• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

ENCO AUTOMATION

C

ChiefOperator

All-

I've been running a thread asking for experiences with the imediatouch automation. Thanks to all who contributed. I thought I had the choice down to imediatouch or possibly nexgen psi101. Now, the station manager wants me to look at Enco. Apparently, Enco sales contacted him, pushing the system hard.

Does anyone have experience with this system and could share the experience. Is it more expensive than imediatouch? IMHO, the graphics look rather cluttered and not user friendly.... yes, no??

Any help would be appreciated..

Thanks!
 
ENCO works well, it's a very comprehensive system. If you aren't careful, it's too flexible... it's best set up and the workstations locked. If the jocks get too frisky they can shoot themselves int he foot... if they don't have the ability to chage things en masse, you can set it to do and look like pretty much anything you want. As in any audio storage - replay system, if you network it, give it its own network, and double card a workstation somewhere for your traffic and buasiness systems to touch it. Get them to throw in schooling as a deak sweetener for at least yourself and your PD, either in house or at your facility. Makes it much easier. (Actually, you should do this on any system).
 
How much budget are we talking about? For your AM and what you do,i'd go with Nexgen
hands down.(Prophet).COST VS BENEFITS, for your needs.Don't pay for bells and whistles you won't be using.One thing i promise is Prophet is there 24/7 for support .I've used or installed about every system outthere. the 2 best IMHO Prophet Nexgen and SS32.
 
Enco was my choice for automation at WLOH. WLOH is a standalone AM News-Talk station that runs programming from a dozen different sat channels, numerous FTP sites and live local programs from our studios and from about 60 local ballgames per year.

The positives- Enco is a "swiss army knife" for radio. It has every tool and attachment needed to do literally anything in radio.

We needed 32 GPI/GPO- no problem- just attach a Broadcast Tools serial controlled box and go.
We needed to control a Sine Systems switcher- no problem- just write the commands once and go.
We needed to automatically switch Starguide channels- no problem.
We needed a redundant- hot standby backup system to automatically mirror our audio- no problem.
We needed a flawless interface from our traffic system- no problem. It even schedules all the commands we use.
We needed rotators, start dates and times, kill dates and times, etc- no problem.
We needed a bulletproof way to run Cleveland Indians Baseball and other pro sports without board ops.
Note I said bullet proof- not getting out at the end because of a missed stopset in the game is unacceptable.
Need thousands of audio cuts, virtually unlimited options for sound cards, etc- no problem.
Need to automatically convert wav and mp3 to the Enco library- no problem.

Now here are the negatives-

All of that cool stuff I just mentioned...Enco does NONE of it out of the box.
The Enco you receive is an infant- incapable of even the most primitive functions.

If you take a week and program it correctly, it becomes your best friend.
If you throw it together, you will curse it until the day you pull it out.

I run a peer to peer system with dual server/workstations all supplied by enco and my total cost was about 17K for everything.

Yeah, BSI is cheaper- but I sleep very well at night.

mb
 
Totally concur with Mark. ENCO is an amazing system, but it's definitely more engineer-friendly than it is air talent-friendly.

Something to keep in mind when talking with the GM - as Mark said, you'll need to make a big investment of time (translation: labor $$$) to get ENCO to do everything you want it to do. So while ENCO sales may be pushing a bargain price, it may end up costing more in the long run.

-Rob
 
I have always loved the ENCO system but the station with the system wants to switch because of yearly support costs.

We have the new system in house but not online yet and will have 1) server (used to run 5 stations; 2 windows keys; and 1 dos box running the system now.

Haven't been in a hurry to make the switch but when the switch is made will have the whole lot for sale and support can be renewed. located in Indiana. We run 1 station on the system now but had 5 previously.
 
If you're going to roll your own system, call dave scott of SS32 fame ,he has new software he will sell you captain digital 1 866 888 0777. Prophet use to just sell the software, not sure if they sill do,when i bought nexgen 2 from them and built my own system.They do sell the ps101 software, just not sure about the Nexgen version. Tell Dave what you want,he can get it done.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom