EDM RDS and LOR setup example

[Surfing4Dough]

pdowns wrote:

Surfing4Dough - your understanding is correct. You can load a static message in the EDM RDS that will be sent continuously. Once loaded, you need not have the EDM connected to a computer.

Excellent, thanks. Makes my EDM RDS purchase even better then since I wasn't otherwise planning to use the RDS feature this year since I am not running my show off my computer this year (using mini-director instead). But figured since I was buying a transmitter, I would plan for future years' use. But now I will be able to use it for my 2009 display too!

[Steven]

I just modified my RDS.BAT script to be more fancy.

The RDS system has several "fields". Stuff like alternate frequency, program type, traffic info, etc., but the most important one is "PS" (program service). Commercial radio stations sometimes set this to their call letters, and they often put the name of the song currently playing.

The "PS" field is limited to 8 characters. This makes it difficult to put the entire name of the song. To get around that problem, radio stations will "scroll" the PS field. The MiniRDS program can do that a word at a time, or a character at a time, which makes it look like a marquee. Most commercial radio stations don't scroll it a character at a time, for a number of reasons, but scroll it a word at at time. I chose to configure MiniRDS to do it this way. Because it is limited to 8 characters, I shortened the names of some of my songs. For instance, "The Christmas Song" became "The Chrismas Song". A slight mispelling is better than showing "Christma", then "s Song".

There is a second RDS field called "RT" (Radio Text) This field can have up to 64 characters. This field is meant for longer things like the complete song title and artist. The trouble is that not all RDS-capable radios will display RT. Others require a special button to be pressed. For this reason, it is desirable to show the song as both dynamic (scrolling) PS and RT.

Since the RT field is longer, I want to set it to the complete song title and artist, and put the abbreviated song title in the PS field. The MiniRDS program can do this by getting the text from different places, or from two different lines in the same file. I chose to use one file with two different lines. The PS field will come from the first line, and the RT field will come from the last line. It is easy to configure MiniRDS to do this.

The tricky part is put two lines in the LOR Windows command. I decided to have a separator token, 'n' to separate the two lines in the command line. Then I can have a windows command line like this:

RDS.BAT Have Yourself a Merry Little Chrismas n Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Twisted Sister

The RDS.BAT file I used to do this is ugly, but it works:

@echo off
SET FILE="C:Light-O-RamaNow Playing.txt"
SET LINE1=
SET LINE2=
IF "%*"=="" GOTO END

SET LINE1=%1
:LOOP1
SHIFT
IF "%1"=="" GOTO END
IF "%1"=="n" GOTO LINE2
SET LINE1=%LINE1% %1
GOTO LOOP1

:LINE2
SHIFT
IF "%1"=="" GOTO END
SET LINE2=%1
:LOOP2
SHIFT
if "%1"=="" GOTO END
SET LINE2=%LINE2% %1
GOTO LOOP2

:END
IF "%LINE1%"=="" ECHO. > %FILE%
IF NOT "%LINE1%"=="" ECHO %LINE1% > %FILE%
IF NOT "%LINE2%"=="" ECHO %LINE2% >> %FILE%

[Richard Hamilton]

Steven,

Very clever. I'm going to do that! I've been thinking about this for some time and wasn't sure how I was going to accomplish it. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

"slash n delimiter" ??? You must be a C++ guy. ;-)

I got an idea. How about you move up here to San Ramon and become my neighbor? The house next door will go up for sale soon..... hint hint... ha!

[pdowns]

Steven, please stop making major improvements! It's getting close to showtime and there's a change freeze coming soon.

But I agree with Richard, I'm going to do this too. Thanks for sharing.

[friskybri]

OK I think I got my RDS to connect to Zara Radio. At least that works. I was pulling my hair out with the LOR RDS. Still trying to work on that one. If you play it in the sequence editor will it transmit the data. I had no luck with that. Maybe I got it wrong.

[Richard Hamilton]

friskybri wrote:

OK I think I got my RDS to connect to Zara Radio. At least that works. I was pulling my hair out with the LOR RDS. Still trying to work on that one. If you play it in the sequence editor will it transmit the data. I had no luck with that. Maybe I got it wrong.

Yes, LOR should run the DOS command when you play the sequence in the sequence editor. LOR doesn't "transmit" the data. Your LOR command should be calling a bat file that modifies the contents of the Zara text file. It is then up to "Mini RDS" to detect the change to the text file and transmit the data.

I saw somewhere on here that people reported seq editor does not work that way, but it does on my system. I'm using version 2.6 and when I play a song in the seq editor, LOR calls my batch file which modifies my RDS song file and also sends the message to my BetaBrite sign.

On a side note, if you are using the Zara RDS, forget about that. It is too whimpy. Use the "Mini RDS" software.

[friskybri]

Yes I should have clarified, I am using mini rds and in the text sources I have C:lorcurrentSong.txt I pointed Zara to put the currentsong.txt there in LOR directory. So from following i get from the help file on LOR and RDS. In the bat file I have copy c:loramazing.txt c:lorrds.txt In the amazing text i have song title and other info. Now in the LOR under windows commands I have C:loramazing.bat So where does the C:lorrds.txt used for? So then when Zara isn't playing I would have to go back into miniRDS and change the text source from C:lorcurrentsong.txt to C:lorrds.txt? So confusing. lol

What is Label Period on Mini RDS under Dynamic PS I thought that the text was scrolling to slow. I had this set on 5 but moved it back down to 2.5. THanks, Brian

[Richard Hamilton]

friskybri wrote:

Yes I should have clarified, I am using mini rds and in the text sources I have C:lorcurrentSong.txt I pointed Zara to put the currentsong.txt there in LOR directory. So from following i get from the help file on LOR and RDS. In the bat file I have copy c:loramazing.txt c:lorrds.txt In the amazing text i have song title and other info. Now in the LOR under windows commands I have C:loramazing.bat So where does the C:lorrds.txt used for? So then when Zara isn't playing I would have to go back into miniRDS and change the text source from C:lorcurrentsong.txt to C:lorrds.txt? So confusing. lol

What is Label Period on Mini RDS under Dynamic PS I thought that the text was scrolling to slow. I had this set on 5 but moved it back down to 2.5. THanks, Brian

Ok, first of all, I'm sure you realize we are talking about two different programs that can feed information to Mini RDS. One is LOR and the other is Zara Radio. Let's forget Zara for the moment since it seems like you are focusing on trying to get LOR to send info out on RDS. Thus, it doesn't matter that you have pointed Zara to put text into that file. It is unrelated to what you are trying to achieve here. It only matters what you do with Zara when your LOR show is NOT running. I'm thinking you probably understand that, but just wanted to point it out.

I'm thinking that your issue might be that commands might not be pointing to files in the right paths.

Also, correct me if wrong, but it looks like you are using the older technique from the help file that requires a different batch file or text file for every song. I started out that way, but found it to be too cumbersome and unnecessary to create and manage a batch file for every song.

I like Steven's approach much better (see above thread). I used his bat file and it works nicely. The only thing I did was to add the following two lines to the end of the batch file because I want to also send the song information to my BetaBrite sign and I noticed my bat file was not always exiting properly.

"C colon slash program Files slash BetaBrite slash Prismcom.exe" USB {Hold}{Green} %Line2%
EXIT

With Steve's technique, you don't use the rds.txt? You use the same batch file name in every song, but you include the text you want shown. It's quite clever.

See the HELP tab of Mini RDS as it explains the purpose of Label Period. I suggest to leave it at 2.5 even if it does seem a little slow.

[friskybri]

ARRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Ok i made a RDS bat file using this





@echo off
SET FILE="C:Light-O-RamaNow Playing.txt"
SET LINE1=
SET LINE2=
IF "%*"=="" GOTO END

SET LINE1=%1
:LOOP1
SHIFT
IF "%1"=="" GOTO END
IF "%1"=="n" GOTO LINE2
SET LINE1=%LINE1% %1
GOTO LOOP1

:LINE2
SHIFT
IF "%1"=="" GOTO END
SET LINE2=%1
:LOOP2
SHIFT
if "%1"=="" GOTO END
SET LINE2=%LINE2% %1
GOTO LOOP2

:END
IF "%LINE1%"=="" ECHO. > %FILE%
IF NOT "%LINE1%"=="" ECHO %LINE1% > %FILE%
IF NOT "%LINE2%"=="" ECHO %LINE2% >> %FILE%

So i went into the windows command and put in RDS.bat amazing grace  Where does the light o rama now playing text come from?    I couldn't find it anywhere.    This is so getting on my nerves.   All I get on Dynamic PS is @echo off.     I put my RDS.bat in a LOR directory on C.   The LOR program is in C:program filesLight-o-rama

[pdowns]

You may benefit from some backslashes ...

I like being explicit about complete path names so I know where to look. My LOR software is installed in C:Program FilesLight-O-Rama but the data files (audio and sequences) is in C:LOR

I put my .bat files (and anything that LOR does not distribute) in C:LOR Of course, they could be anywhere.

Instead of:
SET FILE="C:Light-O-RamaNow Playing.txt"

I would use:
C:LORnowplaying.txt

(And make life predictable and remove that space from between "Now Playing")

In your code, what directory will be used? It will be the "current" directory from where your bat file is executed. And I don't know where that will be for you.

Then, in the windows command field in the sequence editor, be specific about file names including the full path. For instance:

C:LORrds.bat

[Richard Hamilton]

Ok friskybri,

Let's give it another shot with hopefully as little frustration as possible. I can see it is a tense process as we are trying to get 3 things working together.

Your text in the LOR Windows command seems correct. It is calling the RDS.bat file and passing the name of the song as a command line parameter. As you said, you have the bat file in the LOR folder and that seems fine.

As a side note, I have mine in the "Mini RDS" folder under program files. I do that because that program is not likely to change much whereas it seems that a new LOR version comes along regularly. Even though LOR probably won't delete the bat file during an update, I did not want to take the chance of breaking the link if I had to uninstall and reinstall LOR. So my command looks like.. "C:Program FilesMini RDSRDS.bat" Song Name
Note the quote marks that surround the path and filename. It's very important when specifying a full path and filename.

To explain what happens next... The LOR Windows command makes the RDS.bat file run. As it runs, it writes the name of the song (that LOR passed to it) into a file named "Now Playing.txt". Actually, the file can be called anything. Mine is called "CurrentSong.txt". Again, I keep that file in my Mini RDS folder along with the rds.bat file. Some people keep the text file in the ZaraRadio folder because that is where Zara defaults to looking for it. For this exercise, we don't care if Zara is working or not since it is not needed to get song information from LOR out to the Radio.

The last step of this process is that Mini RDS is always running in the background to watch when the txt file changes. When it does, Mini RDS grabs the new information and pushes it out to the FM transmitter.

So to summarize... LOR calls the rds.bat file and passes text (song name or whatever you want) to the bat file. RDS.bat then writes that text into a text file. Lastly, Mini RDS sees that the file changed, then goes to grab the text for sending to the transmitter. Yea, it is a multi-step process, but currently the only way to do this.

Just to be on the safe side, I always specify a "fully qualified" path and filename for files and ensure it is surrounds by quote marks. That way, it won't matter where you store your batch file or text file.

[Richard Hamilton]

pdowns wrote:

You may benefit from some backslashes ...

I'm glad you pointed that out Pat, since it is definitely worth checking to make sure.

I think he might have the backslashes in place... it is just that this forum seems to strip them out of the text when posting unless it is created as a double back slash.

The reason I think they are in place is because the bat file is actually being called (he reports getting an echo in mini rds).

[pdowns]

Hmm, the backslashes appeared in my post!

His bat file is being called (are you sure?), but is it creating the file he wants in the place he told MiniRDS to go look for it? fiskibri said "I can't find it" (so how can MiniRDS?)

Not sure how @echo got in whatever file MiniRDS is finding. That may be the result of a previous version of the .bat file execution. Or he might have stored it in the MiniRDS eprom with a send command. And I've gotten MiniRDS to do some strange things, such as display the name of the file "C:LORNowplaying.txt" on the radio dial instead of the contents of the file. I've also seen "EDM RDS" on my radio dial many a time. (shame on them for writing that on the EPROM)

That's why I'm votin' for fully explicit references with drive:directoryfile.id

I'm a mainframe guy who grew up with nothing longer than 8 characters, no mixed case, certainly no spaces and in the Intel world I find I can easily confuse myself as well as confuse Windoze and the Linuxen.

Backslashes!

[friskybri]

OK I will have to try this after the show ends. Thanks so much for helping someone that is brain dead in this area. Just to clarify I need to make a text file. Maybe thats my issue. I was looking for Now Playing.txt and couldn't find it. will make a text file and make sure to edit the bat file and point it to the text file that I use.

[Richard Hamilton]

friskybri wrote:

OK I will have to try this after the show ends. Thanks so much for helping someone that is brain dead in this area. Just to clarify I need to make a text file. Maybe thats my issue. I was looking for Now Playing.txt and couldn't find it. will make a text file and make sure to edit the bat file and point it to the text file that I use.

Yea, just to be on the safe side, create a text file (it can be blank) with notepad or wordpad. I'm not sure what will happen if it does not already exists, but my gut feeling is that an error will occur and you won't see it when the batch file executes because it will close so quickly.

I see that I tend to think along the lines of Pat. I like fully qualified path and file names, which of course it means you need to also be sure you put quote marks around it so Windows can process it properly. Otherwise, spaces in the name or path will cause an issue.

I too grew up in that world of 8 spaces being the max chars for a filename or path name. I've become to hate the "~" character as a result ;-)

[friskybri]

Holly Cow I finally got it to work. My hole issue was the brain fart with making a text file and editing the bat file to point to the text file. I just used the same one as Zara and it works. I like this way much better. Thanks guys for putting up with me. Plus I like the fact you can see it when you are playing with sequence editor.

[Richard Hamilton]

friskybri wrote:

Holly Cow I finally got it to work. My hole issue was the brain fart with making a text file and editing the bat file to point to the text file. I just used the same one as Zara and it works. I like this way much better. Thanks guys for putting up with me. Plus I like the fact you can see it when you are playing with sequence editor.

Wonderful. Hopefully the excitement will make up for the past frustration.
Yea, it is a lot nicer to just deal with one bat file and to make your changes only in LOR to send out the messages.
cheers!

[rgardner518]

Richard Hamilton wrote:

Pat, that doc is a work of art! Thanks for posting it. That doc is easy to understand, informative, and saving me a lot of time.

cheers,
Richard

I was reading your web site to see you have noise sensors, how do they work? I like that idea. Were do you find them?

[schristi69]

The Betabrite you are using is it inside or outside? I am assuming it is a 1036. If it is outside, how are you weatherproofing it?

[jeffl]

Any chance somebody could take screen shots of each tab in their MiniRDS software? I'd like to compare it to what I have to make sure its correct to match my EDM RDS and the batch files already provided.

Thanks Jeff