BR Live Plus customers - Inviting guests
BR Live Pro customers - Inviting guests
Joining an 'audio room' as a guest
Managing guests as a Presenter or Producer
Introduction
BR Live Plus and BR Live Pro both allow you to sent invitation links to guest contributors to allow them to connect to your station for audio contribution via a supported web browser (on PC or Mac). Guest invites can also be time and date restricted so you can tightly control when the guest can join your ‘audio room’. Once joined, the guest waits in the ‘green room’ until the presenter or producer lets them in. At that point their microphone can be switched ‘live’ (or you can chat on the ‘talk’ channel) by the presenter or the producer, the guest does not have the ability to switch themselves ‘live’ so you retain control at all times.
BR Live Plus vs BR Live Pro
All of the processes in this article apply whether you have BR Live Plus or BR Live Pro. The difference between the two systems is that BR Live Plus is integrated into Myriad Anywhere Pro (and activated with an optional license) so all the access is via the Myriad Anywhere Pro (Cloud) interface. This simplifies matters considerably for stations running Myriad 5 Playout & Anywhere Pro but means that the service is not available for Myriad 4 customers or stations with 3rd party playout systems.
In this scenario, the station can instead use BR Live Pro which is accessed via the Broadcast.Radio/Live web portal meaning it can be accessed and managed by all stations regardless of whether they also use Myriad 5 Playout & Anywhere Pro.
Another advantage of BR Live Pro is that you can access the ‘audio rooms’ from any PC or Mac with a support browser making it ideal for running in studios or at remote locations that you wish to link for audio purposes (but not necessarily control Myriad Playout via Anywhere). Please note that BR Live Pro customers who also subscribe to Myriad Anywhere Pro (Cloud) will get the benefits of both BR Live Pro and BR Live Plus as part of their package.
BR Live Plus customers - Inviting guests
If you have enabled the BR Live Plus option on your Anywhere Pro (Cloud) subscription then the standard BR Live panel will be enhanced with the ability to send guest invites to connect via BR Live. To invite a guest, follow these steps:
- Login to Myriad Anywhere Pro (Cloud) and connect to the Live studio (to take live control).
- Once connected, click on the Connect Audio button to connect to the station audio and launch the BR Live Panel.
- You will be asked to confirm some out the connection details such as the audio devices you want to use as well as your name for the 'audio room'. If you have not used BR Live on this browser before you will also be asked to grant access to your microphone with a popup window, you need to grant access in order for BR Live to work. Once you are happy, click Connect.
- After a few moment, the BR Live Panel will open in a separate browser window and you will hear your station output. To send a guest invite link, click on the Invite button to the right.
- This will open the guest invitation popup window which allows you to fill in the details for the invitation.
- Type in the guests name into the Guest Name box.
- Decide whether you would prefer to email them an invitation link or if you prefer to generate a code that you can send using a different method.
- If you select email then type in the email address.
- Set a Start Time / Date and End Time / Date to determine a time and date range within which the invite if valid. If the guest tries to connect outside of this range the connection will be rejected.
- When you are happy, click on Invite. The invitation email will be sent to the guest after a few moments.
BR Live Pro customers - Inviting guests
The process of inviting guests is very similar for BR Live Pro customers but because BR Live Pro works independently of Myriad Anywhere (and Myriad in general) then the process is managed via the Broacast.Radio/live portal instead.
- Open the broadcast.radio/live portal.
- This portal allows you to access your Broadcast.Radio account but is also used to directly access audio rooms via an access code.
In this case we want to create a guest invite so we will need to access the portal via User Account. If you just want to joint an audio room then you do not need a user account, you would just click on the Use Code option. - If you have multiple 'Stations' setup then you will see a list of stations which allows you to select the one you want to create an guest invite for. In this case we will select 'Hot Extra'.
- Next you will be asked to select which 'audio room' you wish to connect to. Each audio room can support up to five concurrent connections so you can have several presenters and guests connected if requires. The standard BR Live Pro subscription includes 1 x audio room but you can add more audio rooms by upgrading your subscription.
In this case we will select the Hot XTRA Live Room. - You will then see the BR Live Pro options for the selected audio room. the options are:
Join Room - Join the room as a presenter or guest.
Guest Invite - Generate a guest invite.
User History - View the user history for the room.
Room Settings - Change the name of the room.
In this case we need to select Guest Invites. - In the Guest Invites window you will see a list of all current guest invites along with how long is left before they expire. To create a new guest invite, click on Create Invitation.
- This will open the guest invitation popup window which allows you to fill in the details for the invitation.
- Type in the guests name into the Guest Name box.
- Decide whether you would prefer to email them an invitation link or if you prefer to generate a code that you can send using a different method. If you select Get Link then instead of sending the invite to the email recipient, the link to access the audio room is displayed directly.
- If you select email then type in the email address.
- Set a Start Time / Date and End Time / Date to determine a time and date range within which the invite if valid. If the guest tries to connect outside of this range the connection will be rejected.
- When you are happy then click on Invite to send the invitation.
- The invite will be emailed to the guests inbox.
Joining an 'audio room' as a guest
Once your guest has their invite email, follow these simple steps to join the BR Live audio room.
- Check your inbox for your invite email.
- Open the email and then click on the Connect button in the centre of the email.
This will take you directly to the audio room and pre-enter your unique access code. - If that link does not work (some email clients will prevent links opening browser windows) then make a note of the access code and then visit broadcast.radio/live and select Use Code.
On broadcast.radio/live, select the Use Code option and then type in the access code from your email.
- Either method will result in you arriving at the same page.
If you clicked on the link in the email then your access code will be pre-populated so you just need to click on the arrow to the right of the access code to enter the audio room.
If you had to enter the address manually then type in the access code and click on the same arrow button to enter the audio room. - Next you will see the Join Room window which allows you to enter your name as well as select the audio devices you wish to use. Start by adding Your Name.
- Next you need to select your audio device for Input (your microphone) and Output (your headphones). If you have not used BR Live before, when you click on the drop down to select either Input or Output device, your browser will likely pop up a message asking you to allow access to your microphone. You need to click on Allow to continue.
Please note that this message box may vary with different browsers but the meaning will be the same.
Once you have allowed access, you can select the audio input and output devices you want to use from the drop down list.
We strongly recommend using a good quality headset or microphone / headphone combination as using speakers could lead to feedback.
You can also use a mixing desk if you prefer in which case you will need to connect the input to the 'cleanfeed' output from the mixer and the output to a suitable fader channel on the mixer.
Once you are happy with your audio device selection, click on Connect. This will launch the BR Live Panel in a floating window, this will allow you to manage your audio session.
Using the BR Live Panel
Once you have selected your audio devices and clicked on the Connect button, the BR Live Panel will open in a pop-up window and the presenter / producer will see that you are waiting in the 'green room'. This is a waiting area that can be used to queue multiple guests. You will see that the central status on the BR Live Panel will indicate that you are waiting in the 'green room'.
Once the presenter is ready to speak to you, they will admit you from the green room and the central status will change to show which 'channel' you are currently connected to and whether your microphone is on or not!
Microphone Status
If you see Talking Off Air (greyed out) that means you are on the Talk channel which allows you to talk to the presenter and other guests without your voice being broadcast. But if the letters appear 'greyed out' (as above) then your microphone is currently muted and others on the Talk channel cannot hear you.
As soon as the presenter or producer turns your microphone on, the central text will change to Talking (Of Air) in red to indicate that your microphone is now on and anyone on the 'talk' channel can hear you. Please note that there is no way for you to turn your own microphone on, that has to be done by the presenter or producer at the station end. Remember that the 'talk' channel allows you to talk to the presenter and other guests but your audio is not being broadcast 'on air'.
When the presenter / producer is ready for you to be 'live' on air, they will switch you to the 'live' channel and the central status will change to Mic Live (greyed out) This indicates that you have now been moved to the 'live' channel ready to be 'on air' but your microphone is still muted.
Finally, when the presenter is ready to put you 'on air' they will switch your microphone on at the station end and your status will change to Mic Live in red which indicates you microphone is now on and your contribution is being included in the broadcast or recording.
Other BR Live Panel options
In general you should not need to do much with the BR Live Panel as the presenter will control your microphone at the studio end but there are options to control the local 'monitoring' volume as well as mute your microphone if required. The diagram below outlines the functions of the BR Live Panel.
Managing guests as a Presenter or Producer
Once you have invited a guest and they have connected to BR Live, you can use the BR Live Panel to manage your guests and control their live contribution.
The BR Live Panel has a 'green room' section to right which is a 'waiting area' for your connected guests.
Connecting a guest
In the example above, we have a guest called Billy waiting in the 'green room'. To add them to the active BR Live Panel, click on the Connect Icon on the Guest.
This will move them from the 'green room' to the main panel to allow you to assign them to the 'talk' or 'live' channels as well as switch on and control their microphone.
Controlling guest microphones and assigning them to 'channels
In the example above, Billy is assigned to the 'talk' channel which means that any conversation will not be broadcast 'on air'. To talk to the guest and allow them to talk back to you, click on the microphone buttons to switch them on (for all participants you want to be able to talk).
When you are ready to switch the guest to be 'on air', change to the 'live' channel.
You can also control the volume of their microphone by dragging the fader up and down.
Remember, the guest also has the ability to mute their own microphone in which case the mic on/off button will display the Away status.
Disconnecting a guest (and other options)
When the time comes to disconnect a guest (or move them back to the green room), you can do that by clicking on the Options button to the right of the guest name.
This will display a range of options for the guest including the ability to move them back to the green room or disconnect them altogether.
There are also option to switch between stereo and mono (along with how to do that) and to enable the audio repair functions within the browser (which we do not recommend using).
'Token Expired' when inviting a Guest
Sometimes when inviting a Guest to a Live Room from within the software, BR Live will show an error message 'Token Expired'. By default, as part of its security features, BR Live only allows the creation of guest invites 1 hour after the user connects to the room.
To work around this, close and re-open the BR Live pop-up window, or alternatively use the broadcast.radio/live portal to send and manage your Guest Invitations.
Upon request, we can increase the 1-hour limitation up to 24 hours, but please note the minor trade-off in security.
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