Timing up hours in PlayoutONE
The challenge when running an automated service or perhaps an automated hour is how to make the content fit perfectly within an hour.
This becomes crucial when you need to hit a top-of-the-hour junction. Having a song start and then for it to be faded after 10 seconds doesn’t sound so good! That’s where the RunToTime command comes into play.
The RunToTime command makes several calculations when it’s activated on the playlist to decide how best to fit your content into an hour:
⚖️ Deleting or Filling
When the command is run, PlayoutONE will begin deleting items from the back of the hour if the gap time is over until the gap time is as close to +00:00 as possible. If the gap time is under, then PlayoutONE will fill with items from your chosen categories until the gap time is as close to +00:00 as possible.
Just deleting/filling rarely achieves a perfect gap time of 00:00. Usually, it’s always around a few seconds out, and so to refine this further, we need to stretch some audio.
You can set within the Type Manager which types can be dropped/deleted by PlayoutONE. You can set which type or category PlayoutONE can fill from within the Settings menu.
↔️ Stretching audio
PlayoutONE can speed up or slow down content throughout an hour to make the gap time exactly 00:00.
If your hour is still under-running after deleting or filling items, PlayoutONE will slow down the content. If the hour is set to overrun after filling or deleting, PlayoutONE will speed up the content.
You can set which items can be stretched within the Type Manager. You can also set a Stretch Threshold (how many items should be stretched) in PlayoutONE's Settings panel.
For example, if you set a stretch value of 10% that means of the total content that’s available to be stretched within an hour, PlayoutONE can speed up or slow down items by 10%. If we say that over an hour, we have 45 minutes worth of stretchable content, then PlayoutONE has 4.5 minutes to play with.
Setting a stretch value too high can make your songs sound either very slow or very fast. We recommend keeping this at around 3%.
🎚️ Fading
If the gap time can’t be achieved by stretching, PlayoutONE can fade out up to a chosen duration from each fading item within the hour. This value is usually set to 30 seconds and can be altered in the Settings panel.
You can also choose from the Type Manager which items can have time faded from them.
Once PlayoutONE has worked out what it can fade, it applies an equal fade on all fading items to achieve the gap time. For example, if the hour was overrunning by a minute before stretching (eg, the gap time was +01:00) and we had 10 items in the log that could be faded, PlayoutONE would apply a 6-second fade to all 10 items.
Ensure you specify which items PlayoutONE can fade. This can be set within the Type Manager. You wouldn’t want your adverts or sweepers to fade halfway through.
⏳ Timing up the hour
To activate the RunToTime command, ensure that you have a time marker (hit or soft) somewhere in your hour for PlayoutONE to reference.
This is usually set just before the end of the hour or perhaps before an ad break leading to the news.
Insert the RunToTime command near the top of the hour before your first song. Once PlayoutONE hits the command, it will work out the gap time within a few milliseconds.