I need a Zara Radio Guru to consult

[coasterbp]

I was under the impression that Zara already produces a text file containing song played information. Or am I misreading your post?

-=coasterbp

[Davidt]

coasterbp wrote:

I was under the impression that Zara already produces a text file containing song played information. Or am I misreading your post?

G'day coasterbp,

Thanks for your reply. From what I can see Zara creates a text file identifying the current song. Once the next song commences it overwrites the file, so there is no history of the previous song.

It also creates a log file, but that has too much additional information in it.

Ideally what I'm looking for is the ability to produce a text file that has a list of all songs played today and the time that they were played.

Cheers,

davidt

[Davidt]

Davidt wrote:

Ideally what I'm looking for is the ability to produce a text file that has a list of all songs played today and the time that they were played.

G'day All,

Just a follow up, as I now have a workable solution that may be of interest to others.

I found a third party shareware application that detects when there is a change to a file, in this case the CurrentSong.txt file that ZaraRadio produces whenever a new song commences playing. The application then runs a simple batch file that appends the CurrentSong.txt to a file comprising a list of songs that have already played today. The batch file also appends the current time to today's playlist. Each time a new song starts it appends the song information and time to the existing file.

At midnight I run another batch file tat archives the previous day's play list and creates the header file for the next day to append to.

Cheers,

davidt

[dewoepsm]

bisquit476 wrote:

michael.farney wrote:

I need a volunteer or two who would be willing to do some proofing on the tutorial. We're nearing completion, folks!

Count me in.

I am wonting to add TTS (text to speach) to the track anouncements. Do you know a why to do it. I have got no were.

[paulanator]

Michael,

I should have thanked you back during the my first Christmas setup for your great tutorial, and this thread, it helped. The thing that helped the most is on about page 5, the physical setup with 2 sound cards.

Your tutorial on the time/temp files, and how to schedule announcements and your examples rock. I was able to get it to do everything I want.

I am doing a 4th of July show, had unconnected the system and reconnected, and of course I did not note where everything went... So I got the info here, back up and running, and I have made screen shots and written down my setup.

Thanks again for your great work and help.

Paul

[Guest wbottomley]

Reviving this old thread as quality information is here.

If you need time and temp voice over files, I have them available on my website. I didn't make them, but have downloaded them from other site throughout the years.

http://www.highcountrylights.com/remository/Sequences/orderby,2/page,2/

[Richard Hamilton]

wbottomley wrote:

Reviving this old thread as quality information is here.

If you need time and temp voice over files, I have them available on my website. I didn't make them, but have downloaded them from other site throughout the years.

http://www.highcountrylights.com/remository/Sequences/orderby,2/page,2/

Nice to see your posting. Yup, there is some quality info. As a side note, it is interesting to me that such a nice little program like ZaraRadio hasn't been updated in over 2 years, but I still use it all the time. I haven't found any better tool for its purpose.

[thedementedelf]

Richard Hamilton wrote:

wbottomley wrote:

Reviving this old thread as quality information is here.

If you need time and temp voice over files, I have them available on my website. I didn't make them, but have downloaded them from other site throughout the years.

http://www.highcountrylights.com/remository/Sequences/orderby,2/page,2/

Nice to see your posting. Yup, there is some quality info. As a side note, it is interesting to me that such a nice little program like ZaraRadio hasn't been updated in over 2 years, but I still use it all the time. I haven't found any better tool for its purpose.

Zara has been updated. It has now become a pay for software program.

[Guest wbottomley]

Here's the what's new link: http://www.zarastudio.es/downloadpdf.php?file=whatsNew.pdf

And... expensive too! 165 EUR

[paulanator]

Wow, damn capitalist's!

Occupy Zara!!!

[Richard Hamilton]

Elf, thanks for the info. I went to look at the comparison of the new version s2.2 (from April 2011) to the FREE version of 2 years ago.
http://www.zarastudio.es/en/comparar.php

My conclusion is that the old free version is still plenty adequate for my LOR purpose. It does everything I need. Even though the feature comparison list shows a lot of differences, it seems to be mostly fluff that I wouldn't use anything. The 2 interesting items is to run on newer Windows OS platforms (which I am not doing for the show), and ability to save text to a file for each song (nice for RDS displays when NOT running an LOR show).

For 165 Euros... over $240 US, I don't think it is worth the difference. If it were more like $40, I'd pay the difference. I guess they are pricing themselves in the range of the competitive Radio station software out there which is usually more money. ZR certainly can compete on most of the features.

[paulanator]

I was setting up my new EDM radio with Zara radio to send out the RDS info yesterday, and with the docs and info here on the forum, it was really easy, and it works well.

I have the old free version, and it does all that I need too, esp running on XP for my show computer.

Thanks all!

[jeffl]

The last time I quesitoned it he wouldn't budge on the price either. It sounds like it has a USB key which is part of the reason for the high price. For 99% of us the old free version works like a champ. It plays music and DE voice overs. What more could you ask for.

[mcompanik]

I'm thinking of using Zara this year. Does anyone have an updated link for the tutorial? The old one doesn't work.

[mcompanik]

Ok, I was able to figure it out, but I have 1 question. I want to play a time clip at the top of the hour when Zara is running. I can do that, but is there any whay to fade the music when the time clip runs and then go back to the original volume when the time clip is done?

[Richard Hamilton]

jeffl wrote:

The last time I quesitoned it he wouldn't budge on the price either. It sounds like it has a USB key which is part of the reason for the high price. For 99% of us the old free version works like a champ. It plays music and DE voice overs. What more could you ask for.

Amen on all your comments.

It surprises me that you said the new ZR might use a USB key. Gee, I thought that technique went out in the 90s. Online activation is the easiest and cheapest way to go these days. I would have thought he'd use that approach. No one wants "dongles" hanging out of their comptuer any more, especially when for the purpose of ensuring software will only run on that computer.

[Richard Hamilton]

mcompanik wrote:

Ok, I was able to figure it out, but I have 1 question. I want to play a time clip at the top of the hour when Zara is running. I can do that, but is there any whay to fade the music when the time clip runs and then go back to the original volume when the time clip is done?

There is a way, but in the free version, it is too complicated for my taste. I simply play an increased volume time announcement over the music. You can also experiment with the "Jingle" feature to do announcements.

My preferred approach was to set an event to fade out the music a few seconds before the hour, then play my hourly time, weather and announcements, then lead into music again.

[mcompanik]

Richard Hamilton wrote:

mcompanik wrote:

Ok, I was able to figure it out, but I have 1 question. I want to play a time clip at the top of the hour when Zara is running. I can do that, but is there any whay to fade the music when the time clip runs and then go back to the original volume when the time clip is done?

There is a way, but in the free version, it is too complicated for my taste. I simply play an increased volume time announcement over the music. You can also experiment with the "Jingle" feature to do announcements.

My preferred approach was to set an event to fade out the music a few seconds before the hour, then play my hourly time, weather and announcements, then lead into music again.

My only issue with having the song fade out before the announcement is that it would end that song in the middle and then start a new song after the announcement.

Is there a way to have it resume playing where it left off, or will it only start the next song?

[thedementedelf]

mcompanik wrote:

Richard Hamilton wrote:

mcompanik wrote:

Ok, I was able to figure it out, but I have 1 question. I want to play a time clip at the top of the hour when Zara is running. I can do that, but is there any whay to fade the music when the time clip runs and then go back to the original volume when the time clip is done?

There is a way, but in the free version, it is too complicated for my taste. I simply play an increased volume time announcement over the music. You can also experiment with the "Jingle" feature to do announcements.

My preferred approach was to set an event to fade out the music a few seconds before the hour, then play my hourly time, weather and announcements, then lead into music again.

My only issue with having the song fade out before the announcement is that it would end that song in the middle and then start a new song after the announcement.

Is there a way to have it resume playing where it left off, or will it only start the next song?

I've never tried it but can it be done using the talkover function?

[mcompanik]

You can't schedule the talkover function. I would have to be at the computer to manually use the talkover function. ALso, the talk over lowers the volume on the time announcement too.