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radio automation

Must buy three new systems, networked or not. First, Whaddabout the RDS Phantom? Or any other suggestions? Small Market, Small budget, smaller minds...
all stations 90% satellite format...Thanks JBI
 
Depends on budget and flexibility. If you're reallly on a tight budget I like StationPlaylist. I've used it on my personal webstream and have installed it on a couple of facilities. For the full-feature version you're looking at approx $400 per station. You may be able to get Ross to discount the other stations if they're owned by the same folks. I did a review in June '06 for Radio World.

If you need something a little more powerful I like Prophet101 even though I didn't have the budget for it.

BTW: Thanks again for the FMS-2 manual.
 
OK, here we go...

Get the Prophet system equivalent of their NexGen101. It's comparatively cheap, works great with sat programmed stations, your support and flexibility options are much better with Prophet. Swear.
 
I used Nexgen 101 right after it's release and was disappointed. It had many limitations....would only support a Broadcast Tools 4.2 switcher...so input sources were limited. There were a lot of bugs...and I think we found all of them. To give them credit, the tech support worked pretty hard to keep us running. We ended up upgrading to Nexgen Digital due to the limitations. Maybe they've improved it.

I've been a long time fan of RDS Phantom for Satellite Automation, but with the tech support getting more difficult (no callbacks for 3 to 4 days on the last few off-air calls I had), it's days are numbered.

I would take a serious look at Smarts Systems. They have excellent tech support and make a product similar to the Phantom, but based on Linux instead of DOS. They are very geared towards the small-town broadcaster.

http://www.smartsbroadcast.com/index2.html


-Chris Hall
www.reelaudio.net
www.rfspec.com
 
If you're serious and want stability and reliability, AudioVault is the best way to go. Sure, it's a little complicated and expensive, but it will handle your satellite programming like a champ.
 
We use Simian on two sat programmed stations. Handles most of what we need to do. Imports logs easily (we use Natural Log). Get the 24 trigger line input USB-DIO24/37 from Measurement Computing, not the usv 1024LS BSI sells, the former uses a 37 pin D for input lines. New version of Simian also supports Broadcast Tools 32 line input device, great for talk stations.

Their service has improved, wasn't great not long ago--tried to sell you something instead of answering your question, but they got the message and dropped that nonsense. They also have a forum that is useful for "what if's" where you don't need an immediate answer.

If you do live sports--buy Wavecart as well. Works on the same machine as Simian. Great for when there's no part-timer available and the owner has to run a basketball game. (Tournament game--our team won--another grand in billing--Yea!).

One looming thundercloud on the horizon for all automation systems: Vista. Dell still sells PC's with XP-Pro, and you can still buy the OS and roll your own machine. But M$ marketing pressure will soon crush this option, and many systems won't work on Vista. Also heard horror stories about their DRM management routines.
 
I second Tom with Simian. I have three clients that use it, two of them use it with sat feeds.
 
I have had a Prophet Nexgen for 3 years and I have never been happier! The support is second to none, I have never had to wait more than 3 min, and, If you ARE off the air, they will take your call first in Que! I have had Vault,Scott, Media touch, BSI, Smartcaster, Digilink and the Nexgen is the best, fastest to learn system! My system is now 4 years old and the only thing (other than software upgrades) I have had to do is to replace 2 hard drives that failed, and support breezed thru that quickly, It took longer to format the drive than add the Nexgen program. If you do get Nexgen, make sure you have a method of brodband connection to a non critical machine, a Prod machine or an extra Server. Dialup sucks and takes the tech lots more time and anger because of screen population in dialup. We WEBEX when we have trouble, and issues and changes are made quickly. May cost more starting out, but is well worth it in the long run. Any of you Cumulus guys remember the BSI demo at the Texas Assoc of Broadcasters show a few years ago? and the dance that the BSI guy did at the get together the night before? Not a dance as much as a stagger! I wonder if he ever did get that computer to work?
 
Nexgen for me.LOVE IT.But the simian would be ok and you might check the smartcaster.Might contact dave scott(the father of scott studuios) at captain digital..com.May work you a deal.His system looks pretty good.Since you are doing sat most of the time a basic without all the frills would be fine.Check with nexgen(prophet)you can just buy the modules you need.Great support just like rf guy says.
 
http://www.radio-classifieds.com/classpro/cgi-bin/view.cgi

used smart system at this link.may still be available.But i know you know the difference between used and junked.May be worth checking in to, but i still think the Player 101 system Prophet has might bebefit you more in the long run.VERY user friendly...But also check with Scott at captaindigital.com and see what he can offer.pretty neat system he has.actually more features than Prophet..IMHO
 
JBoyd if you end up in need a linux pro.... I can point you to someone who does excellent work in the area.

He is based in Senatobia and covers Memphis to Grenada.
 
We put in Storq from Waitt Radio Network about three months ago, and so far haven't had a problem. It's especially good for our all-satellite station (ESPN), compared to the Audio Vault system it replaced which was constantly messing up, not recording or updating, etc.

Our announcers had a few problems getting used to Storq for live operation, but all much prefer it to Audio Vault. Tech support has been better, too.
 
Here's some excellent automation, and it won't cost you a dime. Try Zararadio, http://zararadio.com . This dandy automation program has the basic bells and whistles to make any situation sound quite nice. If fact, one of my FM stations is using it and it runs flawlessly 24/7 . Check it out. You'd be quite amazed. cheers.
 
Is there not a system out there today that likes SATELLITE? Every system I've looked at has a more difficult time dealing with satellite than the old DOS systems which worked well with satellite. Sure, I understand that most of us are voice-tracking, but many of us are using satellite during off-hours so that we at least are live in case something big happens in the news.

The old systems, and I'll put the Digilink up as an example, accepted closures, didn't feed two audio sources at once, auto-filled the breaks, fired liners, offered simple jock changes and clock changes, could be programmed a week in advance without having to worry about whether the log loaded at midnight, provided play logs, etc.

The biggest issue with Digilink, aside from the fact that the proprietary boards had to be reseated on occasion, and the fact that they weren't made for voice-tracking, was the inability to do wav files and digital audio file import.

Has anyone used the Digilink Extreme? It offers many of the features of the old Digilinks, on a Windows platform.

Also, what exactly is the issue with multiple stations? Seems like if you've got five stations operating independently but on a LAN, you should have the ability to pull or push files to the individual stations from a production unit by using an import folder. If you're storing everything for a station on a local drive, why do you need a server? You certainly don't want to have to load files from the server just before they air.

As far as reading the various posts, there is someone out there who doesn't like every system available. I have to conclude that we all base our opinions on individual experiences. If we own a product and it worked for us, we like it. If we had a problem, we globalize it. I gues we should have a Consumer Reports for broadcast software.

Just my random thoughts, and I'm looking for input from you folks who have done this.
 
Actually,digilink extreme would be a good choice.i've only used scott studios ss32 and the nexgen(Prophet)which i prefer.But the old digilink was good for sat. formats kinda like the old cartworks system from days gone by.Most of this stuff is way overpriced.i bought the Nexgen software and rolled my own system,been bullet proof, can't kill it.just amazing.not sure if they just sell the software now.J Boyd is a sharp engineer,he'll figure it out...
 
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