I've had a letter from IRN explaining the introduction of digital file distribution (DFD) as a successor to internet delivery for the Net Newsroom.

A new piece of hardware will be installed in all IRN stations during September.

I’m guessing this will have implications for Scoop.  What are the plans, if any?

Thanks, Simon

It's quite an interesting project and we've been working with IRN very closely over the last 9 months or so - in fact we were actually chosen to be the first in the UK to recieve the new DFD box and it was installed a little while ago to make sure that Scoop integrates perfectly. In fact, the one we have here is so early that the final chassis's weren't ready so ours is in a temporary housing :-)

I know Derek is keen to make sure that all the practicalities of the system are resolved before too much information (and therefore speculation!) is released, but what I can say is that basically the DFD box effectively presents the IRN content as a "local" version of the FTP sever that runs behind the main IRN website. Therefore all we do is "point" Scoop Capture at that location instead of the internet copy.

For those who don't know how Scoop works with IRN presently, there are actually 2 "sites" on the internet that the IRN content lives on. The normal WWW site that users access via a normal internet browser, and another running behind it that uses the FTP protocol instead. We access the second one so we can see a list of all the stories and raw audio files from the last 2 or 3 days and then download anything that is "new" since the last time we checked.

In the case of the new system, we will provide a new "IRNNetNewsroom3.ini" file which you then set into your Scoop Capture to tell it to look local rather than on the internet. Unfortunately becuase every station's local network is different, then you will need to go into Scoop Capture's settings just to supply the computer's network IP address of the DFD box but that's the only thing to do and then it will spring to life.

I believe one of the reasons for the DFD rollout is so IRN can provide more targetted news content as well as expanding the amount of news and audio content and we're all already working behind the scenes on what happens 'next' so watch this space

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Peter Jarrett, Technical Director
Broadcast Radio Ltd.

Bill Bailey: No win, no fee, no basis in reality. Just a room above a minicab office in Acton and a steady stream of greedy simpletons whose delusion is only matched by their clumsiness

In the interests of keeping everyone informed, I just thought I'd give and update on our testing of the new DFD System.

It works perfectly with no modifications needed.

Thats all.

No Really.

I'm serious.

Ok, technically there is one change which needs to be made - you have to "point" your scoop capture at the local DFD device rather than the IRN website, but thats it.

Theres still a lot of testing going on, and we're continuing to work extremely closely with IRN to make sure the transition is as easy as possible and theres still a few more weeks of evaluation before everything is finalised, but so far everything is working just fine.

Just before the DFD units go live, we'll post a new configuration file onto the support website that contains the configuration to access the devices, the only thing you'll have to do will be to enter the IPaddress of the DFD once it's up and running.

If anything changes in the meantime though I'll let you all know. And of course if anyone wants any more info then please feel free to ask away.

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Peter Jarrett, Technical Director
Broadcast Radio Ltd.

Bill Bailey: No win, no fee, no basis in reality. Just a room above a minicab office in Acton and a steady stream of greedy simpletons whose delusion is only matched by their clumsiness