Importing - Introduction

After deciding on the types of recorded programming content your station will provide, you need to get that content into your TuneTracker computer, one way or another.

Since the TuneTracker System can play most-any common audio format, in a wide variety of bitrates and sampling rates, it's unlikely you'll need to do any conversions of your existing audio files, unless it's in a format that is extremely proprietary or unusual. Supported formats include MP3, MP2, WAV, AIFF, OGG VORBIS, IFF-8SVX, MS-ADPCM, MIDI (yes, even MIDI), and audio direct from CD.

1.   Importing from CD
   
   After inserting a CD into your CD-ROM drive, wait to see if it appears as an icon on your desktop. If not, you may need to right-click on your desktop and change your Mount settings to include "Mount All Disks," so the CDs will show up automatically when inserted.
   
   Files can be ripped (extracted) from audio CDs using either the quick rip (uncompressed) or ripping to compressed files such as MP3s. By far the best approach is to use TunePrepper™, which not only rips the files, but preps them for professional broadcast use and encodes them to the format of your choice.
   
   Pre-existing MP3s and other files existing on another computer can be burned to CD, transported to the TuneTracker computer, and copied in.
   
   
   
2.   Playing from CD
   
   You can even play cuts straight off CD, as long as you know in advance the name of the CD. For instance, if you have a weekly CD of programs that comes in the mail, and the CD title is predictable, such as "SportsShorts," you can just leave the CD in the drive and play the track straight to the air. Just do something like this in your master log:
   
   
   Play /SportsShorts/Aug11_2003.mp3
   
   Just make certain that, in addition to assuring the CD is in the player, you have confirmed the CD is mounted, as described above.
   
   
   
3.   Transferring Across a LAN
   
   Setting up networking in BeOS is easy and straightforward, and file transfer from other machines, whether Windows, Linux, Mac, or other, is simple using any FTP program.
   
   After setting up networking, you can transfer files from other computers (such as your production room machine) straight into the directories on your TuneTracker computer where you ultimately want them to reside for broadcast. If they are being transferred-in for the first time, you'll next need to open the BeOS folder where they are located and edit the files' attributes so TuneStacker™ can find them by the criteria of your choice. You can edit the attributes manually, or with our provided Army Knife program. The attributes you add will survive even if you use FTP on another computer to transfer-in an updated copy of the file, overwriting the existing one. This is unique to FTP'ing, however. If you copy-over the file in any other way, the replaced files' attributes will be lost.
   
   
   Alternately, if you create a zip archive of your BeOS files prior to transferring them, the attributes will also be preserved. You can quickly create a zip archive from a group of files and/or folders selecting them, right-clicking on them, and choosing Open With -- > Zipomatic.
   
   
   
   
4.   Downloading from the Internet
   
   Using the included NetPositive or Firefox browser and NetPenguin FTP program (all three are included in the TuneTracker System), you can download programming content from the Internet, both manually and automatically. Additional free Internet retrieval tools such as wget, ncftpd, and others can be found at the Internet's premier BeOS download site, BeBits. Some of these tools can be set up to routinely download updated material such as daily newscasts, when combined with Scheduler, BeTasks, or Cron, all of which are also available at BeBits. Tips on how to do automated tasks and a great deal of additional helpful information can be found in the Q-Tips section of our web site.
   
   
   
   
5.   Uploading via the Internet
   
   You can be anywhere and still send content into your TuneTracker computer. For example, perhaps you have a home studio and need to record an updated "severe weather alert" forecast. Just record the announcement and transfer it into your TuneTracker computer at the radio station, using FTP. See Remote Administration for more information on ways to provide fresh content and edit existing content from across town, or across the globe..
   
   
   
   
6.   By the Hard Drive-Full
   
   Yes, you can even attach another IDE hard drive to your TuneTracker computer and pull contents straight off that. SCSI hard drives can be used as well, if you have a BeOS-compatible SCSI card, though SCSI's extra speed is not necessary when broadcasting with the TuneTracker System and BeOS. BeOS can read Fat32 and NTFS partitions, so even a Windows hard drive is ok if you want to specify cuts to be played based on their paths and filenames, using the "Play" command. But we really do recommend you then transfer those files to a hard drive formatted with the Be File System, because that will allow you to take full advantage of TuneTracker's full capabilities..
   
   One approach you might want to seriously consider is using a removable hard drive, mounted in a drawer in the front of your computer. TuneTracker Systems offers an excellent system based on these removable drives. You can read more about TuneBacker™ on our web site.

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