Playlist
The playout playlist now retains the times a which a track has been started, even when the playlist is refreshed from the database.
Improved error handling for dragging tracks in the playlist from Windows Explorer.
Multi Studio
Made the Central Playout-side of the Multi Studio network code more resilient and less likely to hang the playout in case of a connection issue.
Fixed a possible freeze in Multi Studio mode, when "Force playlist breaks in live mode" is enabled.
Fixed a defect in Multi Studio mode that sometimes caused the countdown color to not change when the live studio became active after xx:50...
Download Item Plugin
Fixed defect in re-rendering files that were downloaded by the Download Item Plugin.
Library Import
Added support for Jazler Radiostar version 2.11 and up to the LibraryUpdate tool.
Improvements & Bug fixes
Shoutcast Title Plugin
Added support for Shoutcast V2 to the Shoutcast title plugin.
Added more sensible defaults to IceCast & Shoutcast title plugins.
Item Download Plugin
Made some improvements to better handle unreliable network situations
Fixed some small defects in the Item Download Plugin UI
Default values
Added better default values for
Improvements & Bug fixes
IceCast title plugin
In the IceCast title plugin, a seperate server and port number can be used for each end-point when the "Server per mountpoint"-checkbox is checked.
Improvements & Bug fixes
Download Item plugin
The Download Item's settings screen has been redesigned to improve usability.
The plugin can now automatically split a file into multiple parts which can be separated by a separator-sound or can each have their own music bed.
Splitting a file is done, based on the silence between the different parts.
A file that has been split into multiple parts can have different beds at the end of the file, e.g. for weather or a closing part.
Note: The Pre-start time now plays before the end of the previous part and does not cause the previous bed to stop earlier. This give you more control in configuring the perfect segue between the different parts, but may require you to review the Pre-start time for the Bed close, if you are currently using the "Fade-out pre-start" setting.
X Keys control plugin
Support X-Keys XK-24 keyboard for remote control. It can be used to start jingles, control the mixeditor (e.g for voicetracking) navigate to the next playlist in live mode, and switch between live-assist and automation.
Playlist export
Playlist can now also be exported in CSV format.
Exports can be made for the current hour, current day and for a specified date range.
Axia / Livewire control plugin
The plugin can now display the player's Track-titles/artists in the Axia mixer.
Playlist scheduler
An item's day part now always follows the playlist's corrected start time. (Corrected, means that 11:59:54 is regarded as 12:00:00)
Because of this the day part of fillout-items in playlists that take up more than 60 minutes, is now always correct.
An issue has been resolved in the "Ignore category separation when only one item is selected"-function.
Playlist Insight now indicates why an item has been disallowed or when Category Separation has been ignored.
Improvements & Bug fixes
Download Item Plugin
This update adds support for HTTPS downloads with TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2.
A growing number of sites are no longer allowing TLS 1.0 to be used in HTTPS downloads. (E.g. NOS in the Netherlands) This results in the error "Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel". This update fixes that by enabling more secure protocols.
Note that this requires at least version 4.6 of the .NET Framework Runtime to be installed.
We recommend downloading the latest version here: https://smallestdotnet.com/
Improvements & Bug fixes
Improvements & Bug fixes
Improvements & Bug fixes
Playout Engine
Fixed issue that caused some sound devices to initialize incorrectly, causing silence or unexpected behavior on some computers.
Added a setting to force the playout engine to fall back to legacy DirectSound drivers, even when WASAPI drivers are available. This improves stability with some 'buggy' sound devices.
Improvements & Bug fixes
Playout
Added setting to automatically switch to automation mode and start the news/fillout items when in live mode and the next playlist does not have floating start enabled.
The "Force playlist breaks in live mode"-setting can be enabled on a per-machine basis.
This functionality also works in multi-studio mode.
Tracks Browser
Added a "Add single track" button, to add single track to the database (note that Batch Add is still the recommended way to add tracks to the database!)
Also the select file button on the Track Edit screen has been implemented.
The PFL-function can now be activated using the space bar (just like in the Mix Editor). Of course CTRL+P also still works. When PFL is playing in Tracks Browser and Playlis and another track is selected (with cursor keyse of mouse), that track is played in PFL.
The Tracks Browser can now also filter on Content Type.
Clearing the searchbox using the delete-button, now no longer attemps to delete the selected track.
Carts Player
Added the ability to remove jingles from the Carts Player list.
Web Streams
Added retry and reconnect functionality to the playout of Web Streams.
When an invalid or disabled Web Stream is started, the players are no longer blocked. Silence is played instead. If the stream still can't be played in a couple of seconds, the software continues with the scheduled backup tracks.
Library Import
The Library Import tool now supports importing Zenlex databases.
Playout Engine
Upgraded the BASS audio engine to the latest version. Power Studio now favors WASAPI drivers over WDM drivers (when available) for playout.
An issue that sometimes occured when dropping files into a playlist as well as a specific deadlock situation has been fixed.
Improvements & Bug fixes
Item download plugin
Two new wildcards were added to the Item download plugin:
Also the FTP-downloader now correctly interprets wildcards in file names and directories.
Playlist
The Intro-time column in the playlist screen, now takes into account any cuts off the beginning of the track.
Improvements & Bug fixes
D&R Airence control plugin
Each channel of the D&R Airence mixer can now be assigned to any player or cart (in pre-select mode).
It is now also possible to choose to use button- or fader-start.
Improvements & Bug fixes
Playlist
When switching from live-assist to automation, the players are immediately reloaded. This used to be after the first track had finished.
Especially for users with less than 4 players in use, this is a significant improvement.
Bug fixes
Recording
In "Advanced Audio Settings", a setting "Process recordings offline" is added which allows older computers to perform encoding and processing tasks (e.g. applying processing or encoding to FLAC, MP3) after the recording is finished as opposed to on-the-fly.
Fixed issue that occurred on some newer machines running Windows 10, were occasionally some pops occurred in the recorded material.
General improvements
A large number of stability improvements have been administered. This fixes a lot of edge-cases where Power Studio would sometimes display unexpected behavior.
Bug fixes
Playlist scheduler
Under special conditions, some hard-to-plan lines, could be altered by the playlist scheduler when altering/dropping unbreakable rules. This has been corrected; altering/dropping unbreakable rules while creating playlists now does not result in permanent changes in the Clock Format.
Taking a track's Bpm into account while creating playlists has been optimized.
Labjack U3 plugin
Added support for U3-HV. Because of restrictions within the U3-HV device, the pins FIO0-FIO3 can not be used.
Some small bugfixes.
Bug fixes
Track editor
In the Track Editor, cue points, such as Start Point, Fade in, Intro, Start next and Fade out can now also be set by dragging them to the desired position with the mouse.
Play start/stop keyboard shortcuts (CTRL-P / Spacebar) now pauses when pressed a second time, as opposed to stopping and resetting it's position
Download items plugin
The Download Item plugin, now also supports downloading items from a podcast/rss feed, such as podcasts or church services through Kerkdienst Gemist.
Bug fixes
Playlists
When a playlist is modified on a different computer, this change is immediately visible on other computers having that playlist open. This means that a producer can add an interview or track while the show is already on air.
In the playlist screens it has been made possible to add a column with the intro times of the tracks.
Tracks browser
In the track browser it is now possible to add columns containing album title, intro time, track tempo and year.
Track editor
The wave display in the track editor has been improved. Start, intro and next-start-positions are now more clearly marked. It is also possible to zoom in deeper and more precise. The mouse can now be used to zoom in and start playback.
Mix editor and recorder
The recording routines have now been implemented in unmanaged code, to provide even more recording-stability.
Plugins
The settings of the Item Download Plugin (content ingestion) and are now shared between all Power Studio instances.
The settings of the Shoutcast, Icecast, Omnia A/XE / Telos ProSTREAM and Xml titles plugins are now shared between al Power Studio instances.
All changes to the settings of the plugin are now immediately active. Only turning a plugin on or off, requires an application restart.
External schedulers
The block import in Power Studio now also handles external playlists that combine all hours of a day into one file.
A Power Gold Link-tool has been added to automatically link Power Studio tracks to the corresponding items in Power Gold.
Configuration
When a setting had been changed, this change is immediately active on all running Power Studio instances, even if they are on a different computer.
Bug fixes
Mix editor and Recorder
Fixed issue that sometimes caused Power Studio to use more memory and decrease the recording quality when a large number of recordings were made.
Mix editor
Spectacular improvement in zoom in/out-speed of the mix editor.
Also the mix editor does not block the UI anymore during zoom.
A threading issue was also fixed in the mix editor.
Training Mode
A bug was fixed in the Training Mode that sometimes caused tracks that were added to the Playout Playlist did not show up.
Mix editor improved
You can now zoom in with the mouse wheel. Zooming in is also more precise.
Playout in the mixeditor can now also be start with the spacebar and by double clicking the mouse on the location it must be starting from.
Training Mode improved
When switching to Training Mode, a new playlist can immediately can be selected. (The mode opening with no playlist selected was confusing.)
In Training Mode, the playlist duration is now correctly counted down is the right upper corner.
In the Mix Editor the Previous Mix / Next Mix buttons are also operational during Training Mode.
When the playlist is empty, some toolbar buttons/context menu items were still enabled, but did not do anything because there was no playlist. This has been fixed.
External schedulers
Using the menu-item "Export tracks…" in the Tracks region of the navigation bar, the tracks database can be exported to a comma separated text file, which can be used to import/sync the Power Studio database with an external scheduler or any other external system e.g. the request page of a website.
Also the Power Studio block-import (which can be used to import) van now import macros e.g. news download.
More sound encoders included by default
The MP3 encoder is now included with the installation by default. AAC/AAC+ encoding is also included with the installation. Note that, because of licensing constraints, Winamp needs to be installed to use these AAC/AAC+ encoders.
AAC recording can also be added by downloading the free Nero AAC encoder and placing the file "neroAacEnc.exe" in Power Studio's Encoders folder. The Nero AAC encoder can be downloaded from http://www.free-codecs.com/nero_aac_codec_download.htm and other sites.
Support for MP2 recording, can be added by downloading the TwoLAME encoder and placing the file "twolame.exe" in Power Studio's Encoder folder. The TwoLAME encoder can be downloaded from http://www.twolame.org/.
Various small improvements
Added training-mode
In training-mode, the changes made to the playlist are strictly local and are not written to the database. Also, in a multi-studio environment, the studio in training-mode does not go live.
This is ideal for practice-sessions or recording complete shows, without trashing the station's playlist.
Added LabJack U3 remote control plugin
In this release we added support for the LabJack U3 interface module, in addition to the Velleman modules.
The LabJack module has more IO, is faster, more robust and comes in a neat red case.
Control multi studio switching from Central Playout
It is now possible to control all on/off air switching from the Central Playout node. (Until now, each studio controlled its own switch, which is still possible.)
This functionality can now be leveraged by the LiveWire plugin, which can control an Axia Core's V-Mixer to do the actual switching.
This function will be added to the other GPIO plugins in later versions.
Added support for .OPUS files
Support for the playout of this excellent open compression format is added to Power Studio. We can now play files, encoded in this format and play icecast stream in OPUS format.
Remote license update
Power Studio can now be updated, automatically, through the internet. Very convenient and ideal for last minute updates…
Added Aeron to Library Import
The Library Import tool, now also supports conversions from the latest PC Radio family member: Aeron. Upgrading to Power Studio never was this easy!
Added Advanced Audio Settings
Power Studio's audio-pipeline is configured in such a way that every machine should be able to run without issues. However, sometimes it is nice to be able to tweak a buffer size, sample rate or player count. With the Advanced Audio Settings dialog, we make these previously hidden settings available to power-users.
Use with care…
Various small improvements
Added user settings management functions
Added functionality to allow an admin to reset a user’s settings (which contain screen positions, etc..) It is also possible to copy the settings from another user or copy one’s own settings to another user. It is now also possible to set the settings for the Default User, which determines the screen positions when no-one is logged in and supplies the default screen positions when a user opens the settings for the first time.
Tracks Browser extended
The Tracks Browser now displays the number of tracks that are currently selected in the Tracks Browser.
Improved the PC Radio Library import
An extra text-line now indicates more precisely what the import tool is doing at the moment.
We also made the tool more resilient against inconsistent data-storage in de PCR database, and improved the searching for audio files by the import tool
Fixes and improvements
Added multi-line display to players
The size of the playout-playlist players already could be changed by dragging the right-bottom corner of the players screen. This functionality has been extended to display title and artist on separate lines, if the available size is large enough.
Added “Criteria-seperation” functionality to playlist scheduler
This new functionality allows you generate even more balanced playlists, by setting rules to the number of consecutive times a criterion may appear in a playlist and how many positions this criteria will be blocked afterwards. E.g. after two dance tracks, three other type of tracks or two other type of tracks after a rock track.
Note: These rules can only be set for the Track content type.
Added “Max per playlist” functionality to playlist scheduler
This new functionality allows you to limit the number of times a criterion may appear in a playlist. E.g. have only two Dutch records in a playlist.
Note: These rules can only be set for the Track content type.
Added “Playlist insight” module
The Playlist insight module, gives the music director a perfect understanding, why a certain record was picked by Power Studio. The clock scheduler form already gives a rough estimate of how many choices are available for a specific clock-line, but the Playlist insight module shows you exactly how many choices were available at the time of playlist creation. You can even dive in deeper and view the playlists’ Search Plan which shows exactly what filter-parameters were used and what search-strategy was actually used to pick the track. From this module it is also possible to navigate directly to the related Clock Format line or Track editor to fine tune either of them, if needed.
Added remote control functionality to Recorder screen
The recorder’s record and play functions can now be controlled by the Midi- and Velleman- plugins. This allows you to, e.g. automatically start recording every time the microphone is turned on, so you never miss that amazing quote. Which you can immediately share with Power Studio’s social media integration!
Power Traffic communication is now more secure
TLS encryption has now been added to Power Traffic and the communication between Power Studio and Power Traffic. (Note that Windows XP does not know how to handle the SNI-certificates that is used for this. Because of this, Power Studio still uses the normal communication mode on Windows XP.)
Added printing (and export to PDF) functionality for playlists
Playlists can be sent to the printer and can be exported to PDF files. The playlist can be customized by replacing the logo.png file in the Power Studio\Templates folder.
Added updating track / artist repeat value from the Track Browser popup menu
This allows for easy updating of multiple tracks at the same time. E.g. when moving tracks to another category.
Added filtering on language to the Track Browser
Added track rotation to the Format Scheduler/Clock Format
Normally tracks are selected using a random component. By selecting the "Rotate tracks" checkbox in a Clock Format line, the track that has been scheduled the longest time ago is selected from the tracks that matches the format's criteria, track/artist separation and rating rules.
Select/deselect complete rows and columns in the Track's dayparts
This makes configuring day parts easier.
Added Recorder functionality
Manually record (e.g. from broadcast). This recording could be stored and uploaded to e.g. SoundCloud.
Recordings are stored in the Recorder file path (this can be configured in the Recording tab in Options and Settings.
Users can also manually export the recorded file, e.g. to a network or thumb drive.
This release fixes the following issues:
Zoeken in de Tracks Browser is uitgebreid
Filtering in de Tracks Browser dmv de tree is meer intuïtief gemaakt (Het gedrag van de "hoofdgroep-checkboxes" is nu logischer)
het is mogelijk de stationsnaam (of een andere tekst) in de titelbalk op te nemen
Database communicatie bij het genereren van playlists is nu nog efficienter
Increased maximum file size to 2 GB.
Made the DeleteDetector a little bit more resilliant to duplicate keys in the DB.
Initial release.
Increased maximum file size to 2 GB.
Made the DeleteDetector a little bit more resilliant to duplicate keys in the DB.
Made a change to prevent different clients to have to wait for each other.
Initial release.