Automatically Importing And Playing A Radio News Hub File At The Top Of The Hour

In this walkthough we will see how to automate importing a news audio file into Myriad Playout as well as how to play the file at the beginning of an hour in the Log.

In this article we will use the Radio News Hub service as an example. Radio News Hub provide hourly bulletins throughout the day that are delivered using Dropbox.

We will not cover the distribution setup in this article but assume the hourly news file is arriving in a specific folder each hour.

Whilst we will use Radio News Hub in this example, a similar approach can be used to import and use content delivered from a variety of services or sources.

Setting Up An AutoImporter Group

In order to import the hourly news, we will need to setup an AutoImporter group to monitor a folder and automatically import anything that appears in the folder to a specific Media ID on the Media Wall.

In the case of Radio News Hub, a AutoImporter has a default Import Group pre-installed to speed up the process.

Double click on the Radio News Hub group to view and edit the settings. 

1. Set Automatically Start to Yes. This will make sure the Group starts importing automatically.
2. Set the Import From folder to be the folder that the file will be delivered to.
3. Set the File Name to match the name file will be delivered with (news.mp3 for Radio News Hub).
4. Select the Archive  flag option after importing. This stops AutoImporter importing it again until it is updated.
5. Set the Item Type to be News.
6. Select a specific Media ID on the Media Wall that you want to import into. Make a note of this as you will need it later.
7. Tick the Overwrite Item option to allow AutoImporter to update the Media Item with the latest news.

That is everything you need. You may chose to Override the title with something better than News.mp3. You can do this on the Overrides tab.

You can also set AutomImporter to notify you if it does or does not successfully import an item on the Notifications tab. But these are all optional.

Now test your AutoImporter group by dropping an audio file called news.mp3 into the selected folder and then looking at Media ID 9001 (or the Media ID specified in your import group) on the Media Wall and check it imported correctly. 

Adding The Imported News To Your Clocks (in Myriad Schedule)

Now that the News file is being imported into a specific Media ID (9001 in this case), it is a very simple matter to add it to your Clocks to play as part of the Log.

In Myriad Playout, click on the Setting Menu > Myriad Schedule option.

All your clocks will be listed down the left hand side of the Myriad Schedule window. Double click on the Clock you want to add news to.

The nest step will differ depending on whether it is a Simple Clock or an Advanced Clock.

Simple Clock

Simple Clocks do not include the exact structure of the Clock, only general guidance on what song categories to include as well how often to play a link.

Luckiy, Simple Clocks also include a specific setting for playing a specific Media ID at the start of the hour. Tick the Start each section with this media item option and add in the the Media ID that should be played (9001 in this example).

Media ID 9001 (your imported News) will now be included at the beginning of any hour that uses this Simple Clock.

Advanced Clocks

Advanced Clocks include a specific list of Log Items that should be included whenever the Clock is used to schedule an hour in the Log. 

So if we want to include the News at the top of the hour, we will need to include the Media ID 9001 (or whatever you are using) as the first Log Item in the list.

The easiest way to do this is to drag a Basic Media Item from the list on the left hand side, to the top of the Clock.

Next you have to tell it what Media Id to play.

Click on the Media option (on the Type column) to edit the Media Id the system will schedule into this slot.

You can use the Browse button or simple type in the Media Id. Then click on OK.

Media ID 9001 will not be the first item in any hour scheduled using this Clock.

Pro Tip - Create A News Sequence Clock

Your news may actually be a sequence of Media Items like - News In > Hot FM News > News Out. Obviously you can create this sequence using the steps above inside each Clock but anther way of doing it is to create a News Sequence Clock that only has the specific News sequence in. 

Then you can use the 'Clock' option when building another Clock to insert the contents of one Clock into another Clock.

Why bother?

Well if you have a large amount of Clocks and you create a New Sequence Clock and place it at the beginning of all your other Clocks, if you want to change you news sequence, you only have to change it one place, the News Sequence Clock and the change will cascade to all your other clocks.

And In AutoTrack?

AutoTrack does not have Simple Clocks so by default you need to follow the steps for Advanced Clocks outlined above but apart from looking slightly different, the process is exactly the same.

You can even do the same News Sequence Clock trick in AutoTrack Pro.

Watch The Video

If you prefer you can also watch a video on setting up the Radio News Hub importer group.