Hi everyone

I'm spending some time this week going through all of our automation scheduling and making some improvements.

One thing I'm trying to do, but really struggling with, is getting a cart to play at a certain time.

We leave a copy of Myriad running automation 24/7 and presenters fade it down when they start their live show and fade it up again afterwards. This doesn't always make for a smooth transition.

So what I'm trying to do is play a cart containing the pips at 6 seconds before the end of the hour (the pips are 6 seconds long), and then start the next hour with a cart containing 3 seconds of silence. This will give the presenters enough time to bring the Myriad fader down and start their show. Likewise at the end of a presenter's show I want the last 3 seconds of that hour to be the silent cart. I only want this for the time when a live show starts and ends, so I've setup a few different clocks with the required rules (or so I thought).

So here's how I want it to work (the live show in this example starts at 8pm and ends at 10pm):

19:59:54 - play the pips cart
20:00:00 - play the silent cart
20:00:03 - continue normal music/links (in case presenter doesn't turn up)
...
21:59:57 - play the silent cart
22:00:00 - continue normal music/links

I thought I'd got it setup correctly with an absolute time marker followed by the pips or silent cart, but Myriad doesn't seem to be honouring the absolute time marker.

I've uploaded a screen shot of the clock containing the pips at the end here:
http://www.matt.org.uk/pictures/clock-end-with-pips.jpg

...and a screen shot of the resulting schedule here:
http://www.matt.org.uk/pictures/schedule-view.jpg

I know there's a lot of overrun on that hour, I'm still trying to balance the right number of songs/links, but Myriad will just drop songs to make it fit - is that right?

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? It seems to be the same logic as firing a news jingle before the top of the hour, but I've never done that either.

Thanks

Matt



--
Matt Mansfield
Phoenix Hospital Radio, Burton on Trent

Matt,

OK i think i know what you are trying to do.

The clocks look good, they are set to RUN to Time, so make sure that when you see them in Myriad they appear as AFADE or AutoFade.

It is possible that the large overrun is confusing it, but you are right it should drop songs only, HOWEVER Myriad will be quite unhappy about the fact that when it drops the songs there will be a cluster of links together. So if you can have a bunch of songs next to each other, and it will try to avoid putting links back to back.

Also don't forget to go to the Tools Menu> and choose Update Average Category Lengths

This will make the calculation more accurate in the clock design window, everytime you add / remove or move items into the categories the average length changes, and you should periodically use this method to update the lengths.

Which version of Myriad are you running?

What does it do when it "ignores" the time marker?

Have you checked your Date / Time settings, to make sure you are not on US date format?

Regards

David Boulton

Regards

David Boulton
Brand Manager
Broadcast Radio Ltd

Hi David



I've just watched Myriad start playing the clock with the pips at the end (7-8pm hour) and it's done something very strange.



It dropped all but 2 of the songs, played all of the links back to back, then played the pips at 19:11:38. It's then removed the A-Fade marker at 8pm and has started playing the 8pm hour after the pips and then filled up the under-run in the 8pm hour with an Instant Track selection.



The 9pm A-Fade marker is in place and the log continues normally after that.



I've done a few screen shots of the log here (each one scrolled down a bit):

http://matt.org.uk/pictures/7-8pm_log.jpg



It seems to be the absolute time marker that's causing it to do this. In the clock the marker is set as 00:59:54 - I assume that means 59 minutes and 54 seconds into the hour, and not 6 seconds to midnight (or something silly like that)?



I've checked the following that you suggested:



- Myriad is set to Auto-Fade



- Myriad version is 3.5



- Regional settings are all UK



I'll update the average category lengths in Autotrack - I did wonder why the average was so much different to the end result!



Cheers



Matt



--
Matt Mansfield
Phoenix Hospital Radio, Burton on Trent

The absolute time markers in clocks are minutes:seconds:hundredths so your marker of 0:54:59 woud be 54 seconds and 59 hundredths which is probably the problem.



Autotrack automatically adds the hour so you don't have to.



Hope that helps.

Liam Burke - Broadcast Radio Ltd

Email: liamb@broadcastradio.com

Telephone: +44 1482 383700

Haha bingo! Thanks guys - that'll explain it.



I'll give that a try tonight after the live show has finished so I don't interrupt anything.



Cheers



Matt


--
Matt Mansfield
Phoenix Hospital Radio, Burton on Trent

Hi Matt,

if you have any problems i am coming home to Burton on Trent for Christmas and will be glad to pop down and help you e mail me station.manager@baytrustradio.org.uk

John Williamson

Station Manager

Bay Trust Radio 

Ha, sorry Matt - didn't spot that one! Apologies.

Regards

David

Regards

David Boulton
Brand Manager
Broadcast Radio Ltd

I re-scheduled last night after changing the time marker and it's looking perfect now!



Thanks for everyone's help.



Matt


--
Matt Mansfield
Phoenix Hospital Radio, Burton on Trent