DRS 2006® - Manual On Air Analyzer

The DRS 2006 On Air Analyzer (03/25/2002)
The On Air Analyzer module is only available in the Professional Version of the DRS 2006 digital audio system and can best be described as a log of everything that has played in the On Air Radio Studio PRO, On Air DJ Studio PRO and Virtual Cart Machine PRO. The On Air Analyzer will add an entry to the log each time an item starts playing. The On Air Analyzer also includes a number of filters that can be used to find the date and time of a particular item or filtered group that has been on air or played in any hour of any day.

You can filter a single item or a group of items with just a few mouse clicks. The power and speed of the search engine will quickly return the information you asked for from your archives in seconds. The On Air Analyzer also includes an HTML Generator. The HTML file will be generated and then updated whenever a new item begins to play in the On Air Radio Studio PRO, On Air DJ Studio PRO or Virtual Cart Machine PRO.

Getting Started With The On Air Analyzer
Start by opening the On Air Analyzer from the Launcher. Once the On Air Analyzer opens you are presented with a large screen for viewing, the controls and filter options are located below the screen.

Before Starting
Before reading on with the next section locate the field titled 'HTML Playlist Generator' at the very bottom of the screen. Mayke sure there is no check mark in the check box marked 'Activate' right beside it. If there is a check mark in it click your left mouse button once to remove it. If this box is checked, the other filters will be dimmed or disabled. The 'HTML Playlist Generator' will be described in the HTML Playlist Generator section.

Filters
Anything that plays in the On Air Radio Studio PRO, On Air DJ Studio PRO or Virtual Cart Machine PRO creates an entry in the On Air Analyzer and will be included in the log until removed. Locate the four text boxes titled 'Filter Expressions' near the bottom of the screen. The text you enter in these boxes will be used in conjunction with the 'Filter' check boxes and the 'Date Filter' check boxes.

Filter Expressions
To the right of the 'Filter Expressions' are four check box filters labeled 'Artist', 'Title', 'Comment' and 'Type'. There is a check box placed just to the left of each title.

Date Filter
To the right of the 'Filter' section is the 'Date Filter' section. Beneath the label 'Date Filter' are four selector controls for the 'Year', 'Month', 'Date', and 'Hour'. Located just to the right of these controls are the Date selector check boxes.

Using the Filters
Before using the filters it is important to understand how the filters work together. All filters work together as a "AND" function. That means if you have the check box labeled 'Artist' "AND" the check box labeled 'Title' selected , your search would return only those records that contain both expressions.

Artist Filter
Example: Suppose you want to search for an entry containing the artist "Dave Diamond". In the text box beside the 'Artist' check box type the letter "D" and put a check mark in the 'Artist' box using your left mouse button. The instant you set the check mark, DRS 2006 automatically starts searching in the log for every artist starting with the letter "D".

If there are a lot of artist that begins with the letter "D" you can narrow or refine your search by typing in additional letters. Adding the letter "A" will return only those Artist that begin with "Da". You can continue typing in additional characters to refine your search.

Title Filter
The 'Title' filter works identical to the 'Artist' Filter except it searches for the title of an entry. Using the previous example, type the letter "W" in the 'Title' text box and put a check mark in the 'Title' box. Your list now returns every entry that contains an artist beginning with the letter "D" AND a title starting with a "W".

Comment Filter
Referring to the Artist filter example, move down to the 'Comment' text box and type in the letter "W". Put a check mark in the 'Comment' check box and watch the filter return only those entries that contain artists beginning with the letter "D" AND the letter "W" as the first character of the comments.

Type Filter
The 'Type' filter works identical to the other filters except that you don't type in anything but instead make a selection from the 'Types' that you defined in the Audio Manager. Simply select a 'Type' from the drop down menu, put a check mark in the 'Type' box beside it and the filter search will return all items containing the [artist AND title AND comment AND type] you previously selected.

Date Filters
The 'Date Filter' works identical to the other filters except that you use Up/Down arrow controls to select the date. Once you put a mark in one or more of the check boxes the filter will return entries for any hour, date, month or an entire year.

Example
Suppose you want to find everything that was played on the air on May 22, 2001. Uncheck all the boxes in the 'Filter' section. Note that you don't need to remove the text because when you uncheck a box you disable the corresponding text field. Now put a check mark in the box labeled 'Year'. Move the Up/down arrows in the year selector until you reach 2001. Continue by putting a check mark in the 'Month' box and then also put a check mark in the 'Day' box. Again using the Up/Down arrow controls set the month to 5 and the day to 22.

The Screen now displays everything that played in the On Air Studio on May 22, 2001. To find the entries for an exact hour simply check the 'Hour' box as well and select the hour you want to view.

Filter Summary
To use a filter function (e.g. 'Artist', 'Year') simply mark the corresponding check box. The result you get is more refined the more boxes you have checked. Remember when you enable a filter you are telling the search engine that you want to find XXXX "AND" YYYY.

If you leave every check box unmarked, then every entry that played in the On Air Studio, will be displayed. The most recent entry will be placed at the bottom of the list.

Button Functions
Below the main screen on the left side you can find a clock. Below the clock is a vertical row of six buttons. They are labeled 'Remove Item', 'Remove Filter', 'Export Logfile', 'Print Logfile', 'Reset and Refresh' and 'Exit'.

Clock
The clock displays the computers system clock and is adjusted using WindowsT.

Remove Item
To remove a single entry, select the entry and then click on the button labeled 'Remove Item' to remove it. Note: there is no warning that you are about to remove the entry. Once you click the 'Remove Item' button the entry will immediately be removed.

Remove Filtered
Clicking the 'Remove Filtered' button will remove every item that you have showing on the screen that was found using the filter. If you might need these entries later make sure to archive them before removing any of them. Otherwise you remove them by clicking once on the 'Remove Filtered' button. A popup window will appear asking 'Are You Sure?'. If you want to remove the entries click either 'Yes' to remove the entries or 'Cancel' to abort.

Export Logfile
You can export the logfile to a disk or to another computer on your network by clicking on the 'Export Logfile' button. When you export the logfile the entire log will be exported. If there are entries in the logfile that you do not want included in the exported file you should use the 'Remove Item' or 'Remove Filtered' functions prior to exporting the file. The file format has a .dbf extension. If you have Microsoft ExcelT or any other program capable of reading a database file you can view the exported file format.

Print Logfile
To print the entire logfile simply click the 'Print Logfile' button, depending on the size of your log you may not want to print the entire log but just a filtered portion of it. To print just the entries of interest do a filtered search first. The print out will look exactly as it appears on the screen. In addition it will have the words "DRS 2006 - On Air Analyzer" printed at the top of the page and the date and page number at the bottom.

Reset and Refresh
If you are navigating in a large list and have removed a couple of entries, you can click on the 'Reset and Refresh' button to re-organize the list to a known starting position in the Logfile.

Log Size
DRS 2006 will log every entry into the Playlist Log each time an item is played in the On Air Radio Studio PRO, On Air DJ Studio PRO or Virtual Cart Machine PRO. Thus the Playlist Log grows larger with each entry. After a while the log file might become quite large, consuming disk space with each entry. You should then either move the entries to another storage media or remove them. You can use the filters to selectively remove an entire year, month, day or hour. Just don't forget that th log file is there and growing larger everyday.

The Number of Filtered Items
At the bottom and to the extreme right side of the screen is a box titled 'Filtered Items'. The numerical led can display eight digits (upto 99,999,999 items). The display shows the total amount of filtered entries. If you want to see the total number of entries in the log, uncheck all the filter boxes. If you want to find out how many entries you have for example for a particular sponsor, or how many times a song played in a year, month, day or hour just apply the filters and the total number of filtered items will be displayed.

The HTML Playlist Generator
The On Air Analyzer can generate a real time HTML playlist for your web server.
Simply activate the generator, set the location for the HTML file and name the file. You need to leave the DRS 2006 On Air Analyzer module running to keep the HTML file updated.

At the bottom of the screen you can find a field titled 'HTML Playlist Generator' with a check box to the right. When you put a check mark in the 'Activate' check box a HTML Playlist will be generated and placed in the folder specified in the 'HTML Playlist Generator' field. You can easily change the folder and file name by clicking on the folder icon and selecting a different folder and file name.

Click the folder icon to select the directory where you want to save the HTML file, give the HTML file a name and click the 'Activate' check box. An HTML file will be created and saved in the folder specified.
The HTML file will list the last twenty playlist items. It updates with the start of each new item and will place the most recently played item at the top of the list.

Note: When you activate the HTML playlist the other controls in On Air Analyzer become inactive. The On Air Analyzer module must remain open to generate the HTML Playlist.

HTML Summary
The HTML Playlist generator will create an HTML file suitable for your web page and will update the HTML file with the previous twenty items that recently played in the On Air Studio. The most recently played item will be placed at the top of the list along with the time it was played and the artist and title.

You can edit the HTML file any way you like. Just make sure you don't alter the code within the marks  and  of the generated HTML file. Everything else can be edited and changed to suit your needs. Check out our real time generated HTML playlist at WWRN - The Worldwide radio network.

Transferring The HTML file to Your Web Site
DRS 2006 will not transfer your HTML playlist file to a web server not located in your local network. If your web server is at a remote location you will need to use an FTP program to transfer the file. There are several excellent free FTP programs available everywhere on the Internet. Some programs will also transfer the HTML file to your web site automatically.

New! Webcasting Kit also for 2.11
You can also use our new Webcasting Kit which works with 2.11 and also with Version 3.0. This software is able to manipulate any file and also to upload it automatically to your website. Check out our Interactive Development. All you need to do is to download the new Launcher of version 3.0. Now you register here with your old key code. Then you download the Webcasting Kit and start it by double clicking. All needed information is displayed on the top of this new module.