Feature Requests

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Dynamic duration for audio files

Short version: I'd love the ability to add audio items to PlayIt Live without saving a duration and/or mix point for the file, so I can overwrite the file to broadcast an updated version (e.g. a news block) === Longer version / explanation: Many radio stations broadcast a recorded news block at the TOTH, which often has a varying length. PlayIt Live currently always stores the duration of audio files, which is problematic when the saved duration is shorter than the updated file you're playing. (PlayIt Live will simply cut off at the stored duration.) A somewhat quirky solution is to open the database file in an SQLite editor and set the duration and mix point to something way longer than the file would ever be. (We set the news file's duration to 300 seconds, while the average news block is about a minute and a half.) This could obviously cause problems if PlayIt Live ever has to rely on this stored duration, and it's generally not a good idea to work with databases in this way. My idea: add an option to make PlayIt collect the duration of the file every time it needs to play it, or something along those lines.

Comment on this feature request:

Jason Allen commented

Hi Daan Thanks for your feature request. I understand the need for this feature. The reason for the stored duration in the track data is for clock/log estimated timings. PlayIt Live does cut off the track when it reaches the stored duration, but this probably not required. The problem that would remain is that every track has a Cue Out point that is used to play the next song, would it make sense to make this optional and use the file duration as a the cue out point if this is not set? A less hacky workaround for the moment would be to add a track from your news file path that is deliberately long, e.g. 5 minutes, so that PlayIt Live thinks it is a 5 minute file. Then you can swap in the file on disk and PlayIt Live will segue when it reaches the end of the new file which may be only 90 seconds. This would avoid you having to modify the database manually. Is this a common problem, or a one-time action once it's set up?

Daan Berg commented

Hey Jason, I love how some other automation programs solved the Cue Out point issue: they save the amount of time that needs to be cut *before the end*, like: "go to next file 3 seconds before the end of this file", instead of "go to next file when this file reaches 3 minutes". That way, you can still use the Cue Out function to set it for dynamic duration files (useful in situations like a news block that has background music fading away at the end). There's a little downside about this idea: you'll have to re-calculate the Cue Out points for existing PlayIt databases, breaking the hack you just suggested in the process. Still: food for thought. ;-) In terms of how common this is: news blocks are the most apparent example I can think of (which is set and forget), but it'd also be great to have DJs be able to replace their recorded shows over FTP or something. This feature request could be very useful in that scenario. When multi user PlayIt Manager arrives, I'll switch to using the Manager for DJ access, though.

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