MID-STREAM TAG

What are MID-STREAM TAGs?

they are information to be displayed or commands to be executed at specific points in the playback of an audio file.

The most common use is to display song titles or play audio files at specific points in another audio file (for example to view the song titles of a long pre-recorded radio show or play a jingle overlay) (audio overlay enabled only in MB STUDIO PRO)

Some examples of using midstream tags:

1) display and write in the report the titles of the songs present in the audio file of a radio show (podcast) or of a mixed file (DJ Set)

2) superimpose the time or date announcement on a bed

3) to an audio file superimpose another audio file

4) superimpose subtitles on an audio / video file

There are many possibilities offered by MID-STREAM TAG

How to add a new MID-STREAM TAG?

Open the pre-listening of the desired file, display its waveform and in the desired point with a right click select the menu "Insert Midstream Tag"

A new record is added in the Midstream Tag box and the tag type and associated value must be chosen here. The types of tags are as follows:

• Title: at the indicated position displays the text entered in the box. It can be any text or information on a song title in the format "|title|performer|year|label|duration" (year, label and duration are optional). Without writing anything, if you want you can select a song from the MB STUDIO song archive and the song data will be automatically entered. One click to the right of the text box:  and then you choose a song with a double left click  and the song data is automatically copied to the box
• File: the indicated audio file overlaps the indicated position (MB STUDIO PRO only)
• Random File: a random file of the indicated genre is superimposed on the indicated position. (MB STUDIO PRO only)
• Announcement Time / Announcement date: the hourly announcement or the date announcement is superimposed on the indicated position
• Break: at the indicated position, if a break is present in the playlist, MB STUDIO pauses the playback of the current file, starts the break and at the end resumes playback of the file from the paused point. (This happens only in PLAY ALL, AUTOPLAY or AUTOMATIC mode). This feature is useful for example for inserting commercial breaks on a long-running file.
• Send command: sends a keyboard command to another program running on the computer. The program to which the keyboard command is to be sent must be specified in Configuration \ Network \ Other \ Send Command to this window
• Static Text - Scrolling - Flashing: if you use the Video plugin this text will be displayed on the screen
• Disable Video Text: Disable text from the video screen
• Image or video or external stream: display an image or video or external stream VIDEO: HOW TO OVERLAY A VIDEO ON ANOTHER VIDEO (Picture in picture)

How to move the position of a Midstreamtag?

You can change the position of a midstream tag by dragging it with the mouse

however, if you need to make small movements of tenths of a second you can click on the tag icon or on the tag row in the tag list and use the - or + keys on the keyboard

How can I view or edit the content of a midstream tag?

Hover your mouse over a tag icon and a popup will appear describing the tag.

If you click on the icon, the list of tags will open

How can I move the listen to the position of a tag?

Double click on a tag in the list

How to delete a Midstream Tag?

Right click on a tag icon or tag list item

Where are midstream tags saved?

MB STUDIO saves the MidStream Tags in a separate text file located in the same folder as the related audio file and has the same name but with a different .txt extension. If you distribute the audio file to third parties, you must also distribute the corresponding .txt file

Example: for the audio file c:\show\dance saturday.mp3 the command file will be c:\show\dance saturday.txt

When the audio file is played from any MB STUDIO, the informations or song titles appear on the screen and, if the "Metadata" option is active, they will also be propagated to the webcast, RDS and Web Export. Not only that, if the title of the song is written correctly and is found in the MB STUDIO archive, it will be marked as "transmitted" so that it will not be retransmitted before the distance rules set in Configuration \ Songs expire.

TIME RECORDER

In this section you can configure an automatic recording that begin or end by time and / or by command from the property of the item on the air. (MB STUDIO PRO ONLY) The goal is to record live shows to be rebroadcasted later. The audio sound is recorded by the section WebCast \ Capture that must be set to MBStudioMix or to a valid sound card input from which to capture the sound.

Read more: TIME RECORDER

RANDOM SONG: PARAMETERS

Through Random Song module you can insert into playlists or break a song randomly chosed from MB STUDIO according to the specified parameters.

The random song can be chosen from the SONG LIST database or it can be chosen from a folder on the hard disk.

If chosen from the SONG LIST it is possible to indicate or exclude a language, a genre, the year, the liking, and the BPM and other parameters.

It is also possible to select a song by comment, artist or title as explained HERE

The MODE switch determines the mode of selection of the song:

• Least Recently Played: it's the default and recommended method. MB STUDIO will search for a song less recently or ever played.
• Least Times Played: MB STUDIO will choose a song never or few times played (see the column Hits in the songs list)
• Most Recently Added: choose a song among the latest additions to the archive, checks the date of the column "Enabled since"
• Random: choose a random song with no specific preference
  

Note that in all modes of selection, MB STUDIO try to respect the rules of Configuration \ songs or property of the song

Read more: RANDOM SONG: PARAMETERS

SONGS: ADD OR DELETE A GENRE

The "Genre" selector located in the property of a song, shows the musical genres of all the songs already in the archive. To add, and then create a new musical genre click inside the selector and write with the keyboard the new genre:

For compatibility with the format tags ID3v1 the genre field it's limited to 10 characters, but you can also use the comment field to extend the description of the song.

To delete a music genre from the list you must delete or edit all the songs belonging to that genre, until there is a song having that genre it will be visible in the selector.

RANDOM SONG: BY ARTIST OR BY TITLE

The RANDOM SONG item allows you to add a random song to the playlist or break. The song is randomly selected between all the songs according the specified parameters.

The comment box also allows you to specify one or more words that must be present in the comment field of the song. For example, if you write the comment "sanremo" must be selected a song that has the word "sanremo" in his comment.

It's also possible to request a random song from a specific artist: just type in the comment box the name of the artist preceded by a semicolon, as in the image above, for example, ;madonna. With this method you can also make a playlist of songs by a single artist (in this case the rules of distance are ignored).

Yet you can request a random song by a word in the title. For example to request a song where the title contain the word "love" write in the comment box double semicolon word and therefore ;;love