Myriad Playout Hack – Scripts Location

Myriad Playout has a ‘script’ feature built in which allows you to either link to script or allow the presenter to choose a script to read out on air.

A client wanted to have a dropbox folder be the location of their scripts so it could be updated from outside the studios.

I reached out and spoke with Peter Jarrett, who is one of the founders of P Squared, and he told me of a sneaky hack that could be done in the registry.

It is strictly unsupported and could well be undone if you upgrade the version of Myriad Playout you are using.

Using ‘regedit’ go to HKLM\Software\PSquared\Myriad v3\Profiles\Profile1\FileLocations you should see a key called “LiveReads” – set this to a different folder and then start Myriad.

Using My Library to set Intro/Extro points for import to Myriad Playout

A lot of users of Myriad Playout are volunteers and only visit the studio when presenting a show so do work at home beforehand.

One job which can be done at home is tagging up songs and idents for importing into Myriad Playout when at the studio.

The application I use and recommend is from Charlie Davy called My Library. I have made a small video to show you how it simple and quick to tag up songs.

 

 

Programming Axia IQ to put players into Preview Mode

Have been working with Hospital Radio Chelmsford on their Axia Install. One of the desires was for the studios to operate with Myriad Playout the way it works when Myriad is plugged into the SRM mixer from P Squared.

They are using the Axia IP Audio Drivers which have built in GPIO and they had it working so the ‘next’ soft button fired off the player. What we have now programmed is if the fader is ‘off’ the player goes into Preview Mode. Preview is then removed when the fader goes ‘on’. This enables levels to be taken from the fader the audio from the log will come from without messing up the timing.

Here is the contents of the file should anyone else want to use it.

# Event constants:
# 0 ON
# 1 OFF
# 2 PREV
# 3 START
# 4 STOP
# For Element source type defined as a COMPUTER PLAYER
UDP_DSTPORT=6959
DEV0.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 1″
#DEV0.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 1″
DEV0.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 1,CLEAR”
DEV0.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 1,FORCE”
DEV1.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 2″
#DEV1.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 2″
DEV1.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 2,CLEAR”
DEV1.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 2,FORCE”
DEV2.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 3″
#DEV2.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 3″
DEV2.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 3,CLEAR”
DEV2.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 3,FORCE”
DEV3.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 4″
#DEV3.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 4″
DEV3.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 4,CLEAR”
DEV3.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PREVIEWMODE 4,FORCE”
DEV4.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 5″
DEV4.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 5″
DEV4.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 5″
DEV4.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 5″
DEV5.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 6″
DEV5.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 6″
DEV5.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 6″
DEV5.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 6″
DEV6.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 7″
DEV6.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 7″
DEV6.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 7″
DEV6.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 7″
DEV7.0 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 8″
DEV7.1 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 8″
DEV7.3 COMMAND=”PLAYER PLAY 8″
DEV7.4 COMMAND=”PLAYER PAUSE 8″

Myriad: Setting Players to Preview Mode

Using Myriad Playout v4 I found myself wanting to pre-fade the next song without it affecting the backtiming or dashboard for what was playing on air at the time. I wanted to use the fader I was going to be eventually playing the item on air from. In order to achieve this I have used the Myriad Command language to force players into and out of Preview Mode.

preview1

Below is a pdf of how I did this. Enjoy

Commands PDF – click to download

Video: Dropbox to Myriad Playout AudioWall

I have made a video to show how to create a script in Windows to move, rename and delete items from a dropbox folder. As part of the rename it adds a cart number to the file which the Auto Importer then uses to place it correctly on the AudioWall.

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P Squared Myriad Upgrade from v3 to v4

Below is a little document I made up after upgrading the Myriad Playout system at Hospital Radio Chelmsford (www.hrc.org.uk). It uses SQL Authentication as the method of linking to the database rather than windows authentication but this should not be a problem for station running less that 10 playout instances.

Hope you find it useful for your install.

Software Needed:-

SQL Server software (SQL 2008R2 Standard or Express recommended)
SQL Native Client software (needed for each workstation – 32bit version) sqlncli_x86.msi
Latest P Squared Full Release software i.e. Myriad Playout / Myriad Autotrack (along with relevant licensing details)

Optional:-

P Squared Bootstuff software to auto launch software on completion of set tasks i.e. server share available.
Firewall Exceptions batch file from P Squared Forum – http://forum.psquared.net/6688/SQL-Firewall-Exceptions

Prep:-

1 – Backup all of your ‘Myriad’ folder contents.

Installation:-

Server

1 – Run Windows Update to ensure server is up to date.
2 – Install SQL Server software
2.1 – Recommended practise is software installed on system (c:) drive and data directories location is set to D: drive i.e. d:\psquared\myriad.
2.2 – Create user in Management Studio with sysadmin and public rights
2.3 Run Windows update again to ensure SQL server software is up to date.

Autotrack Workstation (recommended to install Autotrack before Playout)

1 – Run Windows update to ensure machine is up to date.
2 – Install Native SQL Client software on machine
3 – Install Myriad Autotrack
4 – Connect to SQL server using SQL Authenication with user details you created on server (this allows anyone to log onto windows on the machine and it not affect the access to the Database).
5 – Once Autotrack is installed and licensed go to File – Import/Upgrade Database and choose your Autotrack Database found in the ‘Autotrck’ folder on your server. This upgrade can take some time and your system will look like it is not responding but just leave it alone!
6 – Run the user importer tool to import your current v3 users.
7 – Run the application and ensure it loads correctly and click on ‘allow’ to any firewall requests. 8 – Run the firewall exceptions batch file on workstation.

Playout Workstation

1 – Run Windows update to ensure machine is up to date.
2 – Install Native SQL Client software on machine
3 – Install Myriad Playout 4 – Connect to SQL server using SQL Authenication with user details you created on server (this allows anyone to log onto windows on the machine and it not affect the access to the Database).
4 – Run the application and ensure it loads correctly and click on ‘allow’ to any firewall requests. 5 – Run the firewall exceptions batch file on workstation.

Gotchas

1 – When entering the server details do not leave anything of the pre-existing text before /SQLExpress. If your server is on a domain you may need to enter the whole domain string rather than just server\SQLEXPRESS.

2 – Don’t forget to install the Native Client software else things just won’t work.