I need a Zara Radio Guru to consult

[Greg]

I have found that if LOR is playing your tones to not have them play as soon as the sequence starts, I have mine about a second into the sequence.

[chris2k]

wow thanks i cant believe i didnt see that drop down menu staring me in the face lol.

[brownjm74]

Michael, Thank you so much for your tutorial. It was very helpful in getting started and getting things working. However I am having a problem with the DTMF tones. I have went through your troubleshooting of DTMF and I am still having problems. I can't get Zara to start or stop by playing the tones manualy.

When I play the tone I hear them on the computer speakers.

The tones do match

Play the list is selected

DTMF is enabled

My computer is using Windows for sound

For Satellite options, I only have "Speakers"

For Outputs Options, I only have Air Output selected to Speakers the other options are at No Sound

Thanks for any help.

Jeremy

[michael.farney]

brownjm74 wrote:

Michael, Thank you so much for your tutorial. It was very helpful in getting started and getting things working. However I am having a problem with the DTMF tones. I have went through your troubleshooting of DTMF and I am still having problems. I can't get Zara to start or stop by playing the tones manualy.

When I play the tone I hear them on the computer speakers.

The tones do match

Play the list is selected

DTMF is enabled

My computer is using Windows for sound

For Satellite options, I only have "Speakers"

For Outputs Options, I only have Air Output selected to Speakers the other options are at No Sound

Thanks for any help.

Jeremy

It sounds like this is being done on either a laptop or a desktop with the sound built into the motherboard. Based on your lack of options for the satellite connection and air output, I do not believe your soundcard can support DTMF. Can you try installing a dedicated sound card for testing purposes? Do you have another pc you can test this on and/or "borrow" the sound card from to try this out?

If it is a pc, just buy any $30+ PCI sound card for your PC. Get some help to make sure you are buying a card that will fit into your pc if you are unsure. All my DTMF is run from two $30 Dynex sound cards I got at best buy.

[Richard Hamilton]

chris2k wrote:

Hi,

I made a lor sequence of the 69 tone and it worked perfectly. it stopped zara like it was supposed to.
But now it doesnt seem to work anymore! i cant get zara to "hear" the DTMF tones. Does anyone know what i may have done, a setting that i messed up somewhere? Please help, I tried playing the tone with different audio players and no luck there either.
Thanks,
Chris

Chris, the easiest and most reliable way by far to stop Zara is to just put an event in the event scheduler to tell it to stop instead of having it to listen for a tone. Just use the DTMF to Start Zara. Soimetimes if the music is too loud, it will not hear a DTMF tone play over the top of it.

[coasterbp]

First off, thanks for everyone on their help.

I've taken the jump into Zara Radio this year. I've downloaded it and loaded it up with all my music. It seems pretty user friendly so far.



I can't get the DTMF tones to work yet, but I think I need a newer sound card as the one I have is married to the motherboard and the motherboard is fairly old. So I'm going to get a newer sound card.

Here's my question. I'm planning on running LOR shows starting every 15 minutes. So to make it easier, I'm just going to have Zara Radio shut off every 15 minutes to allow LOR to play, and then have LOR play the DTMF tone to start up Zara after the show is done. I want the Time, Temp and Humidity to play every 5 minutes as a sweeper when the LOR show isn't running. How do I do that? I'm assuming that since I've told Zara to stop to allow the LOR show to play, that it won't play the TTH, which is fine. But how do I get it to do it every 5 minutes while the playlist is playing?



Thanks everyone, especially Michael F. for his tutorials. Absolutely perfect.



-=coasterbp

[Richard Hamilton]

Coaster,

I have lots of thoughts about this. First about buying a new sound card. I wonder about the reason? Unless you are getting crappy sound or there is another issue, I would think that most sound cards are fine for this purpose regardless of how old they are. The one I am using has a "Fred Flintstone logo" on it. Seriously, I'm using an ancient computer with integrated sound card from 1998 and it is fine.

I would not want to discourage you about using Zara in the way you plan, but will warn you that you are in for some sticky problems. I think most people are using Zara before the first evening show and then on again after the final show, not on and off in between shows. Evaluate how important that time and temperature gimmic is to you. Here are some issues to look out for"

Although you can get ZR to reliably turn off by a built-in event, starting it up again might not be reliable when using DTMF. When it does start up again, music will start playing unless you have an event to clear out the play list. If people hear music, they might wonder why the lights aren't flashing in sync to it. There are some other tricky items, but those are the main ones. I suggest just using an LOR sequence for between shows and forget about Zara.

If you are not able to get DTMF tones to work well when starting ZR, it is most likely the sound file, not your audio card. Improper mixer settings are also sometimes as issue. I remember a few years ago when I started using ZR that most all of the DTMF tone files I found on the internet were not well constucted and poor quality. Yea, they sound fine to the ear, but when I looked at the waveform of the file, it sucked. I created my own DTMF files and I have them posted somewhere on my site. I'll see if I can dig them up for you or find the link. I forgot where I put them.

[Richard Hamilton]

Coaster,

The DTMF files were easier to find than I thought. Thank goodness for search engines.

Rather than re-posting all 6 files here, take a look at this link below. I have a thread there which explains about using DTMF files and includes a zip file that has DTMF tones. Try those tones instead of the ones you have. I know these to be reliable. I made them a long time ago and they have never failed to start ZR. If ZR still isn't working after using the files, then focus on the mixer settings of your sound card and the option menu of ZR. I have a coupld image files in that zip which shows what settings you need.
http://magiclightshow.com/bb/index.php?topic=64.0

[coasterbp]

Thanks for the help, Richard. I will try out the tones you've given me when I get back to my computer.

It's just weird that there isn't an event you can schedule to happen every 10 mins or so. And have that event be a sweeper.

[michael.farney]

coasterbp wrote:

Thanks for the help, Richard. I will try out the tones you've given me when I get back to my computer.

It's just weird that there isn't an event you can schedule to happen every 10 mins or so. And have that event be a sweeper.

You'll have to define sweeper for me. I know I played with them way back when, but I never found an application that worked.

To answer your scheduling question -- it can only be done per hour. In order to mimick the 5 minutes you want, you'll just have to setup 12 TTH events that occur once an hour-- x:05, x:10, x:15, x:20, x:25, x:30, etc. Set them to repeat every hour and expire after 5 minutes so you don't overlap. Otherwise, two or more might play in a row.

I do this myself for my 24/7 radio. The TTH, promos, and station IDs are scheduled every 15, 5, and 10 minutes respectively, using the same trick.

[Greg]

coaster,

you could try something like this but it may be a little bit of a setup. set up several songs with a TTH sweeper. Then set up an event to play one of those specific files at the given time.

you are limited to the number of sweepers you set up that would be the downfall but it may be what you are looking for

I would make a specific folder and copy the music you want to set up as sweepers seperate from your regular music, that way you can still play those songs in the playlist without running sweepers there.

hope this makes sense.



greg

[DanCampbell]

Is there a "safe" download of 1.6.2 anywhere? The exe is no longer on zarastudio.es at the link on the download page.

Not to hijack the thread, but does anyone here have lockup problems with Zara?

My family loves the random track events playing clips from Christmas movies and I love the scheduling features, so I hope I can get it stabilized.

[Richard Hamilton]

DanCampbell wrote:

Is there a "safe" download of 1.6.2 anywhere? The exe is no longer on zarastudio.es at the link on the download page.

Not to hijack the thread, but does anyone here have lockup problems with Zara?

Folks, do be careful of downloading ZR from unknown sources. I ran into a couple that contained trojans and fortunately my antivirus program warned me.

Here is the URL to a safe version that I posted on my web. I use this version...
http://magiclightshow.com/bb/index.php?topic=110.0

Also, I have never had any problems with ZR

[coasterbp]

Thanks for everyones help. After lots of tweaking and playing around yesterday/last night, I was able to accomplish what I was trying to do.

First, Richard, I tried your DTMF tones as well, and they didn't work either. So I purchased the $30 sound card from Best Buy (it was a Rocketfish 5.1) and after some battling on getting it installed, the DTMF tones worked like a charm. Perfect. Thank you!

Second, after playing around with the sweepers, I decided that I probably didn't want those to play OVER the music, in case there were lyrics going on at the same time, it sounded muddy. So I did what you guys suggested and made events to play every hour on the 5, 10, 20, 25, 35, 40, 50 and 55 minutes. (They don't need to play on the top of the hour, 15, 30 or 45 minutes because that's when LOR is playing.) I set them up as a delayed event with a max timeout of 4 minutes, that way they wouldn't get stacked on top of each other if they didn't get snuck in between songs.

I've got the weather watcher set up and I'm using Demented Elves prerecorded time and weather announcements and they sound perfect. Thanks for letting us use them. They sound great!

Now, if my Mobile Black Box would show up, I can get this show on the road!

Again, thanks to Michael F and everyone else on here. Your help and suggestions are invaluable!

Back to programming sequences!

[DanCampbell]

Richard Hamilton wrote:

Here is the URL to a safe version that I posted on my web. I use this version...
http://magiclightshow.com/bb/index.php?topic=110.0

Thank you, Richard! It's working like a charm on my show backup Vista pc.

Giving it some burnin time on the win2k pc. That box has been very stable for years (it ran the show flawlessly last year), but would lock up hard once to twice a day when running ZR 1.6.1.

Thanks again.

[brownjm74]

michael.farney wrote:

brownjm74 wrote:

Michael, Thank you so much for your tutorial. It was very helpful in getting started and getting things working. However I am having a problem with the DTMF tones. I have went through your troubleshooting of DTMF and I am still having problems. I can't get Zara to start or stop by playing the tones manually.

When I play the tone I hear them on the computer speakers.

The tones do match

Play the list is selected

DTMF is enabled

My computer is using Windows for sound

For Satellite options, I only have "Speakers"

For Outputs Options, I only have Air Output selected to Speakers the other options are at No Sound

Thanks for any help.

Jeremy

It sounds like this is being done on either a laptop or a desktop with the sound built into the motherboard. Based on your lack of options for the satellite connection and air output, I do not believe your soundcard can support DTMF. Can you try installing a dedicated sound card for testing purposes? Do you have another pc you can test this on and/or "borrow" the sound card from to try this out?

If it is a pc, just buy any $30+ PCI sound card for your PC. Get some help to make sure you are buying a card that will fit into your pc if you are unsure. All my DTMF is run from two $30 Dynex sound cards I got at best buy.

Michael, Thanks for the info. I had to buy a sound card online because I needed a low profile card. I have installed it along with the drivers that came with it. I played the DTMF just to check and nothing is working. I have a feeling that something is messed up but I just can't figure out what. I went through your tutorial to see if I missed something. I do have another question, I do I know which sound card my LOR, Windows Media Player, etc is using?

Jeremy

[bhays]

michael.farney wrote:

Tim wrote:

Has anyone used an internet stream with Zara from a site that broadcasts music? I've fiddled with it and, of course, it didn't do anything.



Tim

Sure you can. This is how I pull all my newsfeeds. I play 30 second world news headlines and a 5 minute news segment. Try this for your internet stream:

I tried to setup events with the internet stream of the FSN news headlines, but when the event fires, it plays about the first second, then skips over to the next song. If I put the url for the nes stream in windows media player on the same machine with the same connection, it works fine. Silence detection is set to 15 seconds. Any suggestions?

[Greg]

check your stream duration, i did the same thing at first then realized i had no stream duration in once I put that in it ran and is still running fine

[bhays]

Greg wrote:

check your stream duration, i did the same thing at first then realized i had no stream duration in once I put that in it ran and is still running fine

Bingo!! Thanks

[michael.farney]

brownjm74 wrot

Michael, Thanks for the info. I had to buy a sound card online because I needed a low profile card. I have installed it along with the drivers that came with it. I played the DTMF just to check and nothing is working. I have a feeling that something is messed up but I just can't figure out what. I went through your tutorial to see if I missed something. I do have another question, I do I know which sound card my LOR, Windows Media Player, etc is using?

Jeremy

Go into the control panel and tell windows which sound card to use as your primary. Here is how I would hook it up:

Select the original PC sound for your primary sound card. You can do this by going into the control panel on the pc. You should be able to find sound options in there, and then in there you can pick which sound card is the primary. Tell it to use the original sound card as primary. This means LOR will play from the original sound card, not the new one.

Then, go into Zara radio and setup the options. You'll need to tell it that the new sound card for the output card, and setup the satellite to the LINE IN on the new card.

Then, hook a male to male audio cable between the two cards. You want to run from the regular speaker hole of the original sound card to the LINE IN on the new sound card.

Now, make sure the satellite connection button is pressed down and play something in windows media player. You should be able to hear the sound. (If not, troubleshoot your audio cable and zara radio options.) Once you hear the audio, press the satellite button a few times. You should hear the audio toggle on and off. Once this is working correctly, you have the basic setup done.

Now, your DTMF will work when played from LOR or windows media player, but only if the satellite button is pressed.

Start playing around with this and see how far you can get. If you are having a lot of trouble, try reversing the directions and use the original sound card everywhere I say new, and the new sound card where it says original.