Remote Stream Silence Failsafe

[joshurban]

Hello, Everyone!

  Josh the new guy here - been having fun with Radio DJ, and had a question regarding a remote stream and silence prevention. 
Here's my setup:

Computer 1 (Maryland) is a remote studio, broadcasting via Shoutcast to

Computer 2 (Virginia), the regular studio computer running RDJ.  At a specific time during an automated program, the Maryland stream track will load, and play.  When the remote is done after exactly 120 minutes, RDJ will switch back to main automation. 

Cool.  What happens if Maryland's internet goes down, and Virginia picks up a "blank" stream of golden silence?  I'm new with the program, and have been trying to Google and search to see if there's a command to make RDJ switch back to the main automation if a stream of silence is detected. 

Sometimes there won't be a person at the Virginia computer when the stream goes online, and I'm wondering how to make a failsafe.  I downloaded Pira CZ silence detector, but this looks like a partly hardware solution. 

Any help and input is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Josh

[Capt_Fuzzy]

We've been trying to come up with a way to do this for quite some time now, so far we've not come up with anything that works for us.
Most of the time, this is a 'non-issue', until, like you pointed out, there is an issue with the imported stream such as a power failure or loss of internet connection on their end.

[djclewes]

A silence detector is the most obvious feature for this. After 30 seconds of dead air autodj kicks in.

[stevewa]

Josh, what makes you think Pira is a hardware solution?

[Capt_Fuzzy]

A silence detectpr is the most obvious feature for this. After 30 seconds of dead air autodj kicks in.

That's kinda what I was thinking, any recommendations that won't cost an arm, a leg and my first born?

[RFU]

That's kinda what I was thinking, any recommendations that won't cost an arm, a leg and my first born?

Can't that be built into RadioDj?I mean, it has vu meters. If radioDJ doesn't detect any signal, it switches to autodj.

Set up in the back end where you can specify the amount of time before it kicks in and an enable/disable checkbox

[FreerunMedia]

...

Sometimes there won't be a person at the Virginia computer when the stream goes online, and I'm wondering how to make a failsafe.  I downloaded Pira CZ silence detector, but this looks like a partly hardware solution. 

Well this is correct. You need to build a little relais or transistor solution that reacts to any silence. How to put this one back into RadioDJ is simple. I use an USB joystick or joypad, told RadioDJ to start "track 1" when button "0" is pressed and its working. So when Pira CZ "sees""  a silence, it switches the relais for an amount of time and connect the switch part of the relais to the gamepad.

Now when a stream fails, the stream stops and RadioDJ skips automatically to the tracks waiting if you have a rotation loaded after the stream event.

[Calypso]

Well this is correct. You need to build a little relais or transistor solution that reacts to any silence. How to put this one back into RadioDJ is simple. I use an USB joystick or joypad, told RadioDJ to start "track 1" when button "0" is pressed and its working. So when Pira CZ "sees""  a silence, it switches the relais for an amount of time and connect the switch part of the relais to the gamepad.

Now when a stream fails, the stream stops and RadioDJ skips automatically to the tracks waiting if you have a rotation loaded after the stream event.

Not really necessary to do that with hardware; if you make a HTTP query that just sends the commands to RDJ Rest Server. Should be possible with the Pira program as far as I can see. I don't use it myself because I've solved the silence detection on my server side.

[RFU]

There's a"silence remover" in v1.8.2.  Isnt' there one in 2.0?

[rkriggs]

There is a silence remover in V2  however Im not sure how it works

Randy Riggs

[Calypso]

There is a silence remover in V2  however Im not sure how it works

Randy Riggs

That silence remover (and the one in 1. is for tracks on your PC so it recognizes silence in those tracks (so your start cuepoint is at the start of the audio, and not starting a x seconds of silence before it).

So it won't work with the setup that the topicstarter is talking about, because he's streaming to a second location and picks it up as a stream.

[Capt_Fuzzy]

I've solved the silence detection on my server side.

This is nice to know, now how the hell did you "solve" it??

[Calypso]

This is nice to know, now how the hell did you "solve" it??

We maintain the streamingservers ourselves with the help of liquidsoap and other programs. Liquidsoap has a silence detector routine in it, from which you can disconnect sources (and put other sources in place) after a certain period of silence.

[Capt_Fuzzy]

We maintain the streamingservers ourselves with the help of liquidsoap and other programs. Liquidsoap has a silence detector routine in it, from which you can disconnect sources (and put other sources in place) after a certain period of silence.

Ahh, a Linux system.., that figures... lol
Again, shot down in flames.., I run a windows server for this...

Thanks anyway.

[joshurban]

Hey again, everyone!

  Wow, what an awesome community!  Thanks for the input and discussion, this is excellent.  Much appreciated! 

  Freerunmedia, regarding the USB keypad - would prefer not to have anything external at the station.  There's a lot of DJ's in and out on the board, so it would likely get bumped, and plus, don't want to be "that guy" with the wires everywhere.     (Do I understand your solution properly?)  If I were the only guy involved, this would be a winner, but would like to have this all internal/software if at all possible. 


  I was hoping that I'd be able to set up a "command chain" (vocabulary?) something up that looks like:

PROPER OPERATION

- 6:59 Load Track (stream)
- 7:00:00 Stop Automation
- 7:00:01 Play Track (stream)
- 9:00:00 Stop Track (stream)
- 9:00:01 Play Automation 

FAILURE OPERATION

- 6:59 Load track (stream)
- 7:00:00 Stop Automation
- 7:00:01 Play track (stream)
- 7:00:30 Silence detected < 20 seconds
- 7:00:31 Play Automation

  Calypso, is this possible with what you're saying?  If so, could you point me towards the right YouTube videos/Google searches for how I might start fiddling with this?  This stuff isn't native for me, but if I know where to start looking, more than happy to chase it down. 

  Again, really appreciate everyone's input, and nice to meet everyone!  As of now, my backup plan is to have an automated playlist ready to go on "Remote 2" at an alternate location that can stream in place of a live broadcast in case Remote 1 goes down. 

Thanks again!

Josh