ProppFrexx ONAIR User-Forum

Hi Bernd,

Thanks for your suggestions and help. I really appreciate this!

What you are saying about the third point that I made, is 100% correct, but when the time after the last song is less than the Minimum Bridge Time, then the Bridge Track will not be played. ProppFrexx just starts the next program. I guess, I must have an incorrect setting somewhere.

I have now have set the “Show Seconds In Advance Time” to just under the length of the end tunes like you said.
For the end of the day radio (in the night radio Program) I use a tune that is 3’03” long. This is now set to 180 seconds.

This technique I also use to go back from the night program into the day program with another Bridge Track.
For the end of the night radio (in the day radio program) I use another tune that is 4’03” long. This is now set to 240 seconds.

I had set this "Minimum Bridge Time" to -90 seconds with the adjusted settings you suggested, and then the Bridge Track is almost never played. It jumps to the next program when the last song has been played. I even had the two test programs running at the same time today.

When I adjust this Minimum Bridge Time to -60 seconds it runs a little bit better.

I included the settings of the test programs that I am using. Probably I have set it up in the wrong way or have forgotten something. For a newbie the software is extremely powerful in comparison to others, but also were overwhelming with all the settings and possibilities.

I also have to mention that in the Overlay Scheduler I have setup a Time Signal every hour starting at XX:59:55. The famous six beeps.

The Fixed Time Element I tested before. But as I remember it plays the complete tune. Honestly not what I want.

What I am trying to achieve sounds actually really simple, explaining it is difficult, and making it work in the software is even more difficult because there are so much combinations and variations that can be generated by the software.

• The end tune has to be played at the end of the day radio program. This Program ends at 23:29:59.
• It has to end with the ending of the tune, not somewhere in the middle, at exactly 23:29:59.
• When the last song of the day radio program has ended, the tune fades in and ends at 23:29:59. When the tune fades in, is different every day because of the script that chooses the songs for that program.
• It has to play for example at least 60, 90 or whatever seconds. When the last song hasn’t ended by that time yet, this song should fade out and the last 60, 90 or whatever seconds of the tune have to fade in and play until 23:29:59.
• The night radio program start exactly at 23:30:00.

Thanks again for your precious time Bernd. I actually start to feel a little bit uncomfortable annoying you with all of this. Sorry!

Greetings,
Ivan

Day and night program playing at the same time.

Minimum Bridge Time:
Defines the minimum time in seconds an optional program bridge track should play.
If the remaining time (til the actual start time) of a program is less than this time, the bridge track will NOT be played and the program will be started early.

Ie. you should set the minimum bridge time to eg. -5 sec. or -10 sec. As it define the time a bridge track is played at least.

But the one issue is still open to me.
As you said, you want to play the bridge track at least eg. 60 seconds.
So what should happen, if the last track ends at 23:58:50?
In such case, the next song would play for only 10 seconds, then faded so that the bridge track can play?

I guess you will now answer: in such case, the bridge track will start earlier and simply play 70 sec.
BUT this was just an example. Assume your bridge track is now exactly 3 min. long. What if the last song ends 3:10 before the hour?
Again a new track would have to be started and play only for 10 sec. In any scenario, there are situations, which can not be perfectly resolved I guess.


But I just had an idea. Instead of adding another parameter, I could define, that a negative bridge minimum time has a new and different meaning! Ie. it would define, the time the bridge track will be played at least and it would even force the bridge track to be played. Ie. the program would in this case always start exactly and eventually fade out any previous track.
If however the last track ends between the Show In Advance time and this minimum time (eg. between 3 min. and 1 min.) the bridge track would simply be started. But if the last track doesn’t end in that time frame the bridge track would play at least that time and fade out the last track early.

I have now set the “Minimum Bridge Time” to -10 seconds. It runs far better than anything else I did before. No more weird things like running two programs at the same time, and no deadly silences.

I guess you will now answer: in such case, the bridge track will start earlier and simply play 70 sec.
BUT this was just an example. Assume your bridge track is now exactly 3 min. long. What if the last song ends 3:10 before the hour?
Again a new track would have to be started and play only for 10 sec. In any scenario, there are situations, which can not be perfectly resolved I guess.

How can you read my mind!
Yes, to be honest, I would have said that.
Your example also shows how complicated this actually is.

But I just had an idea. Instead of adding another parameter, I could define, that a negative bridge minimum time has a new and different meaning! Ie. it would define, the time the bridge track will be played at least and it would even force the bridge track to be played. Ie. the program would in this case always start exactly and eventually fade out any previous track.
If however the last track ends between the Show In Advance time and this minimum time (eg. between 3 min. and 1 min.) the bridge track would simply be started. But if the last track doesn’t end in that time frame the bridge track would play at least that time and fade out the last track early.

That’s a very nice idea. I like that! Thanks for thinking with me!

Will try to start implementing when I am back around the 20th of August…

Thanks!

Implemented in v4.4.1.3 !
A negative Minimum Bridge Track Time now defines the minimum bridge track play time, as explained above.

Downloaded, and testing right now!

Wow, it works greatly! Thank you very much!

The only tiny thing that I discovered, is that when the last song starts before the next program is loaded, and exceeds the TOTHH time (see screenshots), the Bridge Track doesn’t end exactly at xx:29:59. It runs about 2 or 3 seconds over the half hour. The next program then also start this amount of time later.

The Minimum Bridge Time is set to -150 sec.

In all the others scenarios, when the next program is already loaded before the last song ends, it always (as far as I could test it long enough) ends correctly at xx:29:59 and xx:00:59:55 just before the TOTH Time Signal.

I also noticed that you have implemented a visual notification in the Timecode window when the Bridge Track is playing. Fantastic!

A v4.4.1.4-beta is available (So check for Beta-Versions...)

The timing was not considering the addition mix time, which is now corrected...
(note, that the manual mix time settings are used)