TRT chooses NETIA

The radio automation system will be installed on a HP/COMPAQ fiber channel based server cluster with two database/file servers and shared storage. The database used for the recording of materials is SQL based and freely set up to the specifications of the customer.

Types and categories can be modified, custom structures can be created on demand. The system also has a configurable security suite and user access: it is possible to limit access of any users to specific portions of the database. The database can be accessed from any workstation connected to the radio net on LAN, or from a remote location on WAN.

The production and broadcast network will use the ethernet LAN backbone of TRT. The clients will also be HP/COMPAQ professional workstations and desktops. To prepare the programs for these broadcast terminals there will be 5 ingest & editing, and 6 scheduling stations. Playlists can be created manually, and inserted in predefined timeslots that make up the format of the radio.

Additionally, Netia offers a separate module called Music-All for music time slot scheduling. Music-All has a separate database, that links to the Radio-Assist database. The titles and metedata from Radio-Assist imported from Radio-Assist, and in the Music-All database, new metadata specific for music-scheduling are added, such as style, mood, criteria, rotation etc.

These metadata too, are freely configurable by system administrators. A title may be included in more than one Music-All database. A Music-All database can be linked to only one part of the radio database, like songs in a certain language, or style. Thus it is possible to have music databases specialized towards certain types of music, like rock, pop, or a certain period, as well as a global database for general purpose music scheduling. Playlists are then created manually or globally according to the criteria and formats defined by the user.

There will be 3 On-Air stations, for the 3 TRT channels entering the automation scheme, and a backup On-Air workstation for each. Each on-air workstation will also be equipped with GPI controller boards for interfacing with on-air desks, and dedicated key panels to provide a hardware control surface.

Radio-Assist features tools for several kinds of internet interaction. There are modules for streaming the broadcast. There are modules for synchronising the website of the organisation with the broadcast, for example to have the web site display metadata about the currently playing song, etc. There are also modules for creating low-quality copies of the media store on a web server and opening these to internet access (for example past news bulletins).