TUNETRACKER SYSTEM IN ACTION - The ChannelCaster Switcher Interface

Automated Switcher Control

When teamed with ChannelCaster, TuneTracker Command Center can do smooth, accurate, automated control of your switcher, opening up incoming audio channels and routing them to the proper outputs, and responding to relay closures, completely unattended.


AUDIO SWITCHING

The "Route-For" syntax you need to add to your logs is very straightforward, and behaves exactly like Command Center's "Live-For" command, which you may already be familiar with.

In practice, you just add a Route-For line to your logs at any location/time of day when you want a particular switcher behavior to happen, and Command Center takes care of the rest. You can specify an exact length for the switcher event, or turn it on and leave it on "infinitely" until an # Interrupt command takes it off.

When wired up in the recommended way, you'll want to reserve one audio channel for the TuneTracker computer, and keep that audio channel open at all times. That's done by entering System Prefs, going to the Switcher tab, enabling "Permanent Connection," and specifying the input channel you want held open.


RELAY CLOSURES

Relay closures received by the switcher box tell Command Center to advance to, and start, whichever audio event is scheduled to play next. The behavior is identical to clicking the Start button on the Command Center iterface, or hitting the spacebar on your keyboard. The relay response can be used to "break away" from a satellite broadcast on an automated basis. You can also wire-up a simple pushbutton to one of the relay connections on the switcher box and use it as a remote start for the system.

The Broadcast Tools switcher supplies a whole row of connections for relay closures, giving you great flexibility. In order to assure Command Center only responds to the relay closures you want it to at any given time, Command Center ignores all of them until you tell it to monitor one of them for a specific period of time. This is done using the "Listen" and "Ignore" commands in your program log. You can also tell Command Center to pay attention to one relay constantly, for situations where you want to wire up a remote start button. This is specified in Command Center System Prefs under the Switcher tab. Just enable "Permanent relay listen" and specify which relay port your button is connected-to.

Details on the Route-For, Listen, HotTrack, and Ignore syntax and their uses are all detailed on our commands page. Once you're there, be sure to click on the Read More link for even more complete instructions.


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