How do I set up recording with SharpStream?

If you're a customer of both Aiir and the streaming company SharpStream, we have a simple integration for recording your broadcast programmes and making them available to listen to on your website and mobile apps, without having to maintain schedule information in two places. 

Jump to:

• How it works
• Get started with SharpStream
• Setting up
• Mark your programmes to be recorded
• Check your recorded programmes
• Listen to programmes on your website
• Listen to programmes on your mobile app

How it works

1. You select which programmes should be recorded in Aiir's Programme Information app, in the schedule editor.
2. That information is automatically sent to SharpStream, who record your programmes.
3. After each programme is recorded, information about the recording is automatically sent back to Aiir.
4. Each programme is added to Aiir's On Demand app, with categories automatically being created based on the programme information.

Get started with SharpStream

You'll need to be a customer of both companies. When you're joining SharpStream, or if you're an existing customer, you'll need to let them know that you'll be using Aiir's system for recording programmes.

They'll give you a client ID which you'll need to enter in to our platform.

Setting up

Go to the Programme Information app in Aiir, select the relevant station, then select Settings.

Scroll down to "Recording programmes" and enable the option labelled "Enable recording with streaming partner".

An instructions box will appear with further information on setting up. You'll see a box where you can paste in the client ID which SharpStream have provided you with.

There's also a Data URL. This is the resource SharpStream will use to know which programmes you've selected to record in our schedule editor. Copy this URL and provide it to SharpStream.

Save the page when you're done.

Mark your programmes to be recorded

You'll need to be familiar with how to edit a schedule in Aiir, and understand the difference between a Template and a Schedule. If you're not, go ahead and read the guide on this first.

Begin by going to the template for your station in Programme Information. Select an episode that you'd like to record and you'll see an option to "Record this episode". If you know that your programme doesn't begin exactly at the top of the hour (e.g. if there's a news bulletin you'd rather cut out) then you can set the "Recording start offset" option.

You'll need to enable this on all the episodes you wish to record. Don't forget you can copy episode information across multiple days to save time.

Next you'll need to bring these changes across to your schedule weeks, updating any that have already been populated. If you don't have any differences from your template, you can easily copy the template directly across for each week that has been generated already. If not, you'll need to do this manually.

Each week the recordings set on your template will be automatically copied to your schedule.

Check your recorded programmes

If everything is set up and SharpStream have begun recording your programmes, you should be able to see them in the On Demand app in Aiir. 

Each episode is placed in a category. Categories are created automatically, based on the programmes in Programme Information.

If you need to, you can manually make alterations to the information about your recorded programmes here.

Listen to programmes on your website

There are currently two options for making your recorded programmes available on your website.

If you are a customer of Radioplayer and use their web console as your website's player, you can easily make all of your programmes available to listen to there.

In the Radioplayer app in Aiir, navigate to your player, then the Web Player tab. Scroll down to the "Plug-in Space" section and enable the option "Enable On Demand".

Save this page, and check your player to see if a tab has appeared which lets you switch to the On Demand section.

If you're expecting to see recorded programmes appear but don't see any, check your player has the correct Station selected. In the first "General" tab you'll see the Station option. It should match what you see in the On Demand app if you edit a category and check the "Link with stations" option.

Another advantage to using Radioplayer for your on demand programmes is that information will automatically be published to their search engine, meaning it will be possible for people to search and discover your programmes from any Radioplayer console or application.

If you're not a Radioplayer customer, you will need to speak to SharpStream about their embeddable widget. They can give you code which you can paste into a page in Aiir's Page Editor, which lets you listen to programmes on a page. We don't yet have a built-in section for your website to listen to On Demand programmes that doesn't involve Radioplayer.

Listen to programmes on your mobile app

If you have an iOS or Android app from Aiir, you can add an On Demand section to your app.

Go to the Mobile App section of Aiir, select your station, select the Navigation tab, and add a new item. For the Link option you can choose from the Link Presets where you'll find On Demand as an option. Save the new item and save the mobile app station. If you've already had the app open on your phone, ensure you fully close it before re-opening it to check if the On Demand option is there in the main menu.