LOR II and RDS Functionality

[Texan78]

Tim Fischer wrote:

"One thing I've never gotten a clear answer on: Will LOR simply work with external RDS hardware (and possibly software), or will it actually try to do the "soft-RDS" thing with the high frequencies? I'm assuming the former, but the latter would be cool... -Tim

I am not sure Tim, I think we are both in the same boat with an unclear answer. The way I understand it is S2 will compile all the information to send to an external device.
dqhall is actually doing the beta testing on that version of S2. I believe that is what it does because of the modded FM100B transmitter was connected to the RDS encoder.

That is why I was mentioning it would be nice to have a solution that was plug and play as far as the device goes where you don't have to mod your transmitter to work with a RDS device.

[Texan78]

Dinosang wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

It is just software but you do need a 192khz sound card because of the high frequencies used for the RDS Data.

I think most of us are looking for a solution for the actually RDS unit to connect to our transmitters. No need to purchase software when LOR is already about to release RDS capabilities in there next release and it is being tested now as we speak.

When I was referring to plug and play I was talking about RDS unit that you could just plug your transmitter into from your sound card without having to make any modifications to your transmitter like you have to do now.

You seem to be misinterpreting how the RDS will be implemented. LorII will not send RDS to your transmitter it will only send the text to a file and then your rds software will read the file and it will encode the RDS data. Even all the hardware RDS units have a software program to relay the RDS Data. You were asking about a plug and play solution and the Airomate software is the closest thing to what you asked! As it only uses your sound card to produce RDS data.

I understand S2 will not send RDS to my transmitter, that is what a RDS encoder is for. Which is why I was saying it would be nice to have a plug and play device where you don't have to modify your transmitter. See page 2 for the example, of what I am talking about in dqhall's post. From the way I understand it S2 will complie the RDS information so you don't need any external software because it will do it within S2 then send that data to your RDS device that is connected to your FM transmitter for the signal to be sent.

The Airomate software alone can't send RDS signal, you need an external device that is connected to your transmitter. If you are doing it with just the software alone please explain in detail because I would sure be interested. Are you saying the sound card acts as the RDS encoder with the Airomate software?

[dqhall]

Steven is correct. Basically, LOR2 copies a previously prepare text file that you have typed and moves it to a folder that your RDS software monitors. Then, your RDS software sends it to your RDS encoder.

The text files you prepare can look something like 'Mannheim Steamroller - Let It Snow' or 'You are listening to FM 94.9' or anything you want. Name each text file like song1.txt or whatever. Then tell LOR2 when you play this sequence, copy song1.txt to the RDS monitor folder. It's very easy logic.

[Texan78]

dqhall wrote:

Steven is correct. Basically, LOR2 copies a previously prepare text file that you have typed and moves it to a folder that your RDS software monitors. Then, your RDS software sends it to your RDS encoder.

The text files you prepare can look something like 'Mannheim Steamroller - Let It Snow' or 'You are listening to FM 94.9' or anything you want. Name each text file like song1.txt or whatever. Then tell LOR2 when you play this sequence, copy song1.txt to the RDS monitor folder. It's very easy logic.

Just so I am clear, you still need RDS software, on top of a RDS encoder for your transmitter correct?

I thought the purpose of having RDS in S2 was to prepare this information for you to send to the encoder so you don't need any external software. Am I understanding this wrong?

[Steven]

Texan78 wrote:

Just so I am clear, you still need RDS software, on top of a RDS encoder for your transmitter correct?

I thought the purpose of having RDS in S2 was to prepare this information for you to send to the encoder so you don't need any external software. Am I understanding this wrong?

There is no standard for sending data to an RDS encoder, so LOR 2.1 keeps it flexible by passing the data to the RDS encoder program. The purpose of having RDS in S2 is to allow this passing of the data. The current version (2.0) is not able to do this.

An RDS encoder, such as the Pira32, includes the necessary interface software. Think of it as kind of a driver that you would need with a piece of hardware.

The Airomate software is an RDS encoder. It does not need any additional hardware, except for the audio card you already have in your computer and an FM transmitter that has a way of turning off the stereo (MPX) encoder and bypassing the low-pass audio filter.

[Texan78]

Steven wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

Just so I am clear, you still need RDS software, on top of a RDS encoder for your transmitter correct?

I thought the purpose of having RDS in S2 was to prepare this information for you to send to the encoder so you don't need any external software. Am I understanding this wrong?

There is no standard for sending data to an RDS encoder, so LOR 2.1 keeps it flexible by passing the data to the RDS encoder program. The purpose of having RDS in S2 is to allow this passing of the data. The current version (2.0) is not able to do this.

An RDS encoder, such as the Pira32, includes the necessary interface software. Think of it as kind of a driver that you would need with a piece of hardware.

The Airomate software is an RDS encoder. It does not need any additional hardware, except for the audio card you already have in your computer and an FM transmitter that has a way of turning off the stereo (MPX) encoder and bypassing the low-pass audio filter.

Ok this is starting to make some sense now. So with the S2 method it will just allow you to customize what you want it to say with each sequence for the RDS software to read it where The Airomate software will read the file and display it as is and use your sound card to encode it to your transmitter correct?

[dqhall]

Sounds like you are catchin on Texan78. With LOR's ability to copy text files on cue makes managing a RDS enabled show very simple.

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

It is just software but you do need a 192khz sound card because of the high frequencies used for the RDS Data.

I think most of us are looking for a solution for the actually RDS unit to connect to our transmitters. No need to purchase software when LOR is already about to release RDS capabilities in there next release and it is being tested now as we speak.

When I was referring to plug and play I was talking about RDS unit that you could just plug your transmitter into from your sound card without having to make any modifications to your transmitter like you have to do now.

You seem to be misinterpreting how the RDS will be implemented. LorII will not send RDS to your transmitter it will only send the text to a file and then your rds software will read the file and it will encode the RDS data. Even all the hardware RDS units have a software program to relay the RDS Data. You were asking about a plug and play solution and the Airomate software is the closest thing to what you asked! As it only uses your sound card to produce RDS data.

I understand S2 will not send RDS to my transmitter, that is what a RDS encoder is for. Which is why I was saying it would be nice to have a plug and play device where you don't have to modify your transmitter. See page 2 for the example, of what I am talking about in dqhall's post. From the way I understand it S2 will complie the RDS information so you don't need any external software because it will do it within S2 then send that data to your RDS device that is connected to your FM transmitter for the signal to be sent.

The Airomate software alone can't send RDS signal, you need an external device that is connected to your transmitter. If you are doing it with just the software alone please explain in detail because I would sure be interested. Are you saying the sound card acts as the RDS encoder with the Airomate software?

Yes the sound card does act as your encoder. Sounds to me that is what you are looking for.

[Tim Fischer]

Steven wrote:

Tim Fischer wrote:

One thing I've never gotten a clear answer on: Will LOR simply work with external RDS hardware (and possibly software), or will it actually try to do the "soft-RDS" thing with the high frequencies?

LOR will be able to be configured to run a command when a sequence starts playing.  I assume it will pass the name of the sequence, or perhaps each sequence will be separately configured with a different command to run.

Typically, this command will put the name of the song in a text file, which will be monitored by the RDS software, which will cause the name to be sent to the RDS encoder, either hardware or software.

The command could also change the message in an LED sign so visitors could know the name of the song (and artist) without having an RDS radio.

Hmmm, seems one could tap into the same mechanism for putting out data to a "Beta-brite"-style LED sign. Cool...

-Tim

[Dinosang]

Tim Fischer wrote:

Steven wrote:

Tim Fischer wrote:

One thing I've never gotten a clear answer on: Will LOR simply work with external RDS hardware (and possibly software), or will it actually try to do the "soft-RDS" thing with the high frequencies?

LOR will be able to be configured to run a command when a sequence starts playing. I assume it will pass the name of the sequence, or perhaps each sequence will be separately configured with a different command to run.

Typically, this command will put the name of the song in a text file, which will be monitored by the RDS software, which will cause the name to be sent to the RDS encoder, either hardware or software.

The command could also change the message in an LED sign so visitors could know the name of the song (and artist) without having an RDS radio.

Hmmm, seems one could tap into the same mechanism for putting out data to a "Beta-brite"-style LED sign. Cool...

-Tim

They have a free Software stereo encoder to generate a digital MPX stereo signal for FM radio stations. Just think you can have a high quality digital radio station for free to bad I do not have a digital radio. (lol)

Dino

[Texan78]

Dinosang wrote:

Yes the sound card does act as your encoder. Sounds to me that is what you are looking for.

Yea that sounds like what I am looking for. I am not sure if my sound card will work with it or not.

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

Dinosang wrote:

Yes the sound card does act as your encoder. Sounds to me that is what you are looking for.

Yea that sounds like what I am looking for. I am not sure if my sound card will work with it or not.

There is a list of cards that have been verified to work on their web site but you have to make sure you have no effects on (example hall effect). You can download a free trial but it is very limited you can not save settings and so on. You should be able to see if your sound card will work!

[Texan78]

The manufacture is on there as one that works, but my card isn't listed to be one of the cards, but it also doesn't say it doesn't. I downloaded the trial but it didn't work.

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

The manufacture is on there as one that works, but my card isn't listed to be one of the cards, but it also doesn't say it doesn't. I downloaded the trial but it didn't work.

Did you go into the settings and select RDS only and RBDS (Noth America) also do you have your audio setting set to 192khz. You can try different levels. To low will not work but to high you get to much noise. Here are some of my settings.

Attached files

[Texan78]

My first screen is the same as yours and it has all that greyed out so I can't select anything. But in the Audio Input it shows my soundcard, but it is greyed out as you can see. Now my weather radio is connected to the line in of my sound card because I stream it for NWS for my area and it detects it and shows its levels, but it doesn't detect my Zara. I am not sure if it is displaying anything or not on radios when the weather feed is playing so I am not sure if it is working or not.




Attached files

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

My first screen is the same as yours and it has all that greyed out so I can't select anything. But in the Audio Input it shows my soundcard, but it is greyed out as you can see. Now my weather radio is connected to the line in of my sound card because I stream it for NWS for my area and it detects it and shows its levels, but it doesn't detect my Zara. I am not sure if it is displaying anything or not on radios when the weather feed is playing so I am not sure if it is working or not.

I noticed your windows sound card is set to the Microsoft Sound Mapper. Go into your control panel under audio and pick your sound card that supports 192kHz. I noticed your output is set to 2% that is to low I have found that the text gets screwed up on the radio at 8%. As you can see mine is set to 12%, it seems to work great there for me and I do not hear it. Another thing you can do is set it a lot higher so you can here the noise produced for the RDS just to verify it is outputting. You should hear it as soon as you click the on button. If you can not manually set your audio to 192kHz you can start the RDS software first in the on position so your sound card will detect the 192 bitrate, so when you play your music it should output at the same frequency. That is what I do.

One more note for some reason the output is different if it is not set to RDS Only!

[Texan78]

My realtek sound card is already selected in the control panel as default. Also I noticed yours is set to 12% but mine only goes up to 10. Do you own the software? I am just using the demo so it is probably restricting what I can do.

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

My realtek sound card is already selected in the control panel as default. Also I noticed yours is set to 12% but mine only goes up to 10. Do you own the software? I am just using the demo so it is probably restricting what I can do.

Yes I have a Registered copy i had to download a registered version and the install my key. There definitely seems to be a difference.

If you do not check off RDS only there is a difference on the output setting for some reason I am not sure why but 2% is to low! Like I mentioned in the previous post anything under 8% did not work for me.

[Texan78]

Well I hate to buy it not knowing if it works or not with my sound card. It doesn't pick up Zara but it will pick up my weather radio that is on the line in and you can see the levels on the screen.

I changed the 2% to 9% because I can only go up to 10. I don't know how I can tell if it works fully when they limit the use which is stupid and on top of that you can only use it 30 mins at a time. So if you are making adjustments and the time is up, you have to start over.

[Dinosang]

Texan78 wrote:

Well I hate to buy it not knowing if it works or not with my sound card. It doesn't pick up Zara but it will pick up my weather radio that is on the line in and you can see the levels on the screen.

I changed the 2% to 9% because I can only go up to 10. I don't know how I can tell if it works fully when they limit the use which is stupid and on top of that you can only use it 30 mins at a time. So if you are making adjustments and the time is up, you have to start over.

I hear you can not say I blame you. The only thing I can say is try different things. I would put a radio in your room and listen for the noise when you turn the RDS on if you hear it it should be working because when the output is set to high it sounds like a lot of hiss. I am not sure why it does not see your other sound card. are you using XP or Vista?