Stereo Tool

I manage several streaming radio stations, and what I want to do with the Internet only stations is be able to send RDS information (song, title, length of song, category for commercials) over TCP/IP. for regular radio stations the automation system provides all the RDS information to our encoders to trigger fill music for commercial cover up, or play a Internet commercial. However, Internet only stations I use winamp to send to the encoder, but we can't insert commercials unless we just add every commercial to the play list. If we can use RDS that can send out categories (i.e. Music, commercials CM) then I can create a play list with top and bottom of the hour (or close to it) to play a default audio clip that is tagged as CM. when the RDS is sent out and the encoder sees that it will play a Internet commercial.

I hope I explained myself enough to get my general needs understandable.

RDS is a protocol that is used to transmit texts and some (very limited) meta data (such as station ID, type of broadcast) over an FM connection without distorting the audio. Among other things, the bandwidth is extremely low (1152 bits per second; after counting all the overhead, you can at most transmit 45 data bytes per second!), which means that the response will often be delayed. Sending RDS data though a TCP/IP connection doesn't really make a lot of sense - it's much easier and far more efficient to use the TCP/IP protocol instead of sending the RDS protocol over TCP/IP.

If I understand you correctly, you just want to send a signal to Winamp to trigger it to insert some filler music or an internet commercial when the regular (FM?) radio station is broadcasting a commercial. So I guess the software that you use to create the broadcast should be set to trigger Winamp to play something else. I don't know if there are plugins to do this - there might be something to remotely control Winamp through a TCP/IP connection, and if your broadcasting software supports scripting you might be able to trigger Winamp through that.

If the Winamp streaming encoding takes place on the same pc where the broadcasting software runs, things might be a bit easier because controlling Winamp from the PC it is running on is definitely possible.


Or do you want to encode data on one PC, transmit it over an FM transmitter, put a receiver on the other end, decode the RDS data there and then stream it? In that case, using RDS might make sense - but it would still be a lot easier to just add another frequency to the FM signal to trigger Winamp - it would be much easier to detect. At the moment this is not possible with Stereo Tool.

First off thanks for responding and I am sorry that I did not explain myself clearly. So there is not a FM transmitter, for the Internet only stations, Winamp is where the audio originates. So Winamp is the broadcast software used, then that audio is sent to an encoder that streams it to the web. What I want to do is mimic a real broadcast software using Winamp.

Real automation software Google radio automation (formally known as Scott Studios) puts RDS data over 1152 bits per second. RCS puts it out at 9600 bits per second either over TCP/IP or over a null modem. Naturally, the data is also in the composite audio sent to the transmitter. You basically setup your playlist with the music, commercials, and voice tracks all coded with the proper RDS info and every few minutes the data is sent out using the automation system (broadcast software). Now you run an audio feed to your transmitter and another feed to your Internet encoder, and connect the RDS over TCP/IP or null modem, which ever the choice may be to the encoder. The encoder takes that RDS information in and when it sees a track that is marked (commercial = CM just for simplicity) instead of marked as music it will cover the audio from the broadcast software and play filler or an Internet commercial if it has one available.

As you said, RDS is “texts and some (very limited) meta data” so if the data is transmitted a minute or two ahead there is no problem with delays. I understand that Stereo tools basically injects the RDS data into the audio, and what I am saying is can’t that RDS data be sent out TCP/IP instead of injecting it into the audio. The software already puts together the RDS information and right before it puts it into the audio it just sends it out the NIC card. All the components are already in stereo tools the one thing it is missing is the option to send out the NIC. And then basically this would become an extremely simplistic radio automation system.

Sorry, I am a computer geek not a developer so to me it sounds so simple to add, but I do understand it is not as simple as I make it sound

hi,
When i saw subject name ..oh... finaly someone make such suggestion.
But truly i don't understand this request.

What is realy needed is separate tool which controls rds data on remote pc (with ST) in same network.

so:
- new separate tool with IP and port settings and rds control
- 2 new option in stereo tool (simple "use remote rds tool") which disables all rds settings in ST and port set

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Okay, can you recommend this new RDS tool that can take the data and put it on TCP/IP? I looked and cannot find anything like that, or even that I can make it work.

i know .. and i try the PIRA RDS encoder ...
They have free to download tool that enables to control RDS unit via network.
tool work with any rds unit because it's provide control com port on remote pc via network.

Check their site for download. pira.cz

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Bojcha, "any rds unit" --> does that mean that all hardware RDS encoders use a standardized RS232 protocol? If so, do you know what the protocol is that is used to talk to them? (And, is it also possible to use TCP/IP instead of a COM port - because I think a COM port is kinda hard to emulate from software).

Pira RDS encoder does the same thing as stereo tools and injects the RDS data into the audio stream. It does NOT send out the RDS data through RS-32 port. The RS-32 port is for controlling and configuring the RDS encoder as to what data is included.

RDS encoders hardware do not send out RDS data other than injecting it into the audio. Now, the format that automation software sends out the RDS data is in xml format. A little sample code that gives the idea how to send it out in xml format over TCP/IP.

Dim client As New TcpClient("127.0.0.1", 10000)
Dim ns As NetworkStream = client.GetStream

Dim xDoc As XmlDocument
xDoc = New XmlDocument
xDoc.Load("C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Sockets\playlist.xml")

If ns.CanRead And ns.CanWrite Then
Dim sendBytes As Byte() = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xDoc.OuterXml)
ns.Write(sendBytes, 0, sendBytes.Length)

Dim responseBytes(client.ReceiveBufferSize) As Byte
ns.Read(responseBytes, 0, CInt(client.ReceiveBufferSize))

Dim xResponse As XmlDocument
xResponse = New XmlDocument
xResponse.LoadXml(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(response Bytes))

All hardware Units use RS232 com port but sometimes the manufacturer change allocation of pins, so sometimes is needed to fix cable.
I don't know what is the protocol, but on pira site there is tool "virtual com" maybe that helps.

@jbarron
I realy don't know how that can be done.
What i need from ST is totaly different thing.

Often ST (standalone) is used near transmitter and that same transmitter is often on a retired spot, so... if i have setup like that i need to have some control over RDS data on that pc.
So curently i have Remote Desktop over my network to that PC so i can change RDS data in ST.
btw... i must learn my co-workers how to log on that pc and how to edit rds data if needed.

There is another problem in configuration like that.
I don't wont my co-workers to know what software i am using on my transmitter, especially that in ST my serial number for ST is exposed [!]

i'll be very happy if it's possible to make some simple looking tool to control and send rds data to ST over nework.

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I have found some protocols (Pyra's Pyra32 and EBU's UECP), but unfortunately they just use commands to set elements (eg. "PS Hello"). This wouldn't be that difficult to support, but I was hoping for something more low-level - that would for example make it possible to support all kinds of RDS info such as TMC information without having to support them directly from Stereo Tool.
Serial number will no longer be visible in version 4.04, which will be released later tonight... (This version also fixes a bug that caused hangups in certain circumstances, and will perform slightly better on single core systems.)
Sounds very useful. Like I said, if possible I would prefer some tool that produces low-level RDS data which I can just broadcast directly without any intelligence. If that doesn't work, there should actually be two things: A web interface would be nice (eg. Stereo Tool would provide a web page where the RDS data can be edited), but support from existing tooling for hardware solutions would also be very useful. So it's not that easy to quickly make something that works for all situations.

If anyone reading this knows of a tool that produces low-level RDS info, please let me know...

This page which I found when searching for the protocol might make an interesting read:
http://books.google.nl/books?id=MX0nKoH ... &resnum=10