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Automation with satellite network - delaying return liners

B

bossbill

Our old automation would cue and hold a return liner in case the network fired it early or the spots ran slightly long. Our new system won't do that. Ideally, every stopset would be exact, and every network closure would be exact. Unfortunately, our network, Citadel, is now getting sloppy, sometimes firing the return liner a second early. That then means either the liner gets clipped at the beginning, or overlaps with spot ending.

What I want to do is set up an outboard circuit to hold the return liner closure. At my disposal I have 1) the tally that stays on while the commercial channel is on, 2) the return liner closure. So I want the return liner closure to pass through to the switcher if the commercial tally is off, but if the tally is on, I want to hold that closure and create one when the tally goes off.

Seems simple, but my brain isn't getting any younger.
 
A simple flip-flop (latch) chip with some combinational logic ought to do it. And a hardware solution like this is a great idea.

Here's what I came up with in a couple of seconds.

You take a DM7476 (or similar J-K latch). At the "set" (J) input, connect the following:
The "Citadel Return Liner" from your XDS receiver

At the "clear" (K) input, connect the following:
The output of the final AND gate (before the RC network).

At the output of the 7476, you need an AND gate with the following inputs:
a) The output of the 7476
b) The inversion (using a not gate) of the "Automation Currently Playing" tally

Beyond this, I suggest connecting an RC network with a time constant of at least ~0.1 sec. (Capacitor of 10u, 10k resistor)

The problem with a latch solution: a clock is required. In this case, I believe clocking the circuit as follows would work: you connect the "Citadel Return Tone" and the AND gate output in series with the clock pin.

It is possible some delays (on the order of microseconds) might be needed to achieve proper timing. In that case, just connect two not gates in series.

Let me know if you try this. I'm interested to know how well this works in reality.
 
Thanks for helping get my brain back in gear. I'll play with it this weekend.
 
Bill Wolfenbarger said:
Our old automation would cue and hold a return liner in case the network fired it early or the spots ran slightly long. Our new system won't do that. Ideally, every stopset would be exact, and every network closure would be exact. Unfortunately, our network, Citadel, is now getting sloppy, sometimes firing the return liner a second early. That then means either the liner gets clipped at the beginning, or overlaps with spot ending.

What I want to do is set up an outboard circuit to hold the return liner closure. At my disposal I have 1) the tally that stays on while the commercial channel is on, 2) the return liner closure. So I want the return liner closure to pass through to the switcher if the commercial tally is off, but if the tally is on, I want to hold that closure and create one when the tally goes off.

Seems simple, but my brain isn't getting any younger.
Click to expand...

Then liner will play over the vocals of a song.

Call them and let them know there is a problem. We have the same from time to time. RARE. When I call it gets fixed. 20 plus years with ABC formats.

Look at it this way: 60 other stations have the same problem. Be a good manager. Don't spend your time on someone else's problem.

Better yet, make the PD call. The problem with Engineers as a whole is we are willing to use our time to fix a problem that is ultimately someone else's problem. Unless you own the station, or alternatively are bored to tears, building a circuit to fix a network timing error is a waste. Use the extra time to take your wife to lunch.

Had a news director years ago who wanted to control the automation from the news booth so the on air jock could leave the control room for 15 minutes. 5 minutes prior to news then 5 after. "if you could just put a switch" "just an on off switch" for the automation in the news booth. Randy the news guy was always getting other people to do things that could gain him favor with someone. HE never did anything though.

Jock was paid to be in the booth. This was her job but she wanted to goof off twice an hour for 5 hours. 5 hours minus the 30 minutes every hour made half the time go away. Jock transferred her work to the news guy who was bold enough to transfer the jock's job to me.

Shaeffer automation. Do you know how many wires are involved in a start stop switch? 100. News guy was self righteous, self indignant, and pushed the manager to get this done. Jock was sleeping with a higher up so I couldn't really fight this. After the conduit (historic property), multi-pair cable, and associated bills the OWNER asked why. When HE found out he summed it up better than I have here. "Who the (your word here) dreamed this up?"

Jock went to a tv station to do weather when she did so little work the vice president couldn't justify paying his entertainment to be at the radio station. News guy used the station Shell card to drop a new engine in the vehicle when he ran it out of oil. No one found out until the bill showed up. He tried to justify 5 grand on the Shell card as a prudent expense too. And since the engineering department handled vehicle maintenance this ended up being my problem too. It was horrible I neglected my duties, failed to maintain the vehicle, and the news director was forced to take action to be able to cover a news story, etc, etc.

I guess the News guy didn't think I would point out he had been on vacation for over two weeks, and, he failed to get the oil changed at the local oil change shop.

The fact the engine was placed in the vehicle in Florida (and we were in Evansville) made all the difference in the world.

There is being helpful and there is accepting someone else's problem. I see this so much. Next thing you know we'll have to make sure the liners are the right length for the breaks, the spots are the right length, and the new commercials are in. Unless you own it, have time where no one else does, don't do it. One person will expect it, then the whole radio station will be the responsibility of engineering.
 
Since the layoffs at Citadel two weeks ago, good luck even getting an announcer schedule, let alone a solution to a problem like this.
 
Well, this is an engineering board. I described what I wanted to do, and two reasons why I wanted to do it. And by the way, I do have a broadcast engineering background, programming background, and management background. And I own and operate four radio stations.

I'd love to tell the network to be exact, except that as another poster pointed out, that is not going to happen right now at Citadel. My people are pretty good at spot lengths, but occasionally we'll be a half second off. And I would be great if the manufacturer of the automation system would understand why occasionally a return liner must be held for a half a second or so, and why it sounds bad if we have to build in a 1 second dead roll on every return liner. But the real world is that from a programming standpoint it sounds like hell when the first syllable of a return liner gets chopped because of one of several factors.

For over a dozen years we've worked with an automation system that DID hold the return liner until the stopset was done. The times it comes in handy we're talking usually about a half second or so, just enough to clip part of a word on a jingle or liner. I understand that AudioVault will hold the liner, but iMediatouch doesn't. I figure a simple logic fix is cheaper than changing out 4 systems.

Given the alternatives of sounding bad or fixing the problem, I asked for help on this board. I did get one viable answer. Thank you poster.
 
Bill Wolfenbarger said:
Well, this is an engineering board. I described what I wanted to do, and two reasons why I wanted to do it. And by the way, I do have a broadcast engineering background, programming background, and management background. And I own and operate four radio stations.

I'd love to tell the network to be exact, except that as another poster pointed out, that is not going to happen right now at Citadel. My people are pretty good at spot lengths, but occasionally we'll be a half second off. And I would be great if the manufacturer of the automation system would understand why occasionally a return liner must be held for a half a second or so, and why it sounds bad if we have to build in a 1 second dead roll on every return liner. But the real world is that from a programming standpoint it sounds like hell when the first syllable of a return liner gets chopped because of one of several factors.

For over a dozen years we've worked with an automation system that DID hold the return liner until the stopset was done. The times it comes in handy we're talking usually about a half second or so, just enough to clip part of a word on a jingle or liner. I understand that AudioVault will hold the liner, but iMediatouch doesn't. I figure a simple logic fix is cheaper than changing out 4 systems.

Given the alternatives of sounding bad or fixing the problem, I asked for help on this board. I did get one viable answer. Thank you poster.
Click to expand...

What format do you use? We are using true oldies and every now and then have the same problem. we are using Simian. Imediatouch used to have a fix that would lengthen or shorten to fit the hole.
 
Why bother with a return liner fired from a closure? Just put the liner as the last element of the stopset in your automation system. When it's done it returns to the satellite feed as normal. To overlap music, just put an EOM tone over the entire liner, so it plays the liner and moves into the sat feed. This way the liner only plays when you want it to, whether the network goofed up or your break went long.
 
We looked at going that route. One of our programming sources includes 4 stopsets an hour, all optional. If we don't fill a stopset, then the return liner wouldn't work for that stopset, so for that break we would be taking the liner closure. Then if a break were filled and we added the return liner to the stopset, we wouldn't take the closure, but the automation would accept it and play it as well. That would work okay because the stopset would keep the liner channel turned off, but it would creat a small issue for the traffic person, using the traffic system to position the return liner when a break is filled, but omitting it when the break isn't filled. The other issue would be that the music starts at 10 seconds after the stopset ends, and if the stopset did run a half second long, the network channel would unmute perhaps a half second after the song started, whereas if we stay with the closure firing the liner and delaying it, the music would not get clipped, but would overlap a half second.

So that's why I'm preferring a delay circuit. I am aware that Audio Vault will delay a return liner, because it would play the return liner out of the same deck, so the closure merely cues up the return liner at the end of the stopset. Unfortunately, iMediaTouch won't do that. The old Digilinks did cue up the return liner and delay it if necessary. The new Diglink Extreme, however, no longer has that feature. They say it really isn't necessary, and that they only did it in the old systems because network commercial break closures used to be a solid closure for the duration of the stopset.
 
Have you checked with OMT to see if they maybe have a trick that would hold off the liner until the stopset is done? Simain actually has an option that will do this. It's kind of hidden in spyglass diagnostics. Maybe OMT hides it too.
 
If OMT hides it, its so well hidden that they can't find it. We've asked. It seems like it should not be a difficult software enhancement, and it certainly doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't care to use it.
 
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