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Table of Contents
mAirList 6.0
THIS PAGE IS WORK IN PROGRESS!
This page describes the new features and other notable changes in mAirList 6.0.
Note that not all features are available in all licenses/editions.
The complete changelog can be found http://download.mairlist.com/mAirList/v6.0/Changelog.txt here.
New Features
Playout
Color Ribbon
As a new design element, there is a colored vertical band running down the playlist, which will reflect the item color of the individual item colors, as an alternative to the row background color. For many designs, it will be look much nicer to keep the same background color for all rows, and only alter the ribbon color according to the item color. It is also possible to adjust the ribbon color through skin.ini, using RibbonColor
entries similar to the existing RowColor
mechanism.
Multi-Track Containers
Multi-Track Containers are a new kind of container playlist item. Unlike ordinary containers, items are not played one by one, but you can arrange them freely on the timeline using the Mix Editor.
News Containers
Another special kind of container items. Just point mAirList to the required audio files for your news break (intro, music bed, etc.) and the actual news content (which can also be an HTTP URL), and mAirList will “magically” construct a container from it, mixing all items perfectly together.
Revamped Hook Containers
In earlier versions of mAirList, we had the “Create Hook Container” command that would take a number of songs, copy their Hook In/Fade/Out points over to the regular Cue In/Fade Out/Cue Out points, and group them into a (regular) container playlist item.
mAirList 6 takes this feature to a new level. Hook Containers are now an item type of their own, which means that you can edit them at any time. There are new menu commands to add the hook container straight to the cartwall. And mAirList will also use a random 10 second part if you haven't defined any hook cue points for a particular item yet.
Padding (aka. Sweeper on Ramp)
This has been request by a lot of people - it's now possible to place sweepers over the ramp in AUTO mode, also if the sweeper is shorter than the ramp. We call this “Paddding”, as the sweeper is padded with silence and started at the same time as the song. You can set the padding in the Mix Editor, just by dragging the sweeper to the right over some kind of virtual “notch”.
Auto-Float and Fixed timing
mAirList can now automatically remove underrun and overflow sections in playlist, by moving songs up or down the playlist until all gaps are filled, and no songs remain in overflow status. This is enabled by clicking the new Auto-Float buttton in the playlist control bar, or enabling the respective option in the playlist configuration.
Only items with “Normal” timing will be affected by auto-float. There is a new timing option called “Fixed” to be used for items that should never float. If you build chains of “Fixed” items (e.g. news opener + news file + news close), this will prevent other items from breaking the chain by floating it between two items of the chain. The same is true for chains of “Backtimed” items.
To prevent items from floating around particular “checkpoints”, e.g. the top of the hour, use the new Prevent auto float around this item playlist item option.
Use the cartwall in Voice Tracking
When doing voice tracking from the playout software (not the standalone DB app), you can now use the cartwall during voice tracking - it will switch into a special “VT” mode where mAirList records the start and stop of any carts, and creates a Multi-Track Container from the recorded voice tracks and all cart items. You can use the Mix Editor to edit the this voice track container later.
Cartwall Page playlist item
Another new kind of playlist item is introduced: Cartwall Page. It stores name of an .mcp (Cartwall Page) file, and when the DJ drags that item from the playlist onto the cartwall, the associated page is opened. This provides a very convenient way to include information about all required cart set directly in the playlist.
Aircheck Recorder improvements
DHD Console
Database and Scheduling
Playlist versioning and overwrite promt
Multiple template assignments
Mini Scheduler speed improvements
External audio editor support
R128 loudness scanner
Improved DBServer REST API
Other
Important Changes
User who are upgrade from earlier version should read the following note carefully, because some changes in this release may break existing configurations or workflows.
No "Desktops" anymore
mAirList 6 drops the “desktop” feature found in earlier version. Instead, the playlists(s), open cartwall tabs, and open browser pages, can be saved separately in .mlp
, .mcpx
and .mlb
files. Likewise, there are now default files for all three kinds (default0.mlp
, default.mcpx
, default.mlb
, found in the config
folder) which replace the earlier standard.mlt
desktop template. You will find commands to save these default files in the respective menus of the playlist, cartwall, and browser.
Single Event Scheduler
There is now only one, global Event Scheduler per playout instance, accessible through the Events button in the main toolbar. The yellow events button was removed from the playlist control bar.
No Hook Mode anymore
The old Hook Mode feature found in the playlist players and cartwall was replaced by the revamped Hook Container items; you can find commands to create hook containers, and add them to the playlist or cartwall, in the playlist context menu.
Removed "Hide played items" option
The Hide played items option and button was removed from the playlist configuration and control bar. Played/skipped items will always remain visible until they are eventually moved to the Recycle Bin.
Logging On Air status
When playback of an item is started, mAirList will remember whether the instance was in “on air” or “off air mode” at that time. This flag is applied when doing “stop logging” at the end of the playlist: If a logging interface is set to operate only in “on air” mode, the stop logging will always take place if the item was started in on air mode, even if you switched to off air in the meantime. This will give consistent output in start/stop logging.
The on air status is also passed as an additional parameter to background scripts using the OnItemStart' and
OnItemStop'' procedures. You must manually adjust the definition of the procedures when migrating old script code to mAirList 6.
Old:
procedure OnItemStart(Item: IPlaylistItem; Region: byte; UniqueID: string); procedure OnItemStop(Item: IPlaylistItem; Region: byte; UniqueID: string; Duration: TTimeValue);
New:
procedure OnItemStart(Item: IPlaylistItem; Region: byte; OnAir: boolean; UniqueID: string); procedure OnItemStop(Item: IPlaylistItem; Region: byte; OnAir: boolean; UniqueID: string; Duration: TTimeValue);
Live Feed devices
In earlier releases, the input audio device for Live Feed items was set directly inside the item properties dialog. In mAirList 6, you only select one of 8 Live Feed Input devices now, and the actual assignment to a physical audio device is done in the Audio Devices section of the config app. This facilitates the scheduling of Live Feed items from other computers than the actual playout PC.
DBServer authentication
mAirListDB Server uses a new style of user authentication now, designed along the license of the popular OAuth2 standard.
On the server side, there is a brand new user management dialog where you create or modify users and their respective permissions.
On the client side, no username/password is stored in the local configuration anymore. Instead, you log in in order to retrieve an authentication token, which is then used to perform the actual database access.
REST remote control authentication
The REST remote control uses the same new user management and authentication found in the DBServer.
Note to developers: Anonymous access is not supported anymore. While you can still use HTTP Basic authentication with username and password, we recommend that you use the new OAuth2-style authentication end point in order to retrieve an auth token, and then use HTTP Bearer authentication.