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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2017 2:41:55 GMT
Zara Has a Problem With Large Audio Files
Awhile back we were airing a 4-hour audio file on KDX Worldround Radio, and at a random moment during the file the playlist jumped ahead to the next file in the queue. On a later occasion the same thing happened again, so I posted about it.
Another member responded and said, yes, the same thing had happened to me.
I think of it because tonight I have scheduled the 5-hour Women's March On Washington and fear that during the program Zara will jump forward to another program.
I'll be asleep at the time, and may never know for sure whether it happened or not.
The reason I mention it here is so others will be aware of the possible glitch that may arise during use of Zara.
Only the ALPB can assure your salvation.
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Post by End80 on Jan 25, 2017 12:01:25 GMT
I recall having a similar problem one time where it would always skip over a certain mp3. I looked at the MP3 properties and compared it to other mp3s and noted no difference.. To solve it I can't remember if I simply re-named it, or if I ran it through Audacity first and saved it with a new name, but it did solve the problem.
It's not a problem I've noticed to be a regular occurrence with Zara.
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Post by mighty1650 on Jan 26, 2017 2:48:16 GMT
This is an issue I had long forgotten occurred in Zara. I can't remember if I've ever seen it outright jump out of a program without an Immediate command in the event builder, then again my longest program file is 4-hours. For everything else (including net streams regardless of program length) I keep it in 1-Hour intervals, allowing for a legal ID at the top and a stream reconnect to fix any streaming glitches that may have occurred. (Zara handles poor streaming connections very badly I've found, I have a delayed reconnect programmed every 15 minutes to serve as a fall-back incase it loses connection during the show.)
Back on topic with Zara Glitches, I've never had mine skip a show that wasn't due to a programming error on my part. However, I have had Zara totally screw up playback of mp3 files where Zara would play it in chipmunk mode like fast forward was stuck on. Restarting playback would usually fix the problem, I only had this occur on one particular windows 7 machine so I chalked it up to hardware issues as none of my other Win7s or XPs have had any problems whatsoever.
It could be possible that some sound cards / drivers and other hardware configurations might be to blame. I wouldn't be surprised if intergrated sound cards are more prone to problems.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2017 3:45:19 GMT
Zara Weak Points
As far as I can tell my 5-hour audio file played all the way through during the night and did not abort early as I feared it might.
Mighty 1650 brings up another Zara weakness that I also experienced: "Zara handles poor streaming connections very badly."
That's very true. A few weeks ago I started experimenting with connecting live stream links to Zara but at first thought it didn't work at all, until I found out that Zara is fussy about the wording of links that link to streams.
By comparison I observed that Winamp v 6.66 is exceptionally stable when stream URLs are added in the playlist.
There is a paid version of Zara, but we have yet to hear from anyone who has tried it. Maybe it's no longer available. Anyone know?
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Post by End80 on Jan 26, 2017 4:27:39 GMT
While I never experienced the chipmunk problem (although it's possible occurrences possibly could have occurred when I was not present), I specifically do recall hearing about it before, so I found the post on at part 15.us, where Mram explained the quick solution:
The good news is the problem you're having with the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" problem can be worked around by using the "sound card" setting for the input device under the "input" tab of the ShoutCast plug-in. I went through the same thing. The player sounded ok out of the sound card but the streaming audio was as you have described. Changing the input device setting to "sound card" took care of that.
www.part15.us/forum/part15-forums/general-discussion/zara-radio-v14-broadcast-stream-plugin-
Of note, this appears is only a problem with the earlier version of Zara 1.4 in relation to it's use of plugins. Zara 1.6 apparently does not have this problem, but then again, it doesn't have plugin support either, but there are work around that with vac as recently discussed here.
Why Zara abandoned use of plugin support is unclear. Even the new ZaraRadio 3 doesn't support plugins. There has been several times I considered switching and using another automation program, but as of yet have always stuck with Zara, maybe just do to the simplicity of using it... The older I get the less I want to tackle new learning curves. Although I am tempted to give Lunarcaster another try now that they have come out with an official release. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2017 4:47:22 GMT
Learning Curves
End80 hit the nail just slightly to one side but gave the hammer another swing and hit the head dead on: "The older I get the less I want to tackle new learning curves."
That's right! This whole computer age has been land-mined with constant new this and new that with everything requiring yet another learning curve.
Everything you learned yesterday is no longer valid. Now the system is different and you are back in kindergarten.
Tomorrow version 700.0 hits the market with a new learning curve!
You could attack your keyboard but hold on... what has a keyboard ever done to you? The real enemy is "new learning curves!" If we could stop them, happiness would be ours.
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Post by mighty1650 on Jan 26, 2017 13:29:19 GMT
While I never experienced the chipmunk problem (although it's possible occurrences possibly could have occurred when I was not present), I specifically do recall hearing about it before, so I found the post on at part 15.us, where Mram explained the quick solution:
The good news is the problem you're having with the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" problem can be worked around by using the "sound card" setting for the input device under the "input" tab of the ShoutCast plug-in. I went through the same thing. The player sounded ok out of the sound card but the streaming audio was as you have described. Changing the input device setting to "sound card" took care of that.
www.part15.us/forum/part15-forums/general-discussion/zara-radio-v14-broadcast-stream-plugin-
Of note, this appears is only a problem with the earlier version of Zara 1.4 in relation to it's use of plugins. Zara 1.6 apparently does not have this problem, but then again, it doesn't have plugin support either, but there are work around that with vac as recently discussed here.
Why Zara abandoned use of plugin support is unclear. Even the new ZaraRadio 3 doesn't support plugins. There has been several times I considered switching and using another automation program, but as of yet have always stuck with Zara, maybe just do to the simplicity of using it... The older I get the less I want to tackle new learning curves. Although I am tempted to give Lunarcaster another try now that they have come out with an official release. I was using version 1.6 at the time, the problem went out over the air. This same machine also had issues with edcast so I'm leaning on hardware / driver incompatibility issues. Oddly after some time the issue never happened again on the same machine, so who knows the actual cause was. I haven't used this particular machine since 2012. |
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Post by Druid Hills Radio on Jan 26, 2017 13:42:33 GMT
I use RadioBoss for the LPFM. It's not free but it has never failed. Does streaming as well.
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