Music history vs pre programmed voicetracked shows

[andrerotgans]

Hi Bernd,

A question which came in my mind this morning. Let assume the following scenario :
- I've a schedule full of programs, some non-stop, some semi-live and some pre-voicetracked
- Pre-voicetracked can either be initiated via the playlist template wizzard or via right-clicking a already scheduled hour and using Create Playlist Template, the usual ways so to say

When I pre-voicetrack a show the 10th of August, 18:00. How does PFOA goes on with the songs scheduled in that particular hour ? If a record is programmed in that hour, can it still be played in the hour before (17:00, which is a normal hour of non-stop music, coming from a script or a pre-VT-ed hour, created earlier or later than the 18:00 hour), even as the last song of that hour ?
I hope you can follow what I try to ask
The hours after that 18:00 slot are no problem, as the song has been played and added to the history.

Kind regards,

André

[radio42]

Yes I can follow.
However PF can only check the histories at its creation time.
Meaning tracks are added to the history and checked against the history at the time when they are scheduled. That is for your the pee-scheduled playlist the time when you do that.
And for any later playlist as well at its creation time.
So PF does not look forward or back in time.

[andrerotgans]

That's what I expected PF to do, and it's almost impossible to do it another way, I can't think of any other automation system doing a complicated scheduling like this.
So, as I thought, the only way to eliminate re-runs when doing things like this is to use a music scheduling system, and create playlists up-front !

[radio42]

I guess any external system is doing the same. So that wouldn't change things.
It is more a question of either pre-schedule all at the same time in advance or schedule all in real-time.
But... What PF can do is the following:
When you pre-schedule a show the above is happening.
However when that pre-created playlist is effectively scheduled by a dedicated script (which eg is automatically created by the wizard you talked about) you might NOT set/remove the SupressHistoryAdd script-line option. In that case the pre-created individual playlist entries are again added to the history when effectively scheduled. So that allows at least any sub-sequent schedules to consider these tracks.
This feature I guess is missing/impossible with most or all other systems I know.

[andrerotgans]

As far as I know (from talking to our music scheduling guys at my 'daytime job' at national radio) music scheduling systems as ie Powergold take into account clocks already scheduled into to future. But, I'm no genius on that part, so I'll ask them again. I'll have a look into the SupressHistoryAdd option !

[radio42]

Wait wait...
That is a different story.
An external scheduler always assumes that ALL hours are scheduled by it.
In your scenario you mixed pre-scheduled with live shows or non pre-scheduled playlists.
Any external scheduler would never know anything about playlists not scheduled by itself.
Just like ProppFrexx.

[andrerotgans]

Yeah, but that's what I mentioned before, the only way to eliminate this is to always schedule. Either using PFOA, or using a separate tool. The problem is, that a normal user doesn't understand that a pre-produced (and thus scheduled hour) within PF is something other than a non-stop-hour scheduled at-the-start via a script, also in PF. That user justs tells me 'it's both in PF, so why doesn't it know that it's planned in the next hour.

Users, sigh, IT is nice, but you shouldn't have any users

[radio42]

Yes, it is like often...theoretically all would be possible... and consider everything, no matter when, how or where scheduled...it is often just a matter of complexity to implement and the value you get out of it...let's see what the future might bring...

[radio42]

As said, I took a closer look at it, what is efficiently possible. What will be added to the next version is the following:

As said, tracks are so far added to the history and checked against the history at the time when they are scheduled. For any pre-scheduled (e.g. voice tracked) playlists this is the time when you prepare (voice track) them - which might be a couple of days or hours in advance.
This also means, that when a regular program/script now runs right before such a pre-created program/playlist; its entries might not be checked against those contained in the sub-sequent, pre-created one. This is what I would call a 'back-to-the-future' scenario.
From the next version on ProppFrexx will then look 'back-to-the-future'

When the scheduler is running, a next program is determined anyhow. This next (forthcoming) program will now be examined further (resp. its related script).
If that next script contains any 'LoadPlaylist' script-line(s) - as any pre-created (voice tracked) playlists would be - these will now be resolved and its contained tracks are then added to an internal additional history collection.
As such, any current global history check (as performed by a current playlist) would then automatically be checked also against the forthcoming playlist entries (even if they have been created days ago).

This is actually not 100% perfect, as it looks ahead (fixed) for the next program (only) and always uses all found playlist entries.
Depending on your Global History size it might theoretically need to look-ahead even further resp. consider less playlist entries; but that would blow the complexity out of proportion.
and I assume, that in most regular cases this is just working fine.
Also note, that when additional history entries have found; those would temp. reduce the real global history entries being checked; so that in total again exactly your defined number of history entries are checked.

[andrerotgans]

Sounds nice and the best you can do, I guess !

Thanks !