove it onto a web server with PHP support.  Please make sure you get the 
pre-alpha release and not the github direct as I don't guarantee I won't push 
some updates that break everything at some point (direct link here 
https://github.com/waynemerricks/rivendell-html/releases/tag/v0.1-pre-alpha).

You will have to edit the config/database.php file to point to wherever your 
Rivendell db is.  It won't do anything insane like delete all your clocks but I 
don't recommend installing in production without adequate backups in case you 
do something unintended.

All comments welcome including suggestions of short piers I can visit.

Regards,

Wayne


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[RDD] Rivendell with audio switcher

[Jim Stewart]

I'm guessing the RPI's GPIO's do not show up in Rivendell.  What I would do is 
have a separate task, which can be a simple shell script if you'd like that 
checks for a GPI change, then executes the command line rmlsend command to call 
a Rivendell macro to do what you want.  To command the switcher via GPO (if 
that turns out how you need to command it), it can use the macro command to 
call a shell script that executes a simple command to set a GPO line as well.



I have done some simple GPIO stuff on RPI's for other purposes in the past.  
Unfortunately I only know how to pole the location of the GPI state in a 
polling loop.  I don't know if it is possible to have this driven from an 
interrupt instead, which would be better.  I'm not near the code I used for all 
this at the moment, but could help you later if needed.



I agree that if you are only triggering ID's, I would opt for a simpler 
solution, perhaps even buy something like a Denon SD card player that can be 
triggered to play tracks from contact closures, but of course a RPI can 
certainly do all this too with simple scripts.



I have a computer at one of our transmitter sites do all kinds like this such 
as providing "alternate programming" if the Internet-fed STL link fails, 
automatically detecting and switching to a backup studio feed (and back again), 
all while logging all this for later inspection.  I did all this using ".bat" 
(batch file) Windows scripts (painfully I might add) because that machine also 
runs a Windows-only software audio processor/stereo generator program build the 
composite stereo signal to feed the FM transmitter.



I think I would use some sort of watchdog timer fed by repeated "keep alive" 
commands from the RPI that would reboot the RPI in case something goes wrong 
because  I'm not sure I would trust them, especially in harsh transmitter site 
environments, but then again I tend to overclock my RPI's which surely makes 
them less than reliable for me.  You might even consider underclocking it a 
little!



Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 13:56:34 -0500

From: Seth Stevenson >

To: 
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: [RDD] Rivendell with audio switcher

Message-ID:


>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"



I work for a large network with about 45 stations. All our programming is 
originated in one location and delivered to the stations via satellite feeds. A 
dish at each site receives the audio to the transmitters and towers which are 
co-located. All the programming is the same for each station. For local ID's 
and PSA's we use a Burk LX-1 switcher. For ID at the top of the hour, our ENCO 
DAD fires a command to the switcher which activates a CD player and plays the 
ID. Then a command is given to switch back to sat. Same thing throughout the 
day for local PSA's. We are non-commercial, so no commercials. We want to move 
away from the CD players. I am trying to get them to move to Rivendell on a 
Raspberry Pi to due this. What is the best way to set up GPIO for Rivendell to 
due this? It needs to have a playlist of say 20-30 ID's that rotate in a loop. 
Once one is played then it needs to stop until the next switcher command to 
play the next cut. The log needs to be reloaded at midnight for the next day as 
well. I know this should be fairly easy with macros, but need some input. I 
will not be the final person implementing it, but I'm the only one familiar 
with Rivendell, so am trying to "sell" it for this project. Thanks. By the way, 
I do have Rivendell already running on a test Raspberry PI.

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[RDD] Newbie with a New Install

[Jim Stewart]

Linux starts out booting using BIOS calls to the "bootable device" (hard drive, 
etc).  This all done by a bootloader itself.   Once the kernel and initramfs is 
loaded into memory, the processor switches to a more advanced mode (from "real" 
compatibility mode) and starts executing the kernel.  At this point it is up to 
the drivers in Linux to be able to find its file system.  I'm guessing it is 
NOT.  This could be that there is not a driver loaded for the hardware that 
contains the file system, or perhaps the BIOS has done some sort of switch of 
boot device order such that the kernel is now looking in the wrong place for 
its file system.   The later can be dealt with by adding some direction to the 
boot loader to boot on the correct device.  Since you are booting on USB, there 
is a lot that could go wrong here as the USB hardware itself could be missing a 
driver, and likely is.  Typically the driver for this would be compiled as a 
separate module then loaded into the initramfs file system for the kernel to 
load.  Your CentOS might not have done this, at least for the actual USB port 
device hardware you have, which means you would have to add it yourself and 
rebuild the initramfs (and finally the change the file system on the USB 
storage device you are using).  This is a little involved to do.



In any case, look further back on the boot messages (use "shift - page up" to 
scroll up the page if needed) and check that a driver for the hardware that the 
file system did get loaded and the storage device itself did get found and is 
what the kernel is looking for.  For example, look for /dev/sda1 if that is 
what it thinks it should boot on and make sure that device didn't end up being 
set as /dev/sdb1 instead!  If there is no mention of a "sdx" device then my 
original theory that the driver never got load would prevail.  In this case I 
would resort to installing the file system on a traditional non-USB device (as 
in a SATA device) to get things going quickly.





Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 19:23:30 -0500

From: Jamie Dennis >

To: 
"rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org"


>

Subject: Re: [RDD] Newbie with a New Install

Message-ID: 
<56df6d01.08de8c0a.327c5.b...@mx.google.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"



Well, I tried the CentOS 7 Live DVD installed on a bootable USB created by 
unetbootin-windows-613 and I get a ?

Kernel panic ? not syncing: Attempted to kill init!



And then it stops.



I?m beginning to think it is something with a BIOS setting but I don?t know.





Thanks,

-Jamie

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[RDD] Rivendell daemons

[Jim Stewart]

Oops, I double checked my notes:  caed needs to be started before ripcd. Not 
the other way around as I stated below.  Try starting each manually form a 
command prompt and check /var/log/syslog for any hints.  The command "ps -C 
caed" will list the caed daemon if it is running, same for ripcd.

-Original Message-----
From: Jim Stewart
Sent: Monday, March 7, 2016 5:00 PM
To: 'rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org' 
<rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org>
Subject: Rivendell daemons

> Now neither machine will bring up rivendell. 
> It says rivendell daemons failed to start. I tried sudo service 
> rivendell start  and  sudo /etc/init.d/rivendell start on both 
> machines. Nothing. I have confirmed /var/rivendell/run is on the 
> server machine. There is a file in there named caed.pid. I have scoured the 
> forums to find an answer to no avail.

I don't know if you dealt with this or not, but realize that newer versions of 
Debian (and Ubuntu I'm guessing, I can check my "Trusty Tahr" machine tonight 
at home) puts the /var/run directory on a /dev/shm shared memory mount (like a 
ramdisk) that goes away at each reboot.  I had to follow the instructions given 
by others in this thread to create the /var/run/rivendell directory and set 
permissions in a small shell script that I run before attempting to start the 
Rivendell daemons.  Is it possible that the caed daemon creates this when it 
doesn't exist but ripcd, which needs to run first, does not?  
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[RDD] Rivendell daemons

[Jim Stewart]

> Now neither machine will bring up rivendell. 
> It says rivendell daemons failed to start. I tried sudo service 
> rivendell start  and  sudo /etc/init.d/rivendell start on both 
> machines. Nothing. I have confirmed /var/rivendell/run is on the 
> server machine. There is a file in there named caed.pid. I have scoured the 
> forums to find an answer to no avail.

I don't know if you dealt with this or not, but realize that newer versions of 
Debian (and Ubuntu I'm guessing, I can check my "Trusty Tahr" machine tonight 
at home) puts the /var/run directory on a /dev/shm shared memory mount (like a 
ramdisk) that goes away at each reboot.  I had to follow the instructions given 
by others in this thread to create the /var/run/rivendell directory and set 
permissions in a small shell script that I run before attempting to start the 
Rivendell daemons.  Is it possible that the caed daemon creates this when it 
doesn't exist but ripcd, which needs to run first, does not?  
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[RDD] good off the shelf computer for Rivendell

[Jim Stewart]

Since I don’t actually use the appliance (or any similar version of CentOS) on 
anything, I can’t say what hardware support the appliance would or would not 
have.  You might need to check this out yourself.  My gut feeling is that it 
would be fine once you figure out how to overwrite the “ChromeOS” that is 
currently(?) on it.  Watch out for any potential “secure boot” BIOS problems 
that could exist on this thing since it gets sold as a media player in mind.

Depending on what your usage requirements are, I would question long term 
reliability of such a thing.  Note that the Intel NUC has not proved to be a 
very long-lived device either and I generally trust ASUS products less!  If you 
don’t care that this thing could have a likelihood to failing in the next year 
or two of 24/7 usage, then go for it.

Note that in my case, I used a previously used PC to power our Rivendel at our 
radio station, which would normally be a very poor choice too!  However, this 
computer was taken from a pile of other identical units (think lots of spare 
parts), and contains a set of mirrored drives, redundant power supplies and a 
proven reliable Gigabyte motherboard, all in a filtered rack mount case with 
lots of [noisy] fans to keep things cool.  Furthermore I have another, 
partially current identical unit as a very “cold standby” could be made ready 
to replace a fully failed unit in a day or so, plus yet another computer (that 
wear other hats as well) that automatically gets daily rsyncs from the onair 
system, and can also “go on the air” in just a few minutes should the main fail 
(while allowing me to update the “cold standby” from it).  Not to mention, 
there is yet another set of redundant computers (from same batch) at the radio 
transmitter site that automatically take over with some simple “backup audio 
programming” if there is any loss of audio stream from the studio itself for 
any reason.  In short, I still sleep well at night even though I have a tired 
8-year old computer providing programming to this radio station!

PS: Actually, I’m a little surprised all this IS still running well at this 
point, which is why is shouted “STILL” in my previous post.  But oh well, the 
station owner has a “don’t fix it if it ain’t [yet] broke” attitude.

From: Seth Stevenson [mailto:rcflye...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2016 2:12 PM
To: Jim Stewart <jstew...@paceaudio.com>
Cc: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: Re: [RDD] good off the shelf computer for Rivendell

What about the Asus Chromebox-M004U? Any thoughts about running the Centos 
appliance on it?


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[RDD] r128gain - integration

[Jim Stewart]

Wow!  I never thought of using ffmpeg for this.  I especially like the way you 
can tweak parameters that compute the "average RMS" adjustment desired.  Does 
this always re-transcode the file (granted "re-transcoding" an uncompressed 
audio file should be close to lossless), or will it simply losslessly (and 
quickly, and reversibly) set a single "track gain" parameter to a file format 
that supports such a thing like the way "mp3gain" does?
 
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 14:34:00 +
From: Wayne Merricks 
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: Re: [RDD] r128gain - integration
Message-ID: <56c484d8.90...@thevoiceasia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

I had to do some audio normalisation (loudness/RMS) on a batch of videos 
recently.  I used ffmpeg to automate the process but you have to be careful 
what you're doing as you can overcook it.
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[RDD] good off the shelf computer for Rivendell

[Jim Stewart]

I agree that the best piece-of-mind is usually obtained by just going with the 
"turnkey" system the software manufacturer recommends/sells/supports.  This is 
commonly done with most other radio automation/playout systems out there too.  
Then there is no "shouting match" potential between whether a problem is with 
the hardware vendor or the software vendor.

Also note that last time I asked, Paravel only offers payed-for, continuing 
support on systems running their CentOS based turnkey software/OS install (I 
completely understand why they limit themselves to this!) 

That said, that isn't what I did.  Linux generally runs on just about anything. 
 Mostly you might need to avoid any very new hardware pieces such as exotic new 
video cards, hardware raid controllers, network interfaces, etc. that there 
might not be Linux support for yet, so do your own research on any hardware you 
are considering.  Generally systems running completely on true Intel based 
hardware is well supported.  I personally would avoid many nVidia video 
products because they insist on writing their own closed-source drivers, which 
at times could potentially "quit working" reliably with certain other OS 
upgrades.  Some other hardware manufacturers have gone down this road too at 
times (like VIA, Broadcom, & ATI).  Again, do your own research. 

The one station we have running Rivendell is STILL (after a few years now) 
happily running on a single old Pentium 4 "semi-server-class" system, while 
supporting a rather large amount of Jack audio clients/routing going on while 
functioning reliably as a file server, an icecast server with three stream 
encoders (but with very few clients attached at any one time), plus some remote 
access and backup related services running on it at the same time.  Oh and I 
think it only has 1-gig of memory, but I carefully manage it (I'd recommend a 
little more).

Also if you are worried about getting hardware set up to run Linux, there are 
several companies that you can get Linux (including Ubuntu) preinstalled on and 
ready to go.  "System76" is one such company that you might not have heard of.

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 15:22:50 -0700
From: "Lorne Tyndale" 
To: "jorge soto" 
Cc: Rivendell List 
Subject: Re: [RDD] good off the shelf computer for rivendell
Message-ID:

<20160216152250.3b45a8e840b89c853b94d34027fab3e4.36905ab2c5@email06.secureserver.net>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hi,

Paravel sells some excellent systems built for Rivendell.  And they come
with operating system and Rivendell installed and ready to go, plus
technical support.

http://paravelsystems.com/

> 
> Just wondering what are some of you using to run rivendell on. I'm looking
> for a good off the shelf machine to buy that can run Ubuntu 14 and
> rivendell without any problems. Any and all comments are greatly
> appreciated.___
> Rivendell-dev mailing list
> Rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
> http://caspian.paravelsystems.com/mailman/listinfo/rivendell-dev


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[RDD] CentOS 7 (Beta) Appliance question

[Jim Stewart]

It is my understanding that it is a "fork" of MySQL that was done because 
people are untrusting of what Oracle might do (or not do) with MySQL.  Much in 
the same way that Libre Office got forked from Open Office (only to have Oracle 
then give it to the Apache foundation, which would have been a good home for it 
anyway had we known).

That all said, I haven't yet tried to connect an existing Rivendell system to 
MarianDB yet.

Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2016 11:09:16 -0500 (EST)
From: Rob Landry <41001...@interpring.com>
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: [RDD] CentOS 7 (Beta) Appliance question
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="koi8-r"; Format="flowed"

I notice that the Beta Appliance uses MariaDB instead of MySQL. I want to use 
this machine on a network including several other Rivendell workstations that 
use MySQL. Are there any interoperability issues between MySQL and MariaDB, or 
are the two basically clones of each other?
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[RDD] Rdairplay Crash at midnight after log chain

[Jim Stewart]

I've had this problem since the beginning.  Can't remember if I get the exact 
GP fault error or not.  

In my case it crashes about half the time, but in spurts as in it will do it 3 
or 4 nights in a row, then clear up for a few days, then do it again.  I 
haven't determined a pattern to it.  

Years ago I configured a silence sense on it so it simply restarts rdairplay 
(and starts it playing) once silence is detected.  Since ripcd keeps running, I 
can do all this with rml commands.  On our main on-air machine that has a BT 
ACS8.2 audio switcher, I use its silence sense to trigger the "fix it" macro.  

On our backup machine (that lacks the switcher) I use the Jack Audio 
"Silent_Jack" program.  Both work perfectly, typically leaving about 15 seconds 
of dead air as opposed to about 5 seconds of dead air normally when rdairplay 
doesn't crash but is simply is being sluggish chaining logs.

Both machines use the same database (or at least snapshots of it), so I'm 
guessing the problem originates from there.  Both machines use Debian Linux but 
typically are on completely different versions, our on-air machine is on a 
fairly old version using the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" concept.  The 
backup is typically the current Debian version.  So maybe it could also be 
something in Debian that has continued through 3 major versions of Debian.

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2016 06:19:38 -0600
From: Tim Camp 
To: User discussion about the Rivendell Radio Automation System

Subject: [RDD] Rdairplay Crash at midnight after log chain
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Greetings,

The following is the syslog from last night when RdAirplay crashed after
log load.

Trying to figure out the problem...

Jan  4 23:59:04 zewcon rdairplay: loaded log 'zew0105' in Main Log
Jan  4 23:59:04 zewcon kernel: [6687443.252425] traps: rdairplay[8606]
general protection ip:7f127fef45c6 sp:7a10e2d8 error:0 in
libqt-mt.so.3.3.8[7f127f984000+75b000]
Jan  4 23:59:09 zewcon caed: alsaStopTimerData(1)
Jan  4 23:59:25 zewcon caed: alsaStopTimerData(0)
Jan  5 00:14:48 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines
Jan  5 00:17:01 zewcon CRON[6121]: (root) CMD (   cd / && run-parts
--report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jan  5 01:00:32 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines
Jan  5 01:17:01 zewcon CRON[6313]: (root) CMD (   cd / && run-parts
--report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jan  5 01:46:15 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines
Jan  5 02:17:01 zewcon CRON[6504]: (root) CMD (   cd / && run-parts
--report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jan  5 02:31:59 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines
Jan  5 03:17:01 zewcon CRON[6698]: (root) CMD (   cd / && run-parts
--report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jan  5 03:17:43 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines
Jan  5 04:03:26 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines
Jan  5 04:17:01 zewcon CRON[6966]: (root) CMD (   cd / && run-parts
--report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jan  5 04:49:10 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines
Jan  5 05:17:01 zewcon CRON[7175]: (root) CMD (   cd / && run-parts
--report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jan  5 05:34:54 zewcon ripcd: ran local maintenance routines


Cheers

Tim Camp
WZEW-FM
Mobile, AL.
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End of Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 33, Issue 3

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Re: [RDD] Updating Rivendell - what could we expect?

[Jim Stewart]

I personally have problems with macros every time I upgrade.  Certain steps in 
macros get skipped over unless I put sleep statements in certain places.  The 
problem is that which steps get skipped over and where (and the length of) the 
sleep statements change with each version.


Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2015 07:17:35 +
From: Peter van Embden twit...@moqua.nl
To: User_discussion_about_the_Rivendell_Radio_Automation_System
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: [RDD] Updating Rivendell - what could we expect?
Message-ID:
mailman.143.1429270844.1663.rivendell-...@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Hello!


Tomorrow we're planning to update from version 2.6.0 to version 2.10.3. Are 
there any major issues we could expect? We've already compiled 2.10.3, so 
basically it should be a one hour job.


Cheers,


Peter van Embden

Radio Capelle

The Netherlands

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Re: [RDD] Help: Steps to compile Rivendell?

[Jim Stewart]

Oh, I DID do this, than ran ./configure again with same results


From: Lorne Tyndale ltynd...@tyndaleweb.com
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 10:14 AM
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: RE: [RDD] Help: Steps to compile Rivendell?

Hi,

As I recall on the git sources, the first step is to run:

autogen.sh

before running the ./configure


Lorne Tyndale


 Okay, for fun I thought I'd try compiling Rivendell for the new Raspberry Pi 
 2 (the quad core one).

 I downloaded the current GIT sources today, ran ./configure a bunch of 
 times until it was happy that I installed all the prerequist packages, then 
 it got to where it started building all the Makefiles but when it got to 
 the debian directory, it said:

 config.status: error: cannot find input file: `debian/Makefile.in'

 Sure enough there isn't such a file.  What do I do? or What didn't I do right?
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[RDD] Help: Steps to compile Rivendell?

[Jim Stewart]

Okay, for fun I thought I'd try compiling Rivendell for the new Raspberry Pi 2 
(the quad core one). 

I downloaded the current GIT sources today, ran ./configure a bunch of times 
until it was happy that I installed all the prerequist packages, then it got to 
where it started building all the Makefiles but when it got to the debian 
directory, it said:

config.status: error: cannot find input file: `debian/Makefile.in'

Sure enough there isn't such a file.  What do I do? or What didn't I do right?  
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[RDD] USB sound card issues

[Jim Stewart]

So I just tried doing the second ALSA device on that old laptop, and it worked! 
 I tried it both with and without jackd and it worked both ways.  The funny 
part is that as a test I configured the main log to play through jack to the 
first ALSA device, Aux 1 to play out of second ALSA device direct, then Aux 2 
to play out of the first ALSA device direct (bypassing Jack) and all three 
played at the same time!  I guess Jack does not lock out it's ALSA device.

One thing I DID have to do to get it to work:  Perhaps because I did all this 
with the root login, but rdalsaconfig built the file /etc/asound.conf, which 
rivendell didn't see, but then when I sim-linked it (ln -s /etc/asound.conf 
.asound.conf) to .asound.conf in my home directory and restarted the rivendell 
daemons, it only then worked.

BTW, this old laptop is really old! it's an old 1.2 Ghz P3, and it seems to 
run Rivendell just fine.  All three logs played, and sequed perfectly at the 
same time.  Rivendell was otherwise a bit sluggish, but very usable.  Note I 
don't have a very big library on this machine (unlike unlike our real radio 
station with thousands of entries).  I DID get my Raspberry Pi 2, so maybe it 
is worth compiling Rivendell for it and see how it does, as I'm sure a quad 
core, overclock 1 Ghz Arm should be able to outperform this old laptop, even if 
Xorg isn't accelerated on it. 

Fun Stuff
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[RDD] transmitter / silence / fallback

[Jim Stewart]

 ... config a small box (I hope to use a Raspberry Pi but will scale up until I
find one with the needed power to serve in this capacity) such that when it
is plugged into a network and amp/speakers somewhere it will connect to an
icecast stream automatically and play it out of the speakers.

I have done this.

It will detect silence in the stream (including the stream going down) and
switch to playing (a playlist of) locally stored files.

But haven't done this on a Raspberry pi

It will detect when the stream audio comes back and cut out the local audio
and go back to stream audio.

All headless and automatic.

Have done this with our slightly different setup.  In our setup we have a PC at 
a mountain-top transmitter site that runs Windows so it can run a commercial 
audio processing  FM stereo composite signal generation program, but we also 
have it receiving an audio stream (using mplayer in a Windows Batch file) from 
the Internet delivered from the in-town studio.  I do have Windows scripts that 
do all this (plays locally stored audio during stream failure, attempts to 
connect to a backup studio, plus logs everything for later inspection, etc), so 
at least I am familiar with the issues.  

 I am trying to use:

jack
silentjack (to detect the silence)
jack_connect (to change the jack routing on setup and on command from
silentjack)

Our main studio uses a GPI input from the silence sensor built into a Broadcast 
Tools ACS 8.2, but we have a backup Rivendell computer (in another city!) that 
simply uses silentjack to do things based on what it determines the problem 
might be.  For us it is typically that rdairplay has crashed while trying to 
pull up the next days log so we simply restart it. Other times it is because a 
live web stream broadcast got lost.

audio players:

mplayer (or its frontends)
vlc
others?

Last time I played with jack on a Raspberry pi, I found it a little bit 
unstable, but I was trying to do more with it than you are.  It seems that you 
might need to use a real (and stable, as in some are much better than others) 
USB sound device as the master clock for Jack unless you use netjack and lock 
it to a master on another computer.  I think some of the instability is from 
the lack of a real time kernel available for the pi (maybe there is one now, 
but I think there were some issues with the ARM processor that prevents this).  
In any case I think you can get it working well enough for your purposes, just 
expect to need to dial in a few seconds of latency.

Problems I think I need to solve:

A way to statically name the main stream player so that I can refer to it
in scripts.
So far, I am not seeing how to do that with mplayer or vlc, the names seem
to be tied to the pid.

You can do this with mplayer, but not vlc.  I have run mplayer on the pi, but 
not VLC.
We do have VLC receiving a web stream on our studio Rivendell machine, and yes 
it always has a jack name that includes it's process ID at the end, which is 
always different.  I have a script that reads the process ID once VLC get 
running so it knows how to connect it in Jack.  It is all done in a shell 
script called by Rivendell.

Is there a better way to go about this?
So I like mplayer for this since you can do a static jack name.  We are only 
currently using VLC because with our (somewhat now old, Debian Squeeze based) 
studio system, the mplayer version doesn't support the stream we are trying to 
get and VLC does.

If it hasn't already been done, I will write this all up when I am done.

I'll be happy to share code with you, but since your needs are a little 
different than mine, it might be better for me to just help you with places 
where you might be having problems.

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[RDD] transmitter / silence / fallback

[Jim Stewart]

From some previous posts:

I think I am going to face another issue. Some players give up trying for
good when the stream fails. I need to find one that will keep retrying or
respawn one in a loop or something along those lines.

Does anyone have any player suggestions for this setup?

VLC does have an automatic reconnect feature.  I don't think it is enabled by 
default though and the setting for it is a little hard to find.
I prefer mplayer because it simply exits when the stream is lost.  This allows 
me to log the event in the script and make some decisions about what to do 
about this, typically to simply launch mplayer again and reconnect.

Yes, many players just sit there with a stream is interrupted, which is hard 
to deal with.

The biggest challenge with Silentjack is it currently has no provision
for what to do when audio returns.

Good point.  I'm thinking you can have your script attempt some corrective 
action, then kill silent jack, then restart it and see if it trips again (as in 
see if your fix did in fact fix the problem).
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Re: [RDD] Local Audio Switch

[Jim Stewart]

Just trying to understand your problem, are you saying that you also need the 
audio from RdAirPlay to be muted (or stopped?) during the time the line-in 
cart plays?
Once we figure out what you need, it seems to me it would just take an 
additional line or two on the macro cart to do something like this, then 
another cart that you play (at a certain time maybe?) that puts it all back 
when you are done with the line-in source.

James Stewart

Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2014 15:46:08 +0800
From: Bruce Lee Mones brucelee.mo...@gmail.com

Cart is working, it's just the audio from RdAirPlay and LineIn both plays off 
the audio out of the sound card.

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Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 19, Issue 37

[Jim Stewart]

Sorry, I guess I over-trimmed the thread behind this post.  I've been using 
Debian Linux (both 32 and 64 bit depending on actual hardware I'm running it 
on), the primary on air machine is still running the older Squeeze 
distribution, everything else I have Rivendell on runs Wheezy except for a 
personal laptop I have that is on Sid but is not set up to function for the 
radio station in any way.  I typically use the binaries from Tryphon, but have 
compiled my own at times to get a latest fix or features.

In any case, my gripe here is that it seems that these daemons fail to do 
enough sanity checks, and tend to suffer from race conditions.  ripcd can 
either quietly, not start up, or start up incorrectly if caed, which appears 
to need to start up first, is not yet ready to receive some sort of 
communication from it. In the past and present, this has caused many hours of 
confusion for me.


Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 09:38:17 -0500
From: Cowboy c...@cwf1.com
Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell Not Recognizing Macros Commands

On Saturday 22 November 2014 09:44:52 pm Jim Stewart wrote:
 It was all in the ordeal I have to go through to get the Rivendell daemons to 
 load correctly.


 This should not be an issue.
 What OS ?

--
Cowboy

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[RDD] Rivendell Not Recognizing Macros Commands

[Jim Stewart]

So I think I figured out what was the problem for me (perhaps others too)

It was all in the ordeal I have to go through to get the Rivendell daemons to 
load correctly.

On computers rrunning jack and with fully loaded data from our actual station 
loaded into its database (a few thousand audio files, a couple hundred macros, 
and a few weeks of logs), when I attempt to run rdairplay without starting the 
daemons first, I get a dialog box called Missing Daemons that says Unable to 
start Rivendell daemons!.  What actually ends up happening is that caed 
loads but ripcd does not.  If I then attempt to run rdairplay again, the rest 
of the daemons load and all is okay.  This has been a problem for us since we 
started with Rivendell a few years ago.  So to deal with it I had written a 
script entitled start-rivendell that starts the damons manually before 
starting rdairplay (as well as starting some stream encoders and other things 
we use with Rivendell).  This script worked well until Rivendell version 2.10.

Note that in starting the daemons yourself, I previously determined that the 
order that you start them matters!  Caed must be started first, then ripcd. 
 Otherwise you get this exact problem of macros not running.  I had this 
problem a couple of years ago, but forgot about the cause.

So my script simply started caed then ripcd immediately afterwords. 

It turns out this no longer is good enough.  Now I have to insert a sleep 2 
(2 second delay) statement in my shell script after starting caed, I guess for 
it to settle in for awhile somehow before starting ripcd.  Otherwise 
ripcd would still start up, but the result would be that macros would not run.

Note this entire macro execution feature of Rivendell has been unstable for us. 
 Typically some steps in the macros tend to get skipped over unless I put some 
SP (sleep) commands between them.  Of course this make many macros behave 
sluggishly, but at least reliably.  But then often with updates to Rivendell, 
all these timing requirements in our macros tend to change in that I often have 
to add sleep statements in new areas between commands but can remove them in 
others.  This has been a pain because with each Rivendell update I have to test 
each macro to see if it still runs reliably and make adjustments to it if it 
doesn't.  We use a lot of macros in Rivendell and love the power they provide 
(when they work!).

So in summary to others: load caed wait awhile then load ripcd and see if 
everything else runs okay.

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Re: [RDD] Can't connect to mysql

[Jim Stewart]

 From: b B bb89...@gmail.com
 To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
 Subject: [RDD] Can't connect to mysql
 Message-ID:
   CAK-A7k6GLSCodx-H8wd5JkT=r+u-wvtthis3mxkx_zpemdn...@mail.gmail.com
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
 
 I set up the appliance from a recent download. All was working fine. The
 machine was shut down by pressing power switch. When it came back on,
 Rivendell services wouldnt start. The errors at command line:
 
 Ripcd
 Session management error: None of the authentication protocols specified
 are supported
 Ripcd: couldnt open mySQL connection.
 
 Rdadmin brings up Unable to access Rivendell Database dialog box. When I
 log in through the dialog box with rduser and letmein, I get an error
 dialog box RDAdmin Error Unable to connect to mySQL.
 
 Caed -d   produces mysql error similar to ripcd's.
 
 I have not changed any .conf files. All I did was reboot it without a
 proper shutdown. Restarting centos a couple times does not change behavior.
 
 Help?
 
 Thanks
 Andrew

Yes I agree that the mysql database might have been corrupted.  (I hate
databases!)  There ARE some repair tools (mostly front ends to ones
built in to MySQL itself) where you can repair it.  It might repair
itself too.  Unfortunately, I am very poor with MySQL so not the best
person to get instructions from.

I have had success with running the RML command at 2:00 AM every day to
back up the database and then have a script that rsyncs it over to
another computer (through the Internet!).  I had to even restore back to
one of these backups recently.

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[RDD] Tryphons V2.10-1: Macros won't run from a button panel

[Jim Stewart]

So I tried out Tryphon's V2.10-1 (64 bit version) on a Debian Wheezy test 
machine.  

One thing that was evident was that any buttons configured to play a macro cart 
on either rdairplay's button widget or the stand alone rdpanel would not play.  

Macro carts would play from a log however.  
Also Audio carts still play from the button panels.  
Macro carts also play from rdlibray's play cart button in the editor.

Is this a bug from upstream, or did something go wrong with Tryphon's compiling 
of Rivendell?
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[RDD] Conference?

[Jim Stewart]

I agree that a traditional conference might be a bit ambitious.  For example, I 
live only 700 miles (1000 KM) away and probably wouldn't even make it.


What I think would benefit Rivendell the most is a push to update the Wiki so 
that it is:


1) More up to date

  a) A more complete and updated users guide (Existing is very good, but need 
updating)

  b) A useful administrators guide (Existing is only a template, and even that 
needs work)


2) Contains more step-by-steps for newbies (Including some quick-starts to 
handle getting most people up and going).  I'm thinking it is difficult for 
newbies to even figure out where to start!


3) Contains a LOT more details on administration and initial setup (see admin 
guide above)


4) Then more examples of peoples' unusual setups.


5) Contains lots of troubleshooting sections so fewer are simply lost when 
something goes wrong.


I for one am guilty of not participating in this yet as I think I have several 
unusual things I've gotten Rivendell/LInux to do on our station that others 
might be interested in (and that I brag about to those running many of those 
other commercial systems).


A single conference tends to only benefit those who attend at the time, where 
as fixing up the Wiki will provide a lasting benefit for all of us and many new 
users.  It took me quite awhile to get things working for us, and I had a 
pretty good Linux background, but had never used Jack audio before which in 
itself had a steep learning curve.  I currently struggle with many aspects of 
MySQL which I previously had little experience with.


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Re: [RDD] Unable to Start Rivendell Daemons

[Jim Stewart]

So what happens when you run rdadmin? I would think that if it can't make a 
connection to mySQL that it would run the routine to set up a database in the 
running one (as pointed to in rd.conf - so check on this too). In doing so it 
would ask for the admin password to mySQL so to create a new one. rd.conf would 
also have the credentials that Rivendell will use to access the database.


If your mySQL happens to be on another computer, this will complicate things 
because the usual default installations of mySQL often limit access to the 
local machines for security reasons. So you would have to further configure 
mySQL (and any other firewalling software you might be running) to allow for 
this.


Worse case, try accessing mySQL (and any rivendell data base there) directly 
using various mySQL admin tools, and see what might be going on. Look for a 
created Rivendell data base with all the long list of security options set. 
Again rdadmin is suppose to do all this for you on its first run, so perhaps 
something went wrong there (like you changed something afterwards).


Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 15:33:45 -0500
From: Larry Ewing la...@radiobygrace.com
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: [RDD] Unable to Start Rivendell Daemons
Message-ID: 001e01cfc0a3$df37c4d0$9da74e70$@com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

mySQL is running and active but Rivendell won't start.


Aug 25 15:07:11 suserivendell rivendell[3192]: ripcd: Couldn't open mySQL
connection!


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Re: [RDD] Now Next question

[Jim Stewart]

 My stream host is Radionomy. Do I point the UDP from Now  Next to 
 Radionomy?s Icecast server? Or am I pointing that to my local stream encoder?

I have this work for us using the RLM file for Icecast and pointing it to the 
icecast server itself.  I noticed it only works for mp3 streams and not Ogg as 
Ogg (at least the slightly vintage version I'm using) doesn't seem to support 
the metadata in the stream.

I'm thinking the UDP approach would be good for sending the metadata to a 
separate process (like a simple netcat instance) that receives it and processes 
it separately for some purpose.

James Stewart
VP - Lead Technician
[small PES logo]
Pace Event Services, Inc.
2412 Monroe St. NE, Ste. A
Albuquerque, NM 87110
Phone: 505-881-7002
email: jstew...@paceaudio.commailto:jstew...@paceaudio.com
web: http://www.paceaudio.comhttp://www.paceaudio.com/


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[RDD] no sound in Rivendell

[Jim Stewart]

Did you compile Rivendell on your Slackware system or simply install some 
binaries from somewhere?  If the later, remember that Slackware package 
management lacks dependency checking (but somehow in practice this doesn't turn 
out to be nearly the problem you would expect for Slackware), so the ldd 
(example ldd  /usr/bin/rdlibrary) tool is useful to check to see if you have 
the right libraries (and versions) installed for that binary executable.  Also 
depending on your Alsa device, often the channels are not labeled (or function) 
like they say, so you might need to play around with some of the mixer settings 
(like ALL OF THEM) to make sure you don't have something turned off.  Any 
chance you have more than one Alsa device on your system?  Also make sure you 
audio outputs are set right for each program in rdadmin, as again, they might 
default to outputs other than what you are using.  Not sure if Slackware uses 
Pulse Audio these days, but if so that is yet another place where some volume 
controls exist, but I'm not sure if this would affect Rivendell or not.  
Finally make sure the caed daemon is in fact running and/or isn't spitting out 
error in the system log as this is what handles all the audio routing (correct 
me if I'm wrong).  In fact the system log (is it /var/log/syslog under 
Slackware?) might be helpful as Rivendell tends to spit out lots of information 
about what it is doing there.



Seems to me that Slackware might be a good choice for Rivendell assuming you 
don't mind compiling it all yourself at each install/upgrade, other than the 
fact that most of the rest of us run something else so often can't be as much 
help.So why such an old version of Rivendell?



Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 20:44:30 -0400

From: David Weber dweber1...@gmail.commailto:dweber1...@gmail.com

To: 
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: [RDD] no sound in rivendell

Message-ID: 53e2cbee.1060...@gmail.commailto:53e2cbee.1060...@gmail.com

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed



I am not getting any sound in rivendell

also when I select rip a cd nothing happens I am past the segmentation faults  
the daemons are running in

Rivendell-2.2.0

I do not have jack  It was compiled for alsa I am open to any ideas as to why 
there is no sound I am running rivendell on Slackware Linux



David Weber







James Stewart
VP - Lead Technician
[small PES logo]
Pace Event Services, Inc.
2412 Monroe St. NE, Ste. A
Albuquerque, NM 87110
Phone: 505-881-7002
email: jstew...@paceaudio.commailto:jstew...@paceaudio.com
web: http://www.paceaudio.comhttp://www.paceaudio.com/


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Re: [RDD] Bug or operator error? Skipped events, no LOG Silence monitor?

[Jim Stewart]

 Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 20:29:41 +

 Van: Bernardo J Mora

 Verzonden: ?zondag? ?8? ?juni? ?2014 ?15?:?27

 Aan: 
 rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org



  (By the way, is there a silence monitor built in to RDAirplay? I noticed 
 just now it automatically started up my Aux Log at 5:54 this morning which I 
 loaded after discovering the above error...)
If you happen to be using Jack Audio with Rivendell, there is a nice, simple, 
program (a Jack Client) called Silent Jack that is just that.  You connect 
it to whatever jack channel you want to monitor, then when it trips it runs a 
command, which in our case would likely be an RML command to do something like 
reload the log, or simply close and restart RDAirplay, or start the Aux log as 
you suggested.

Our main machine uses the silence sense built into a connected Broadcast Tools 
switcher, but our backup machine simply uses Silent Jack.  Our problem is 
that RDAirplay sometimes simply crashes (shuts down) when loading a new log at 
midnight.  Both of these solutions simply restart it then starts it playing a 
few seconds later.
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[RDD] Log Edit problem or Chair to keyboard interface issue?

[Jim Stewart]

-Original Message-
Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 11:38:23 -0500
From: Alan Smith alansm...@flinn.com
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: Re: [RDD] Log Edit problem or Chair to keyboard interface issue?

 Interesting...I thought about playing around with Xming for remote Xsessions, 
 but since I am still a newbie, I just went with vnc to bring up the entire 
 desktop.  I can see some benefits of Xming, and  that is something I would 
 love to tinker with if I can get a round tuit which seems to be in short 
 supply these days.

I use Xming through SSH tunnels using putty-link (so often through the 
Internet).  It is slow, especially pulling up the Markers screen in 
rdlibrary.  It is nice to have only the applications window(s) on your desktop 
instead of an entire other desktop as with normal VNC solutions.  The staff 
likely thinks these things are native local applications as I have separate 
icons for each that auto log in and display the applications.

That said, my version 2 system (yet to actually be commissioned) has a 
separate VNC session for RDairplay (in a tightly fitting 1024x768 display), 
then another production session that has a normal XFCE window manager 
desktop.  You can always bring up the RDairplay session inside the Production 
session if you want.  

Another wild thing I am currently doing (on both existing and version2 
systems) is instead of remoting an existing X-session with X11vnc, which I 
previously found I get poor remote VNC performance with, I instead start a vnc 
session for Rivendell upon system boot, under a Rivendell user, then edited 
the settings for that user's display manager login to instead of starting a 
normal X-session with a window manager and widgets, it instead simply runs 
vncviewer for the local X session for that login on the local machine.  I get 
really good remote access performance this way and local performance is just 
fine too.  Added to that if X11 ever crashes (but never does), the rdairplay 
session would continue and you only have to log in to reconnect to it.

 I am not too crazy about databases either, but no matter how you slice it, 
 Rivendell is the BEST bang for the buck automation system, period!

I agree.  Noting that nothing is perfect, I was surprised to see that the 
feature set of Rivendell compared with expensive high-end broadcast playout 
systems.  I then leveraged the power of the Linux backend (and my own knowledge 
of it) to extend features further so that the whole studio air chain resides 
neatly in a 4' equipment rack that also includes a Presounus VSL1818 outboard 
sound engine, a BT audio switcher, EAS equipment, a subaudible tone decoder 
(would love to find a Linux software solution for this!), a remote broadcast 
CODEC, and a large UPS with extra battery banks and room for a complete backup 
Rivendell CPU (the version2 currently in my office) that swaps in easily.

I am sure there are pro's and con's of each way of doing things. One of my 
biggest fears with Rivendell though is a corrupted database beyond repair.  
You would have all this audio in /var/snd all perfectly fine, and no way to 
make use of it [i know, backups, backups, and MORE backups!].  With our 
current system, I can rebuild its entire cart library in less than 5 minutes.

I have had good luck using the RML command to do a snapshot backup of the 
database every night.  I then rsync it across the Internet to a backup system 
in another city (my office) that also keeps in sync with /var/snd such that it 
can actually go on air quickly during a complete studio failure (or a studio 
move, as recently happened), since our STL to the Transmitter site is Internet 
based.

 Don't get me wrong; I'm still LOVING Rivendell.  I find it very intuitive, 
 extremely easy [once you get past the Linux stuff], and very well laid out.

Yes once set up for them, I found common radio staff members quickly master 
day-to-day duties of it.

In my testing, I've not had a single RDAirplay crash, and I have never had 
issues with log chains.

Yea I'm thinking I have something wrong with an rdlibrary entry that crashes 
RDAirplay every time it happens to get scheduled.  I just don't know how to 
troubleshoot it.   The funny thing is that by simply restarting RDAirplay, that 
same log loads and plays just fine.

 But I am just doing a music format for now-no satellite automation yet.  
 Although currently, they are running a fairly large amount of syndicated 
 programming, and no satellite receiver, 
 so all the voice tracks for those shows are downloaded via RDCatch, which has 
 worked extremely well.

Sounds a lot like us, also no satellite syndication as the community this 
station serves is too small to be able to get very good terms of service from 
them.  We do have some syndicated programming that I have either RDCatch nicely 
downloading from the Internet or Linux backend shell scripts getting via cron 
tasks, what RDCatch can't do.   We also have some 

[RDD] Log Edit problem or Chair to keyboard interface issue?

[Jim Stewart]

From: Alan Smith alansm...@flinn.com

 A couple of times I have had the system that I recently set up get
 confused in RDAirplay on the log.  In some cases it seems to have
 jumped out of place, or most recently, it just forgot half the day.


Yep, me too.  I consider Rivendell's interaction with the MySQL database by far 
the biggest downside of Rivendell as in that is what I consistently have 
trouble with (other than steps in macros being skipped over, which is probably 
related anyway).  Oh and my RDAirplay still occasionally crashes around 
midnight when attempting chain to the next day's log, but I have a silence 
sense that catches it and relaunches RDAirplay.  On the plus side the actual 
audio playout engine (CAED) operating through Jackd has been totally amazing 
rock solid for me and I don't even use those expensive ASI sound cards.

So our staff always checks to see that a log is complete to the end of the day 
anytime a log is edited or created as sometimes it is not.  I also have 
troubles with cart numbers disappearing from buttons on RDAirplay's button 
widget from time to time.  (Note: I hate ALL databases, do any exist that are 
solid and reliable without requiring expensive service contracts with their 
manufacturers to keep them that way?)

So perhaps related to all this, since I am not using the pre-configured 
Appliance, what possible special settings for the mysql database might improve 
things for Rivendell? What db engine (such as innoDB or myISAM) should I be 
using? For me, the mySQL server resides on the same machine as all the rest of 
Rivendell, I do NOT use the Win32 programs (don't trust them due to version 
differences that usually exist with my main RD install), but instead do remote 
X sessions (using Xming) to Windows machines to bring up remote views of 
auxiliary RD programs from the main Rivendell machine.

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[RDD] Btools ACS 8.2 Plus with RD

[Jim Stewart]

My Rivendell works perfectly with a BT ACS 8.2 Plus, including all the GPIO and 
silence sense capabilities.


Under Edit TTY's, for entry Serial0, I have /dev/ttyS0 in the TTY Device 
field with 9600, None, 8, 1, and None in the rest of the fields
Than just selected Serial0 under the Edit Switcher section for the BT ACS 8.2.

Assuming you are actually sending strings out of your serial port (perhaps need 
to test with a PC on the other end):


Note that there are some different modes the BT switcher can be in. Perhaps is 
this NOT a factory new device? if so note that you can optionally hang several 
of these things on a single serial line if you enable a special addressing 
mode. When enabled you then have to specify the address of the unit you want to 
talk to on the front of each command. You may need to make sure your switcher 
is NOT in this mode as I'm thinking Rivendell doesn't support this.


Also you will find you need to put the switcher into the non-factory-default of 
Mix Mode for it to switch correctly.


If in doubt plug the BT switcher into a PC running a serial terminal program 
you are familiar with and send some raw commands yourself and see what happens. 
There is a little program called minicom available on Linux, but unsure if it 
is included with the Appliance, if not maybe you can install it with yum.



On Tuesday 20 May 2014 10:37:36 am Nathan Steele wrote:

Is there a difference with the PLUS version? I tried controlling it last
night with the setting for the ACS 8.2, no dice

Not sure anything is actually going out the seriel port. the SER light
on the switcher flashes at bootup, but then nothing when trying to test
my macro cart.

I tried playing with the seriel port settings in rdadmin also? not real
clear on whether i need to enable the seriel port there to work with the
switcher or not. tried both ways. still no dice. not sure what Im
supposed to put in the ttydevice field.

The seriel port is shown by dmesg | grep tty

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[RDD] General Clock Question

[Jim Stewart]

A lot of times, depending on your traffic software, it could be easy have 
traffic add these elements in as part of the break. If it can be done as part 
of a traffic template (usually on an hour by hour basis, if I understand 
correctly) then once it is set up, they don't have to deal with it on a day to 
day basis.



On Mon, 19 May 2014, Alan Smith wrote:

 Lets say you are a music format, and you have liners on your clock going into
 and out of an imported commercial break.

 If the break is empty, is there an easy way to have Rivendell not play both
 liners back to back?

I have one client who does this:

1) Creates a music schedule, assuming there will be no spots at all. Each
commercial break is filled with a song, and has a liner in front and
another afterwards.

2) Creates a traffic schedule.

3) Runs a script to merge the traffic schedule into the music schedule,
dropping the fill song from each break as the spots are added.

4) Imports the merged log into Rivendell. Filled breaks will run as liner,
spots, liner; unfilled breaks will run as liner, song, liner.
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[RDD] Btools ACS 8.2 Plus with RD

[Jim Stewart]

Oh, and the /dev/ttyS0 is for an original PC serial port (old Com1), if you 
are using a USB-2-Serial adapter it is likely going to show up as /dev/ttyUSB0


Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 16:55:14 -0400
From: Nathan Steele nathan.ste...@thecrossfm.com

 Under Edit TTY's, for entry Serial0, I have /dev/ttyS0 in the
 TTY Device field

That may be the problem then, like I said I wasn't sure what to put
there(is that documented anywhere?)

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[RDD] Migrating Wide Orbit to Rivendell

[Jim Stewart]

 be warned though rdimport will freeze the best of machines, I have been
 waiting an hour to get 40 songs in the dropbox, and i still cant use the
 desktop while its frozen


I also have never had a problem, but I do import to a local hard drive, and my 
final format is uncompressed audio.

In addition to rdcatch (which I'm assuming calls rdimport at some level), I 
have several scripts running throughout the day downloading and importing audio 
files on our  live rdairplay machine and rdairplay never misses a beat.  I've 
also more than once bulk imported 200+ songs on this same machine running 
rdairplay without a problem.  Oh and this machine is an old (but very reliable) 
4.3Ghz single core P4.  I think have rdimport niced down (put nice in front 
of the command) rdimport in all the scripts I've written however.


I have seen this problem (computer freezing during an intense I/O operation)  
caused by weak/failing sectors on a hard drive.  It usually plays out that only 
after about 100,000+ retries (and several seconds pass by) the sector on the 
hard drive is successfully read or wrote to.  In the meanwhile the whole 
computer freezes.


Unfortunately I've seen this problem a lot over the past 5 years with modern 
hard drives.

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[RDD] OT: Clone Appliance Hard Drive-Raid 1

[Jim Stewart]

 I have a Rivendell stand-alone based on the appliance v2.  I have a LOT
 of work invested in this, and I would like to clone the hard drive(s).

 The problem is during installation, I set up the appliance on a software Raid 
 1 array.

 I have googled, but have read mixed results on cloning Linux MD Raid.

 In my mind, it can't be that hard, but some suggest it can't be done with the 
 tools I have.

 The tools I have available to me are:

Ghost 2003 (Dos boot floppy)
Acronis True Image WD Edition
Knoppix

In my mind, if I do a sector copy, and copy one drive at a time, it
shouldn't matter if the cloning software can read the filesystem or not...


 I believe I've cloned Linux RAIDs by simply using the linux dd command on 
the raw RAID device (/dev/md0 for example).  If I remember I set up at least 
one drive of the target in RAID (say /dev/md1) and simply did the dd 
if=/dev/md0 of=/dev/md1 BS-1M thing and let it rip.  Of course you can do this 
in knoppix (need to sudo into root permissions first).
The new drives will also need a boot loader on track zero (I typically just use 
install_mbr /dev/sdx, also from knoppix) for it to boot.  I just did one 
drive because once I got it done I used the proper mdadm options to add the 
mirror drive to it.  If the new drive partition ends up being bigger than the 
original (typically the case), I just use the file system's resizing tools  to 
grow it out to the size of the drive.  In knoppix there should be the nice GUI 
front ends for this (gparted, or KDE's Partition Manager) that makes this a 
snap!

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[RDD] NEW PLATFORM

[Jim Stewart]

My biggest concern with Google, as it relates to this, is that they have a 
history of significantly changing or even discontinuing some of their services 
giving only a short notice.  I am cautiously okay with their data mining as I 
feel any serious abuse of this would jeopardize their business, and they are 
smart enough to know this.


Yes we have a Wiki, but unfortunately much of the really useful information 
from this news group doesn't make over to the wiki.

I too am guilty of this and keep reminding myself that I need to contribute my 
knowledge/experience to it someday as I feel I've done some interesting things 
with Rivendell.



So I would vote for something more easily (or at least obviously) searchable.  
I say that without perhaps knowing all the different ways one can possibly 
search this forum.
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[RDD] RIvendell Progress Report 04\29\14

[Jim Stewart]

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 12:46:14 + (UTC)
From: Rual Thompson myspectacularjour...@gmail.com
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: [RDD] RIvendell Progress Report 04\29\14)


I was able to get the audio working after a little fudging around, however i
still have not located the JACK audio that is supposed to come preinstalled,


As I don't actually use the Appliance, I don't know what exactly is installed 
and preconfigured, but look for a program called qjackctl.  If it isn't in a 
menu somewhere, try typing it in either a search box or a command line and see 
what happens.  It is a very nice graphical interface to the Jack Audio system.


Tomorrow i will make a test library of 30 songs and some imaging files and
throw it in riv, then after i am happy with the results ill TRY to import it
into powergold, lots of info on how to import FROM powergold to RIV but NONE
on importing (merging) INTO PG

I also am still trying to find rdimport in the applications menu, though if
memory serves i think that was used in terminal, not sure if that changed,


First lets make sure you have an understanding of what rdimport does and 
doesn't do:  It is NOT the program that imports the logs from PowerGold, 
rdlogmanager does this, but it is configured from the Manage Services section 
of  rdadmin (you have to have a service added to configure first).

There is a template in rdadminservices for Powergold, but just in case it 
doesn't work right with your version of the program, it is very easy to count 
up the columns of the exported PG log and enter the data yourself.


rdimport is the backend program that actually imports your audio into the 
cart library.  It is normally run in the background when you do certain actions 
in rdlibrary but is often very useful to run stand-alone (and yes it is a 
command line program) to do things such as bulk importing of a bunch of audio 
files.

at a command prompt you can enter rdimport --help to get usage instructions.  
Consider using good combinations of the cart chunk, metadata-pattern 
matching, segue-level, and segue-length to really save a lot of time.  When 
we started our station on Rivendell, I bulk imported 1200 songs in less than an 
hour and had them all titled, normalized, and had reasonable seque points set 
on them.


After this is done we will begin to implement our custom remote voicetrack
script through windows that was done back in 2006,


This one would be interesting.  I would think since Rivendell uses some sort of 
http protocol to communicate between various parts of the software suite, I 
would think one could write a nice web based application that is simply served 
from the Rivendell system itself.  As I don't know quite how all this works, 
I've been afraid to mess with this much.

The other interesting development is the usage of the opus audio codec in Jack 
audio (netjack specifically) which promises to deliver low latency audio to 
the remote end which would be a perfect solution for remote voice tracking.  I 
am unsure if the Windows version of Jack has seen  the Opus update to Jack yet 
or if it even works.  If anyone has an information on this I would like to know 
as we are delivering our audio stream to an FM transmitter site over the 
Internet, currently using Darkice+IcecastWindows-mplayer (using Ogg-Vorbis) 
but would love to move it over to jack audio's netjack and opus someday to 
minimize delay.


Of course I have VNC remote access working very well on our Rivendell system, 
not that in Linux you can have several sessions of this on the same computer so 
you can have one specific to voice tracking.  I've also done remote X tunneled 
through ssh, (and yes running an x-server called Xming on windows) which 
works, but would probably be too sluggish over the Internet for voice tracking 
purposes.


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[RDD] Fwd: Re: Audio Out Problem

[Jim Stewart]

Does the sound go away in the middle of the song/cart or is it that some carts 
simply don't play where others do?  Does the sound come back once you start 
playing a new cart?  I'm just wondering if it is a sound routing problem 
internal to the ASI card since these things are quite complicated internally.
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[RDD] Log Skipping Hard Start Time Events

[Jim Stewart]

I also have never had this problem and we use hard time events all the time.

I have had (and still do) problems with, at least macro events, that are too 
short (time wise) that things can be skipped over, but that doesn't seem to be 
your case either.

Other places to look for hints to what is going on is:


1)  Generate an as played log, as in setup a log that records all events, 
(in rdadmin), then go and generate one of them (in rdlogmanager) for a day you 
had problems.  It will produce a simple text file somewhere that you can easily 
share with us.

2)  Logs of Rivendell events show up in system logs anyway.  Depending on 
your Linux Distribution, it should show up a few places so try these commands 
and see what you find:

a.   sudo less  -S  /var/log/syslog

b.  sudo less -S /var/log/messages

and look for various caed events so to see what and when things are 
happening.  (less is a simple pager, you can use Pg-up/dn to navigate around 
or /searchtext to search for things, // does a search next.   Do man 
less for more info.)


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[RDD] Rivendell Startup script after login

[Jim Stewart]

For some reason (as I would expect your method would be correct), I found you 
*don't* put the \ before the ! at the end.



Also make sure the rdairplay had enough time to not only start up but to load a 
log to play before issuing the PN command.  In my case (but then I'm running on 
some old surplus Pentium-4 semi-server-class machines, and am starting up 
three stream encoders too), I have to wait closer to 20 seconds for my startup 
script to reliably work.



Also beware that if the Rivendell daemons load in the wrong order (caed  
ripcd), then some things like this will work but others won't.  I was 
scratching my head on this for quite a while last year.



Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 12:59:48 +0100

From: Alessio Elmi alessio_e...@hotmail.commailto:alessio_e...@hotmail.com

To: User discussion about the Rivendell Radio Automation System

 
 rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: [RDD] Rivendell Startup script after login



Therefore I wrote a file startup.sh which is recalled by Startup

Application menu in gnome. It is responsible of starting Jackd,

launching RDAirPlay (and RD daemons) and play the first track of the

loaded log. Something like this



#!/bin/bash

/usr/bin/jackd -R -ddummy -r44100 

sleep 5

/usr/bin/rdairplay 

sleep 5

/usr/bin/rmlsend PN\ 1\!



It needs to be extended with other applications (processing, encoder,

stream etc) but it fails in rmlsend step. Can you guess why? If I

give that last line in the terminal it works ok, but it fails during

startup process.

I added 'echo' for debugging and I know it reaches that last line. It

simply doesn't produce results.

Can you help me?



Thank you



Alessio


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Re: [RDD] Documentation on implementing GPIOs?

[Jim Stewart]

I also have good success with those USB to RS232 adapters which is amazing 
since I've looked at the very ugly waveforms these things produce due to lack 
of power from their built-in DC-DC converters.

However trying to toggle control pins (such as CTS or DTR) in a non-RS232  way 
might be a little hit-and-miss with these as some chip sets seem to do this 
better than others.  Then it might be tricky to actually drive much of anything 
with the signals due to the waveforms described above.

At another radio station I work for, I rigged up an air-check skimmer audio 
logger machine out of an old (very old) computer running Linux and triggered it 
from a parallel port using somebody's program called something like bit pin  or 
something like that that simply allowed to read or set pins on the port.  In 
fact I also used this program for even another radio station where I rigged up 
a primitive automation system for satellite delivered content using Linux and a 
GPIO controlled audio switcher that they used for a few months as I was 
building their real radio studio (I wasn't up to speed on Rivendell at that 
time).


Finally, my opinion of Arduino is good until you need to do networking with 
them at which point I think a Raspberry Pi becomes more cost effective (plus 
you then get power of Linux!).


-Original Message-
From: Brian McKelvey [mailto:theturtl...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 9:44 AM
To: Rob Landry
Cc: Jim Stewart; rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: Re: [RDD] Documentation on implementing GPIOs?

USB-Serial gives you an RS-232 port, but you still have to do something with 
that port, connect it to something to interface with, for example.  Are you 
saying that you can use some of the RS-232 pins as GPIO directly?

Brian

Sent from my iPhone

 On Mar 5, 2014, at 3:36 AM, Rob Landry 41001...@interpring.com wrote:
 
 There's no need; you can use a USB-to-serial adapter. I am doing this on 
 several stations.
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[RDD] Documentation on implementing GPIOs?

[Jim Stewart]

If could also use an audio switcher (which can also be nicely controlled by 
Rivendell), I've been using the GPIOs from a Broadcast Tools ACS 8.2 (8 input 
by 2 output audio switcher) that also has 16 GPIs and GPOs plus a Silence 
Sensor that interacts with Rivendell nicely.  I've been using it all with good 
success.  I have a remote broadcast setup using a Telos Z/IP-One that also can 
transmit GPIOs across an Internet link and have it set up to do functions like 
Go live after next event, Return to Automation, that also turns on tally 
LED's at the remote site that say things like You will go live next and you 
ARE live on the air.  It all works very well except for my recent buggy macro 
issues I reported about a couple of weeks ago, but none of that seems to be 
related to GPIOs, just timing bugs in Rivendell.

So the switcher is about $1000 USD, but since they have been made for a long 
time, they (or their earlier version SS-8.2) are seen out on the used market 
from time to time too.  For us it been a one box, does lots of nice things 
solution.  http://www.broadcasttools.com/view_product.php?pid=145

For those who are still wanting to roll your own, I would think it would be 
nice if it could use the Axia protocol that seems to be somewhat integrated 
into Rivendell, as once you master that you could also control lots of other 
Axia compatible products too.  I don't know much of this as in if you need some 
sort of Axia master device to make it all work or not.

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[RDD] Voicetracking over a slow connection - what works

[Jim Stewart]

My dream setup would be to use Jack Audio's Netjack over the Internet using 
the new Opus Codec so to have very low latency pre and post cut audio 
transported near-real-time to the remote site during voice tracking, then a 
simple rsync script that moves the recorded audio back to the main Rivendell 
library.  Anyone want to tackle this?  The most I got working was the older 
CELT codec working with Jack audio over the Internet about a year ago, but it 
wasn't as reliable as I had hoped, but probably good enough for voice tracking. 
 There might also be a problem (for us anyway) as it looks like Opus currently 
doesn't not support the 44.1kbs  sample rate that we have all of our library 
and have our Jack Audio running at. But maybe this would be a simple patch to 
fix?  I would hate to have to resample.

As far as the database issues, I have had good success (despite warnings in the 
Rivendell documentation saying otherwise) using the RML command to snapshot the 
database at about 1:30am then rsyncing it off to the remote site so that it is 
somewhat current for the next morning's use.  It would be nice to know how to 
restore the database via an automatic script at the remote end (been using 
rdadmin manually).  Perhaps I can use a mysql restore command of some sort?  I 
don't know mysql at all, have had issue with it, am afraid of it, and finally 
consider it Rivendell's worst attribute.

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Re: [RDD] more segfaults errors

[Jim Stewart]

Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2014 14:24:21 +0100

From: Rick rickc...@home.nlmailto:rickc...@home.nl

To: User discussion about the Rivendell Radio Automation System


rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: [RDD] more segfaults errors

Message-ID: 5309f685.7030...@home.nlmailto:5309f685.7030...@home.nl

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed





Ø  Can I use silentjack to start RDAirplay automaticaly and how is this done?


Sure, I do.  Our main system uses the silence since on a broadcast tools 8.2 
switch, but we have a backup that uses silentjack:

I startup silentjack with a line like this:

silentjack -q -c rivendell_0:playout_0L -n Silence_Alarm -p 5 -g 60 
silence_alarm

So this assumes I'm listening to Rivendell_0:playout_0L as yours might be 
different, then it calls a script I wrote called silence_alarm.

In silence_alarm is a lot of logic to sort through different issues that can 
cause silence on our station (such as problem Internet feeds), but here is the 
part that handles a crashed rdairplay:

#!/bin/sh
if ( ! ps -C rdairplay  /dev/null 21 ) ; then
  rdairplay 
  sleep 7
  echo LC BLACK Restarted: `date +'%b-%d %T'`'!'  /dev/shm/restart
  rmlsend --from-file=/dev/shm/restart
  sleep 15
  rmlsend PB\ 1!
  sleep 30
fi

Save this to a file somewhere like /usr/local/bin and mark is executable with 
chmod +x silence_alarm

So what this does is checks to see if rdairplay is running, and if it isn't, it 
starts it.  I also have it leaving a message about this in /dev/shm/restart 
(which is a ramdisk-like space on my Debian system, you may need to save it 
elsewhere), and then also sends it to the label area of rdairplay so that 
there is notice that this happened and when.
Finally after the rdairplay gets running and its log automatically gets 
reloaded, it starts is playing again with the PB 1! command.


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[RDD] Macro Woes

[Jim Stewart]

First one last [ irrelevant ] comment on the Old-timers and rdairplay thread 
and old triple decks:

Among the additional alignment steps required (as discussed) in the routine 
maintenance of these things was the issue of a typical station using carts in 
those days could live without a single deck being out for service, but it was 
often a big deal when they lost three at a time.  Of course now it is much 
worse as a station's single computer play-out system going down pretty much 
knocks them totally off the air unless an emergency backup system is designed 
for.  This leads to my current issue as in I was running off our backup all 
last night as I was figuring out a new problem:


So I recently upgraded our on air system from version 2.5.1 to 2.7 (using the 
Tryphon packages).   All seemed to go well until the staff started using some 
of the macros I have assigned to lots of buttons on the rdairplay button widget 
panels and some GPI's.

So I'm doing a lot of slick looking stuff.  I have a lot of buttons that toggle 
states as in toggle between two different macro calls, changing names and 
colors as they do and often putting text up in the Label area of RDAirplay 
and even sending some GPO's to far end remote equipment all while commanding 
Jack Audio to change some audio  routes around.

The ongoing problem I've had with Rivendell and macros is that with certain 
order and combinations of macro commands, certain command steps in a macro tend 
to get skipped over unless I put delays (sleep SP statements) between them.  
I had all this fine-tuned (put sleep statements in where they appeared to be 
needed) with 2.5.1, but then when I updated to 2.7 much of this changed and I 
had to put additional sleep statements in most of my more complicated macros, 
but then found I could reduce or remove other existing ones.  This experience 
makes be fearful on doing future in-place updates as last night it created some 
hardship for the radio station during a broadcast of a sporting event that is 
usually wonderfully automated using Rivendell and its rich macro language.

Typically the commands I had recent problems with were combinations that 
included PM, LC, PC, and PE commands.  I used to have trouble with jack 
routing commands (JC  JD) but those appeared to have gone away.  Is this a 
known problem?  Is there a best practice (like last night I put SP 50! 
around the above commands and it seemed to always make them all work again) 
when writing macros that should prevent this problem in the future?

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Re: [RDD] Old-timers and rdairplay

[Jim Stewart]

Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2014 18:24:35 -0600
From: Keith Thelen kthe...@kanabec.net
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: [RDD] Old-timers and rdairplay
Message-ID: 6c1add1f-c327-4d08-a84a-479305c17...@kanabec.net
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

Hello all!

I'm currently planning a Rivendell install that would take the place of a 
stack of cart machines and paper logs (no joke). The goal is to 

Can you even buy blank carts anymore?  Not to mention new pinch rollers for the 
machines?

eliminate the flaky cart equipment and permit automation in certain dayparts, 
while still accommodating existing skills and habits during live shifts.

Trouble is, I'm not sure how best to recreate the two triple deckers model.
(as an engineer, I always hated these things, three separate machines were so 
much better!)

I'm going to by trying to encourage you to move away from this model, see 
below.  I know it can be hard to teach old dogs new tricks, but in this case 
I've seen it done successfully over and over again.

The log outputs in rdairplay are limited to two per log, which would make it 
rather difficult to pull off, say, a triple segue in Manual mode (which is 
likely to happen).

Agreed, but for other play-out systems that do this (separate outputs per last 
3 cued up carts), in practice it doesn't work out as well as you'd think as 
it has a similar problem to your moving carts up the log confusion problem you 
also describe below.  

 How are others with live music-based formats dealing with the two output 
 limitation?

Okay, here is what I think works best, and have used it on lots of similar 
play-out systems (like WideOribit/Scott-Studios, BSI, Enco, etc.)

First I have the main log simply play out of one output, as in one channel on 
the mixer board.  Everywhere that staff has demanded that I give them separate 
channels per cart, they have NEVER actively used it as it is simply too hard to 
(under a fast paced live situation) figure out which cart is playing out of 
which output at any one time, so they tend to adjust all three levels at the 
same time just to be sure!

Secondly, use the right-hand pane button panel (for this discussion I'm 
referring to the right-hand pane button widget of rdairplay, not the separate 
rdpanel program)  for jock's bed music, sound effects or other elements that 
they might want to play at any time without having to schedule them (or insert 
them) in the main log.  That is what this is really for, notice each jock can 
have their own customized panel too.  This panel needs its own audio out and 
mixing channel on the board (likely more than one).

Finally don't fire carts directly off the touch screen cart icons (at least not 
normally) because of reasons you listed below (too confusing).  Instead use the 
space-bar play-next function or better yet wire a GPI remote start wired to the 
remote start for that channel on your mixing board (if you have a traditional 
broadcast mixing board with this capability).  Optionally you can configure one 
of the buttons on the button panel to be the play next button (and color code 
it special as well).

Note there now is a distinction between carts that appear on a scheduled log 
(music, commercials, liners, Ids, etc.) and Live element carts such as sound 
effects, music beds, etc. that probably didn't exist for you before.  These can 
(and probably will) overlap in some cases.

So in practice it goes like this:   Scheduled programming (like music) gets to 
a live break in the log where the system goes to live assist mode, as the 
music fades the jock has his/her microphone channel already open and may choose 
to talk at any time, then optionally fire off some bed music, as well as some 
sound effects, or imaging elements  (you might need more than one audio 
channel for the button panel  so to control more than one element separately).  
The jock has individual control of either the sum of the music that might be 
playing (either fading in or out) on one control (consistently) and at least 
one control for their extra elements, and so can fade them in/out separately 
as they see fit.  At the end of their live break they simply hit the start 
button and it takes up playing (and they can continue to talk over it if they 
want to) the log until the next scheduled live break.

I think most radio stations that actually do live segments, (too many just 
voice track these days, but don't get me started), do something similar to 
this regardless of the play-out software used.  I've witnessed  many radio 
stations making your transition in the past, granted there was initial kicking 
and screaming but they seemed to quickly got used to it, then for those who 
were actually able to keep their jobs after the automation system went in, they 
grew to love the system as compared to old troublesome carts, leaving uncued 
and/or non-stopping cart problems in the past! 

Also related: during initial experimentation (using a 

[RDD] rmlsend

[Jim Stewart]

I have yet to routinely send rmls between computers, so therefore have not 
experienced your reliability problems.  UDP, by design, is not reliable, so you 
might consider sending the same command a couple of times to be sure.  I'm 
thinking it won't hurt to command an audio reroute a couple of times, or worse 
case pole the BT switcher for current route (in a script) if you have fade 
issues during switching.



One thing I've done is use the Silence Sense function of the BT switcher to 
trigger a script that takes action on a silence condition.  In our case 
sometimes RDAIRPLAY shuts down just after midnight when attempting to chain to 
the next day's log.  So one thing the script does is tests to see if RDAIRPLAY 
is running (ps -C rdairplay) and restarts it and starts it playing if it isn't. 
 The other silence condition for us is when we are receiving a web stream for 
rebroadcast and it drops out for some reason, my script also detects this and 
takes measures to attempt to correct for it.  Perhaps you can do something 
similar?  If you happen to be using Jack Audio, you can also get a silence 
alarm from the silent Jack application, I'm using this on a backup Rivendell 
system.





Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 15:41:01 -0500 (EST)

From: Rob Landry 41001...@interpring.commailto:41001...@interpring.com

To: 
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: [RDD] rmlsend

Message-ID: 
alpine.DEB.2.00.1402171527290.22011@pythonmailto:alpine.DEB.2.00.1402171527290.22011@python

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII





I have an unusual situation: station A has three studios and six remote feeds 
(via Barix boxes). Rivendell selects which one to put on the air via a 
Broadcast Tools 16x4 switcher.



Station B is in another market, but co-owned with station A. It has one locakl 
studio and a hard drive full of pre-recorded stuff but takes programming from 
station A for part of the day.



To get station A on the air, its Rivendell box tell sits local switcher to put 
the feed from A on line, and then it rmlsends to station A's Rivendell box to 
select the correct studio or Barix feed to send to B.



Most of the time it works, but sometimes it doesn't; the ripcd log at A shows 
thst the UDP datagrams from B don't always arrive and if one is missed, B gets 
silence instead of the desired program.



So, today I set up a couple of Perl scripts to establish a TCP connection to A 
to transmit the desired rml, which is then rmlsended to localhost at A. That 
has worked 100% of the time so far, but I'm curious how others here have 
nandled this problem.





Rob

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[RDD] RDMarkerSet is awesome idea but here is a wish list

[Jim Stewart]

The idea of being able to rework portions of an existing library in a bulk 
manor is great!

That said, here are some ideas to make RDMarkerSet a lot more useful to us:


1)  Allow an optional cart ranges to be specified as well as the group.   
This will help deal with when a staff member imports new material into the 
library, to an existing group, but then does something wrong that can be 
corrected in a bulk manor.

2)  Add the ability to change more markers, specifically the segue markers  
would be good for us (recalculate to a different dB fade level), but I'm sure 
the ability to change other markers would be useful for others too.  I'd also 
like the ability to set that Don't fade on Segue option in a bulk manor too 
(granted someone suggested just doing this in the database directly, but I 
would sure be nice if a database cheat sheet with tricks like this made it to 
the wiki for us that don't know SQL).

Related to that setting segue levels based on dB of fade, it is real nice 
having that in the command-line version of rdimport as it gives an excellent 
starting point when importing music (usually gets it good enough about 90% of 
the time for us, a real time saver!).  I would be nice if an automatic segue 
setting function like this can be added to the normal GUI import section of 
rdlibrary as a settable default like the trim levels.  Then if that isn't 
enough, it would also be nice if these settings could be different per groups, 
for example we don't want to automatically segue commercial traffic!

Really I'm happy with how I've been able to automate so many processes in 
Rivendell/Linux that I haven't been able to do for other broadcasters I work 
for that use other premium playout systems.


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Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 10, Issue 1

[Jim Stewart]

Although I don't use the ASI cards, or the Appliance (use the Tryphon builds 
instead), but can't you just use Jack Connection Kit to mono-up the stereo 
channels?  I do this all the time with my setup for remote broadcast IFB 
usage as well as for a low-bandwidth, low-delay preview stream we use for 
internal use.   Since Jack is all synchronized (one reason why it is so picky 
about things), it mixes things quite nicely by simply jacking multiple sources 
to one destination.



In fact Jack has worked so well for us, we have yet to actively use our 
Broadcast Tools 8x2 router for anything except the GPIO's (both in and out), 
and as a silence-sense device.  I only have our production room routed to it as 
an emergency source which has never been used (as we also have a backup 
Rivendell system - try that on SS32 without doubling your cost!).



Message: 1

Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2014 11:08:31 -0600

From: Brandon Sossamon 
brandon.sossa...@gmail.commailto:brandon.sossa...@gmail.com

To: 
Rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:Rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org


rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 10, Issue 1

Message-ID:


CAHOChRo_Ay35voA666vUSg+jzLDbu=27af81mvrc1+fwqaj...@mail.gmail.commailto:CAHOChRo_Ay35voA666vUSg+jzLDbu=27af81mvrc1+fwqaj...@mail.gmail.com

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1



@Cowboy: Thanks for the tips!  That will come in handy!  With a name like 
Cowboy, there's only one way to take you! ;)



@Fred:  I rebuilt an old box that had SS32 on it.  All new guts but I kept the 
ASI6114!  That being said, I posed this question in an earlier email, I'm 
assuming Rivendell comes with the drivers for this card but does it also come 
with ASIControl?  The reason I ask is I am running my station mono and would 
like to run the card in mono mode instead of building a bunch of resistive 
networks to knock it down.  Also, I'm installing from the Appliance CD you gave 
me last JAN which is 1.0.0-x86_64.  After installing it on other machines, it 
looks like RD upgrades to v.2 with updates but keeps the KDE3 and CentOS 5.



I'm about to start the install now.

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Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 10, Issue 1

[Jim Stewart]

Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 13:01:05 -0800 (PST)

From: Rick rj...@yahoo.commailto:rj...@yahoo.com

To: 
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

 
 rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 10, Issue 1

Message-ID:

 
 1391461265.59027.yahoomail...@web164805.mail.gq1.yahoo.commailto:1391461265.59027.yahoomail...@web164805.mail.gq1.yahoo.com

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1







Cowboy,

Is it correct to say you're advising strictly on the traditional analog 
physical output realm?

I have to say, I'm intrigued by Jim's virtual approach using Jack!



I would think so.  In the physical world when you tie two or more outputs 
together they will tend to fight each other as in there could be times when 
one channel is trying to pull the output to a +10 Volts while another is trying 
to pull it the opposite direction to a -10 volts.   In practice with low 
powered amplifier outputs, as in ones NOT meant for driving speakers and 
headphones, this usually doesn't blow things up, but can cause distortion 
because the amplifiers typically get their internal feedback networks all out 
of whack in the fight.   The original post mentioned using a resistive 
network which minimizes the fight to be within the output impedance 
capabilities of the amplifiers being summed, which works fine other than it 
results in a slightly weaker signal on the output.



In JackAudio's virtual patch bay, there is no fight only simple arithmetic 
going on.  No feedback networks to protect or actual transistors being forced 
to sink more current than they were designed to.   If the writers of Jack Audio 
had a problem with combining signals in this way, I would imagine they wouldn't 
allow you to do so!



We have an 8x2 switch as well, and are gradually using it more as we mature 
(we're a fledgling community radio station only now going into our 3rd year).



The Rivendell system integrates with it very nicely!  But you first have to 
define the BT 8.2 in RDAdmin.  I already mentioned I'm making full use of the 
GPIO's and Silence Sense functions.  As far as the primary functions (switching 
audio signals), the macro commands in Rivendell do this quite nicely for 
example: ST 0 3 2! will switch switcher #0 (first of many switcher devices 
you might have) input #3 to output #2.  If I remember, a quirk in this is that 
you need to put the BT 8.2 into mix mode via internal DIP switch for this to 
work correctly.  Rivendell automatically removes the previous source for you (I 
guess providing some sort of cross fade or something, again we haven't used 
this function much!).   Once you simply write a bunch simple macros to do 
whatever switching you need, simply either assign them to buttons or schedule 
them in logs.  I have my macros changing colors of any buttons so you can tell 
at a glance which one you last chose (at expense of a slightly complicated 
macros).



Along with some recent studio improvements, we're looking at additional usage 
of the 8x2 switch, which initially included a graphical-something to click on 
to perform an 8x2 switch operation.? The initial thought was an icon approach 
in Winblows, with the associated RS-232 signal wiring back (or serial over 
CATx) to the switch, but another idea has emerged: an internal PHP/web-based 
interface.? This would be platform-independent (implemented in Linux) with 
the RS-232 wiring simplified down to the web server-to-switch.? Provides more 
flexible access within the station to the 8x2 switch.? Add access controls as 
desired.? So far, I'm liking the idea :)



Or just use Rivendell, it works really well.  You can add your macros to the 
little RD softkey program, rdcartslots, or rdpanel too if you wish, or even run 
the macros directly out of rdlibrary in a pinch if you need.



Cheers,

Rick QuendunKMUZ Engineering

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Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 10, Issue 1

[Jim Stewart]

Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 17:10:05 -0500

From: Cowboy c...@cwf1.commailto:c...@cwf1.com

To: 
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 10, Issue 1

Message-ID: 
201402031710.05655.c...@cwf1.commailto:201402031710.05655.c...@cwf1.com

Content-Type: text/plain;  charset=iso-8859-1





Personally, I always liked using a single channel balanced input,  and feeding 
L+ and R- into to it, to obtain L+R out and let the  differential input do 
what it does !

Hey I do that!   It doesn't always work perfectly as it depends on impedances 
of the inputs and outputs a little, and of course only works with electronic 
balanced outputs (two differential amp outputs, no transformer).

Also it sure confuses people that come in behind me, so I tend to only do in 
places where nobody is likely to find it!


Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 15:18:15 -0800 (PST)

From: Rick rj...@yahoo.commailto:rj...@yahoo.com

To: 
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org


rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 10, Issue 1

Message-ID:


1391469495.86737.yahoomail...@web164801.mail.gq1.yahoo.commailto:1391469495.86737.yahoomail...@web164801.mail.gq1.yahoo.com

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii



Virtual idea sounds great with phase check being critical.

For Jim's virtual approach, I would think there should be an effective 
baseline phase test one could employ.



Something along the lines of L+R phase test audio == virtual summing == 
check result for phase (something simple  consistent).

I'm envisioning the output could be a simple audio/listen test, and/or output 
to a file (.WAV for example), and pull up in Audacity for a visual check?



I've never checked it this closely (I've got an Oscilloscope on my bench I 
could use, but never felt the need), but one thing for sure I've never heard 
the slipping/rolling phase problems with JackAudio as I used to when mono-ing 
stereo sources that came from old fashioned tape playback!  Really unless you 
want to employ a fancy phase chaser device or software to continuously 
correct the source before summing, mixing signals with JackAudio  seems to work 
fine.



Then again, I only  do this mix-2-mono stuff for IFB feeds, and other 
monitoring needs (I have Cue buttons on RDAirplay that gets creative with my 
normal stereo studio monitor speakers - Did I ever tell you Rivendell allowed 
by to build a broadcast studio without a traditional physical mixing console? 
We even have one, I just never had a good reason to install it yet!), and 
low-grade (internal use) preview streams.



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Re: [RDD] Audio Processing -- was -- normalization

[Jim Stewart]

I agree that the default configuration of a typical Omnia or Optimod product 
will try to compress out all the dynamics of the original content, but many of 
these at least have some presets for things like Classical Music or perhaps 
even Talk Radio, that could serve as a starting point to get where you need 
to go.  Then one would likely have to learn how to adjust these boxes further 
to really get what you desire (I expect a default Talk Radio preset would 
still be too processed for your purpose).

I can't find the comment that resulted in the A Compeller does that? comment, 
but it is a dual channel (stereo) single-band compressor that can be adjusted 
to be fast to provide somewhat heavy processing or slow to just provide 
consistent leveling (AGC).  I think it works really well.  It also has all the 
gating functions I talked about to prevent some side effects compressor/AGC 
units that don't have this ability.  A LPFM transmitter probably at least has a 
final limiting stage to keep the modulation legal, but you should check for 
sure.  That said you may not like the sound of it if you hit this limiter too 
much.  You should also make sure the LPFM box also has the pre-emphasis curve 
appropriate for your country's standards.  If any of this is missing, the LPFM 
manufacturer then expects you to use an outboard processor like the Optimod or 
Omnia (there are many others too) box for this.   If you run the station in 
true mono mode the signal will go a *LOT* further, but some people might 
wonder why the stereo light doesn't light on their receivers.

So side-chain may be a lesser known term for the control signal (a DC level 
in the old analog days) that commands the audio stages as to what amount of 
audio gain it should provide at any moment.  Sophisticated compressors often 
add a lot of smarts to this signal by varying the speed of how it reacts to 
certain signals, whether or not it should be linked to some degree to another 
related signal (such as the other channel in a stereo pair), or finally when it 
should simply hold at a current level during a brief period of silence (as in 
my side-chain gate function mentioned earlier).  The 1st stage of those 
expensive Omnia and Optimod processors generally do all this too, but perhaps 
some LPFM transmitters with simple/little/no processing will not so a Compeller 
might be a simpler/cheaper choice for you as long as the LPFM transmitter will 
take care of the pre-emphasis, stereo generation (if desired) and final 
limiting for you.

Finally as it sounds like you are willing to go through each audio file 
separately, perhaps you can find and use the processing effects found in 
whatever editing software you are using to deal with your problem that way?  
Finding a compressor/AGC effect that can be adjusted to do what you want would 
be the key.

If you like the Orban 424 processor recommendation mentioned earlier, perhaps 
you can find a used one?  My worry is that since this is quite an old product, 
that you should get one that someone has fully refurbished.  I worry that 
they might use hard-to-find LDR (a calibrated incandescent light  photocell 
combination) modules that burn out at times.  I've also had problems with 
noisy/intermittent controls that are on the front of these units.
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Re: [RDD] Audio Processing -- was -- normalization (Alan Peterson)

[Jim Stewart]

I think ideally you need a simple and slow AGC-like compressor that has a 
side-chain gate so that it can be adjusted so it doesn't pump up the level 
during silence periods that are supposed to exist in spoken word.

I don't know what kind of Radio station you are running, but you likely will 
have some sort of processing needed for guarantee legal operation (as well as 
generating a proper composite signal if an FM) which might be able to be able 
to be adjusted to do this already.  If you need to buy one, perhaps the lowest 
priced Omnia or Optimod products (appropriate for your type of station) would 
work once properly adjusted to do what you want.  Otherwise my vote is an Aphex 
Compeller, that I think can be slowed down enough to give the processing you 
desire.  It certainly has the side-chain gating you need.  Overall it is an 
excellent single-band AGC/Leveler product but does not provide final radio 
broadcast limiting needed for legal operation.

If you like to try to do it in software inside your Rivendell box, and have 
Jack Audio running, there are lots of processor plugins (like ones previously 
mentioned in this thread) that can be used.  I'm using a simple single-band 
compressor for a web-streamed version of our FM station and have it working 
great for our purposes (my exact choice would not be best for you as it has no 
gate, but you might be able to find one that does).
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[RDD] undocumented features

[Jim Stewart]

 Does anybody know whether this is solved by using an external video card?

My thoughts would be to first try tweaking features/options for your video card 
in xorg.conf.   What kind of video card is in the computer?
Information can be gotten from:
# lspci
(from a shell prompt, and see what kind of video it has), but better yet is to 
look at the output of  less /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

Note that once you figure out what Xorg video driver is being loaded, you 
should be able to do:
# man video driver
Examples: man intel
  man nouveau
  man radeon

And get a list of options that you can use to try to get more stable operation.

Finally, what OS version are you using, what version of Xorg, What version of 
the Linux Kernel?

Also note that many video systems, such as ones that are/were considered high 
performance tend to wear out (or wear out the power supplies driving them) 
because they take lots of power, and make lots of heat, so therefore are often 
short-lived.

PS:  I have been running on a couple if different variations of Intel 
integrated video system from the last few years just fine.
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[RDD] Auto Trim Setting

[Jim Stewart]

If someone is planning to look at this code, here is another feature request:

Because I use the command-line mode of rdimport to import music in bulk, It 
would be nice to be able to turn off the Fade on Segue flag as a command line 
option too.

Although I'm sure it is a lot more work, it would also be nice to be able to do 
bulk changes like this in rdlibrary too.  For example, a way to do multiple 
selections then change various parameters found in the Edit Markers section 
such as the above mentioned flag, and Cut Gain.  It would also be nice to be 
able to be able to recompute then set segue start points and cut start points 
based on new changes in thresholds or fixed defaults in some sort of quick or 
bulk way too.
While I'm on a role, here is another one:  In the Edit Clocks section of 
rdlogmanager, it would be nice to click on the actual slice in the pie chart to 
bring up the properties of the event like you do from the linear list next to 
it.  At the very least it would be nice if after making a change, if the list 
would stay scrolled where you last left it instead of always returning to the 
top.

Hey, but in general Rivendell has been working quite well for us.  I did solve 
an earlier problem I was having with the RML commands JC and JD.  It turns 
out that if you aren't careful with the order that you load ripcd and caed 
(as in you should load caed first)  then most everything will appear to work 
normally except for JC and JD!  I find it odd that this was the only effect 
of this I could find.

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Re: [RDD] JACK-able audio processor?

[Jim Stewart]

I'm getting good results using a plug-in with the jack rack  container and a 
plugin called Simple Compressor (RMS Envelope Tracking)

Here are advantages:
1) Lightweight and customizable,  by using jack rack  container program I can 
stack other simple elements such as a make-up gain part afterwards to bring 
the level back up after compression.
2) You can also build it out to be a multiband processor using stages of 
filters in front of them then simply mixing the outputs together using Jack.  I 
did a 3-band processor but never spent the time to tweak the settings to get it 
sounding super-sweat, (I did get quite loud and heavily processed however) .  
I only *want* a single-band, somewhat-fast-AGC-like compressor on our stream 
anyway. 
3) Free
4) Available In Debian's repository (probably Ubuntu's too),  haven't check 
Centos for you Appliance users.

Here are some disadvantages
1) Very Cryptic numeric-only parameter entry.  That said here is what I am 
using and happy with good performance for music and live sports on our stream:
Threshold: 0.02, Compression Ratio: 0.11, Attack: 0.0006, Decay: 6.000.  I 
followed it with a Simple Amplifier plugin set for a gain of 26db.  So this 
might be a good starting point for you.
2) Being a simple compressor it has no gate in the side-chain so it can 
really pump-up during long periods of silence, but that that hasn't been a 
problem for us.
 
I did stumble across another free simple jack-compatible compressor a while 
back that has an much nicer GUI, but I forgot then name, but remember I 
installed it on a computer somewhere, I only have to remember which one.

I can't publish this web stream for our FM station as it is primarily for our 
internal use only as we aren't licensed to play our music on the Internet, 
(only our local sporting events but that goes through another service that 
re-transcodes to a lower quality public stream).  You can Email me and I might 
be able to sneak the URL to you if you keep it to yourself.  (it's just a so-so 
Country-Music format in a very small community) 

2013/9/30 Rob Landry 41001...@interpring.com


 Well, someone finally wants me to build a one-box webcasting system, 
 so I've got Rivendell, JACK, and liquidsoap running together. The one 
 thing I'm missing is some sort of audio processor; even a simple 
 broadband AGC would do. Do any of y'all know of something that works with 
 JACK?


 Rob

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[RDD] BTW Presonus 1818VSL USB sound has been working for us

[Jim Stewart]

We've been using this for over a year now.

We have it connected to jack-audio and using lots of it's ins and outs at the 
same time.

Two caveats:  It only works on later Linux kernels (like 3.2.x or later as 3.2 
works, but 2.6.x doesn't), so it probably won't work on the Broadcast appliance 
out-of-the-box, also the Alsa mixer labels for all the controls are very 
confusing!  But with trial and error you can figure out what controls what 
channels.

We have been running uncompressed audio, so don't expect any hardware mpeg like 
the ASI cards can do.

One thing I like about this is that since it is USB, you can quickly switch 
your air-chain from one computer to another by simply moving a USB cable! 
(You'll have to restart caed once the device is detected and configured 
however).   These things are also reasonably priced.

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[RDD] Split Ads

[Jim Stewart]

We've done this, but perhaps not the most eloquent way. Here is basically how 
we do it:

We have programming on one of the Aux logs loaded items we need to substitute 
for things we are playing on our FM that we can't play on a public stream.  We 
have a macro cart at the end of each of these break-away segments that will 
return the public stream to a normal simulcast.

In the main FM broadcast log is a break-away macro cart that will break away 
anytime there is anything we can't, or don't want to play on the public stream.

Because our Rivendell is taking FULL advantage of jack-audio, those macro carts 
simply patch our public stream from one log player to the other to do the break 
away and sends a play command to the aux log to start it.  The rejoin macro 
simply stops the aux log and rejoins normal programming.  If you are not using 
Jack-audio, perhaps you are using an outboard audio switcher instead that you 
can control with Rivendell (We also have a Broadcast Tools 8x2 unit that works 
wonderfully with Rivendell).

So far we haven't used this as much as originally planned as we currently only 
stream local sporting events to the public (we aren't licensed to play the 
music on the web that we play on the FM the rest of the time), so I'd have to 
say we don't use it as heavily as you are planning, but it does work for us.  
One of the problems you might have is keeping track of the commercial traffic 
for the Aux log in your traffic system that might not have the ability to 
handle this well.

PS:  I even have a nice hot-button on one of the system panels that will 
manually break and rejoin the public stream.  Since it also toggles it's 
function/label (and color) anytime the macros are called, it works as a quick 
visual indicator of whether the stream is joined or in break-away mode.
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Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 9

[Jim Stewart]

The Tryphon site (http://debian.tryphon.eu/) has repositories you can add to 
your /etc/apt/sources.list file that includes qt3 libraries for later versions 
of Debian and Ubuntu versions that don't have it.  I'm on Debian Wheezy and the 
repository works fine for me (although their darkice streamer was broken last 
time I checked, in which case I simply used the one from Ubuntu on my Debian 
machine instead).



My question is that there seems to be some sort of QT3 compatibility library 
available for QT4.  Any chance that this would work for Rivendell?  It seems 
that this could be a good way to proceed forward with future Linux 
distributions.








Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:53:21 -0600

From: sedwa...@xmission.commailto:sedwa...@xmission.com

To: 
rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.orgmailto:rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org

Subject: Re: [RDD] Rivendell-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 9

Message-ID: 
20130916135321.2zmxm4q1k...@webmail.xmission.commailto:20130916135321.2zmxm4q1k...@webmail.xmission.com

Content-Type: text/plain;charset=ISO-8859-1;   DelSp=Yes;

format=flowed



We have been running Rivendell 2.0.2 on several machines with Ubuntu 11.04, 
11.10 and 12.04 for almost two years and it has worked very well.  The machine 
running RdAirPlay actually ran continuously for a year and a half until there 
was an I/O error on the disk drive:



  16:23:30 up 529 days,  2:14,  1 user,  load average: 0.01, 0.16, 0.16



I did discover something last week when I tried to install Rivendell on a 
machine with Ubuntu 12.10, apparently it no longer has the qt3 libraries.


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Re: [RDD] Can create, overwrite, but can't delete carts/cuts in rdlibrary/rdimport

[Jim Stewart]

On Monday 19 August 2013 12:51:06 am Jim Stewart wrote:
 The default user that it is logging in as is the same user user that 
 is on the main system, so I'd assume that user has the rights to 
 perform deletions.

 I assume you mean the same user by user ID number ?
 ( since across machines, the name means nothing )

Interesting!  Since the users section resides outside the Hosts section in 
rdadmin, I kind of assumed it was global for all machines in the database.

In any case, the user names and permissions seem to match when running rdadmin 
from each machine, including the Assign Group Permissions section.

If you meant the normal Linux/Unix system user log ins, then I agree, in at 
least my case (no YP set up) the two users are unique but as noted, both have 
permissions to the audio library locations local to each machine.

Thanks so much for you time!
James

--
Cowboy

http://cowboy.cwf1.com

... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you with 
ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them.  Holiday shoppers have been 
whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday advertisements, and they will buy 
anything small enough to stuff into a shopping bag.  If your children object to 
being tied, threaten to take them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them 
up.
-- Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide




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Re: [RDD] RDAirplay just quitting and Log not refreshing properly.

[Jim Stewart]

As I also have occasional problems with rdairplay quitting, I have a script 
tied to a silence sense to deal with this.  The script restarts it and tells it 
to start playing if it finds rdairplay not running.  Since it also logs the 
event, I found in my case the quitting seems to only happen when loading a new 
log (which we do just after midnight).  For us this has been a great band-aid 
fix for the problem for now.  Our main On-Air computer has hardware silence 
sense (Broadcast Tools 8x2 audio router), but our backup system does not, so 
I instead used Silent-Jack with the Jack-audio running on the system to give 
the same result.  If you are interested, I can share the details of either or 
both with you on this.

As far as the refresh log issue, last I checked (which was several versions 
ago) I don't think that worked for me either, but just assumed I somehow was 
misunderstanding its purpose or usage.

I agree that paid for support might be in order here (probably for us too) as 
this is the normal procedure with most of the other leading commercial systems 
out there anyway.  In fact when comparing the Rivendell experience to other 
commercial systems, though I often complain about the unclear and incomplete 
documentation of Rivendell, it tends to be far better documented than most of 
those other systems anyway, as I think they want you to be really dependent on 
their support contracts.

Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:14:25 +0100
From: Dan Gruner d...@loudaudio.co.uk
To: rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org
Subject: [RDD] RDAirplay just quitting and Log not refreshing
properly.
Message-ID: 52120c21.1060...@loudaudio.co.uk
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; Format=flowed

I have had yet another instance of RDAirplay randomly quitting for no apparent 
reason and resulting in chaos at the station. Why the hell is it doing this?

Also, when I perform a log edit, despite refresh log option selected, the log 
is NOT being refreshed automatically in RDAirplay.  As a result I have to 
reload the entire log back into RDAirplay for the changes to take effect, which 
is just nonsense.

I would appreciate some help before I loose my rag and ditch this increasingly 
annoying software altogether!

Many thanks,

Dan Gruner


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[RDD] Can create, overwrite, but can't delete carts/cuts in rdlibrary/rdimport

[Jim Stewart]

Our main on-air system, and its soon-to-be installed replacement works
fine, but on our backup system, I can create and even overwrite cart
cuts but can not delete them.  The error I get from Unable to delete
audio! dialog popup from rdlibrary when I do.

Same result if I have the backup system connected to the mysql
database on the onair machine or the backup copy that is on it
locally.  (I don't know how to get the master/slave thing on mysql
working right now so have been just using the backup and restore
function in rdadmin to generate the local copy on the backup server).
The default user that it is logging in as is the same user user that
is on the main system, so I'd assume that user has the rights to perform
deletions.  Also as logged in as that user in shell, I can delete carts
from that directory just fine.  Both the main system is running
rivendell 2.5.0 where as the backup is on 2.5.1, both as compiled by the
folks maintaining the debian packages on Tryphon.  The main is running
debian Squeeze (32-bit) and the backup is running debian Wheezy
(64-bit).  

I want to get this fixed so that I can put the backup on the air so to
swap in a new, fully upgraded system for ONAIR that is mostly
ready-to-go, but I want to play it safe anyway.



Other than a couple of other issues reported on this forum earlier, I've
been super happy with Rivendell.  I've had a radio station running on it
for about a year now.  Rivendell seems to have a good mix of features
common with other leading commercial systems out there, but because it
runs on Linux with all of it's backend tools (like Jack-audio, really
good software RAID, great priority scheduling of cpu-time and other
resources, real multi-user capability, real LAMP stack, and overall
design friendly for scripting, etc.), I've been able to do things on a
single computer in a very clean fashion would take several computers and
other audio devices tied together in a multiple points of failure mode
with those other common commercial systems.  Eventually I plan on
writing a little blog/article about my experiences and configuration
that should be helpful to others but want to learn a little more about
Rivendell and tweak my setup a little more before I do.  

I currently have the core system working, with Jack audio on a Presounus
1818VSL USB multichannel sound device, running three darkice streams
(Transmitter, Public, Preview/Production) from Jack with some processing
done by jack-rack inserted in the public stream.  I have RDAIRPLAY
doing all kinds of routing changes and other things via macro carts
fired from either a log, or hot buttons (that sometimes call external
shell scripts), I have RDCATCH grabbing and importing various elements
on a daily basis.  Then I have all this fully remote accessible via both
VNC and remote X (usually tunneled through SSH) for our operators to use
on their Windows desktops and smart-phones. We play locally stored music
interrupted by live remotes and sporting events (with cue, talkback, and
mix-minus foldback) from either Skype, or a Telos-one CODEC, or a Plain
Old Telephone (POTS) interfaced to the Presounus sound device (Can I
use LiveWire on the Telos CODEC directly to the computer?).  We
rebroadcast our college games (with their permission) via their webcast
that has 25/35hz subaudible automation tones (currently using a borrowed
hardware tone decoder, does anyone know of a good linux/Jack-compatible
software solution?  The NCH-audio + Wine + Alsa_In solution seems too
messy to me)  Did I mention this was all on one computer and I haven't
even needed to install a traditional broadcast audio console yet?

My main remaining task is to get three rivendell systems working in a
hot-backup/fail-over + cold-standby arrangement where two systems are
typically powered on at a time (main and backup-server), and this
backup-server gets constantly updated from the main system via rsync
(have that working now), and have the database configured for
master/slave redundancy (not working yet) in a way where the backup can
run fully stand-alone with the master on-air system down.  Then I want a
third computer (already have it running) that would normally be powered
off, but can be powered on and then synced from the backup-server so
that it could become a new ONAIR machine. (our backup-server is a
headless thing that is located in an awkward location and normally
used for other purposes so not to be appropriate as a permanent
replacement for ONAIR).  Our ONAIR machines come from a pile of
older Pentium-4 semi-server class machines that were discarded and
given to us by an associate company.  So our plan is to simply run them
into the ground on our radio station, but with the security of having a
good system of fail-overs and backup computers to deal with when they do
fail.

Anyway, enough babbling for now.  Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot
and/or fix my current issue as well as how to move forward with my

[RDD] rdlogmanager CLI -t option always marks traffic as merged even if it isn't

[Jim Stewart]

I'm using rdlogmanager in a script that generates a log then attempts to
merge traffic if it available (in other words using the -g and -t
options).  I noticed that if traffic is not available, then traffic is
marked as merged anyway even though it isn't.  Perhaps the music merging
does this too.

I would think this should be considered a bug

PS: Is it normal that the bug reporting link at
mantis.rivendellaudio.org is down?

Thank You

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