TuneTracker System 5 for Haiku. It’s been a long time comin’

TuneTracker “System 5,” a complete line of radio automation products for Haiku, came out officially a few days ago on May 1st to very little fanfare.  But for me, it marks the end of a long, interesting journey.

In the summer of 1999, writing for this same “leBUZZ”  blog, I speculated aloud about the possibility of developing a radio automation system for BeOS, a.k.a the “Be Operating System.”  I was already in love with BeOS as a place to do audio because of its stability and jitter-free handling of high bandwidth media.  I proposed a demonstration project, and received an e-mail from a BeOS programmer who had caught the vision.  Our collaboration resulted in the creation of a simple program called BRS (BeOS Radio Scripter), and the  first BeOS-based Internet radio station, BeOSRADIO.   We knew we were onto something, and development continued.  By June of 2000, we had released TuneTracker 1 as a commercial product, and it has since grown into a whole radio automation suite that has been purchased by over a thousand radio stations on every continent.

It’s been a baker’s dozen years since TuneTracker first “shipped.”  For almost as long, a devoted group of coders has been working on a modern, open-source replacement of BeOS.  As soon as “Haiku” started to become viable, around 2009, we began designing  Haiku-friendly versions of the entire TuneTracker System suite for it.  We knew a time would come when no more BeOS-compatible hardware would be available, so the move was inevitable.  But we also knew we would need to bide our time until Haiku was completely solid.

In late 2012, Haiku Alpha 4.1 came out, to rave reviews.  Haiku had been stable and polished for a long time, but 4.1 erased any and all doubts about its viability as a platform for TuneTracker.  The timing was absolutely providential.  Just as it came out,  we were within striking distance of completing the entire TuneTracker suite for it.

From that point, until we swept the last sawdust from the development floor and released System 5 officially a few days ago, it was clear to us that Haiku 4.1 and TuneTracker System  were indeed a match made in heaven.  There were no gotchas or compromises.  Everything just worked.  Everything just ran.  It still gives me goosebumps to think about it.  And fast?  My gosh.  There’s no launch time for anything.  You double-click on it and it’s there, even TuneTracker itself.

Haiku is the gift that keeps on giving, too.  For years we’ve wanted to offer large drive capacities, but BeOS was only able to address drive volumes up to about 60 gigabytes.  Suddenly we’re offering “Station-in-a-Box” packages with capacities up to 4 terabytes; big enough for even the enormous music collections found at big university and government broadcast operations.

There have been a number of notable milestones since TuneTracker first came out, including the arrival of the graphically appealing TuneTracker  “Command Center” interface in the mid 2000s, the reformatting of BeOSRADIO as Fair Harbor Radio, and the day we started broadcasting 24/7 under Haiku, back in 2011.  But personally,  I think the release of a Haiku-based TuneTracker System is probably the most significant and gratifying milestone since we first went on the air with BeOSRADIO on a chilly November day in late 1999.

JotForm – A Happy Discovery

I’ve been looking, for literally years, for a free web form I actually like, and this one is easily the best I’ve ever found.  JotForm lets you use a very smart GUI interface to design your form, and supplies you with a single line of javascript to paste into your web page.  The result is classy, nicely integrated, and seems reliable in my tests so far.  There are lots of customizations to fine-tune the layout, add graphics, insert your own HTML, and pretty much any other wizardry you have in mind, and it’s all done in a friendly, intuitive environment.  Gotta say, it’s good!

Icons in need of “savagery”

A dozen years ago, when TuneTracker Systems first started releasing radio automation systems under the Be Operating System, icons were fuzzy-wuzzy bitmaps that only got fuzzier as you resized them.  It was inescapable under BeOS.  Some examples are shown on the right.

Long since, SVG icon technology has made icons clean, sharp, and resizable without losing  their distinct outlines.   As TuneTracker makes its move to the Haiku desktop, it only seems logical to adopt the SVG format for all its icons, so a call has gone out to the artists in the Haiku community.  If someone would like to revamp the TuneTracker System icon set for pay, you can call 920-273-0543, or go to TuneTracker Systems’ Contact page and leave a message.

Snazzy New Multimedia Player for Haiku

Buzzer Giovanni Mugnai has just brought some real eye-and-ear candy to Haiku.  Running in the QT environment, and  ported from Linux (Land of Awkward Program Names), “SMPlayer” was announced this morning in a Haiku list group.  It’s already posted at Haikuware and ready for download:

http://haikuware.com/directory/view-details/multimedia/video/playback/smplayer

Like SoundPlay audio player for BeOS, SMPlayer carries its own suitcase full of codecs, so it doesn’t have to rely on the operating system when attempting to play various audio and video formats.

From the official web site:

“SMPlayer is a free media player for Windows and Linux with built-in codecs that can play virtually all video and audio formats. It doesn’t need any external codecs. Just install SMPlayer and you’ll be able to play all formats without the hassle to find and install codec packs.

“One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave… don’t worry, when you open that movie again it will be resumed at the same point you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume…

“SMPlayer is a graphical user interface (GUI) for the award-winning MPlayer, which is capable of playing almost all known video and audio formats. But apart from providing access for the most common and useful options of MPlayer, SMPlayer adds other interesting features like the possibility to play Youtube videos or download subtitles.”

We’ll spend some quality time with SMPlayer and bring you the full report later.  Meanwhile, go grab it and check it out for yourself!

 

Follow the Action at LeBUZZ

Admittedly, I don’t have a new article here as regularly as I’d prefer,  which can make finding something new when you visit here a hit-and-miss proposition.   I’d like to make it easy for you to know when there is something new, so you get it as quickly as possible.  Fortunately that’s as as easy as clicking the +Follow button waaaay up in the top left, in the gray bar at the top of the window.  Then you’ll know when new stories are posted.

While we’re together today, let me also encourage you to comment on the stories you see here.  It’s fun to hear what you have to say about the subjects we cover, and your opinions are always welcome.

Suddenly There are Bunches of New Haiku Products

TuneTracker Systems, which sells radio automation and audio products, has just announced a whole fleet of programs for Haiku.  In conjunction with its launch of “TuneTracker System 5″ in around mid-April, the following programs are being readied for official release.  All of these are included in the TuneTracker System 5 package:

Command Center 5 radio automation program is the centerpiece of the package.  Version 5 is the result of 12 years of development (under BeOS).  It lets stations run their programming completely automated, or in combination with live programming, either local or over satellite.  The new Haiku version offers a number of new features and a spiffed-up interface.

TuneStacker is the system’s music selector.  It randomly selects music for each day’s program log (playlist), incorporating in announcements, commercials, etc.

Lightning, which is used to search for requests and also to manually make changes to program logs, has been rather dramatically updated for the Haiku release, now allowing for song searches based on very advanced, detailed criteria.

Army Knife TTE is a customized version of the free Army Knife program you remember from BeOS days.  It has also been greatly enhanced and supports a broad range of attributes, has an Info editor for adding long-form information about song selections, etc.

A brand new program in the suite is called MakeMyDay.  It’s a graphical tool for creating”master logs,” which let users combine various types of programming contained in “format clock”  hours,  to make up an entire day of programming.

CSacker is a report generator, used to put together lists of things that played on the air.

In addition to the items in the suite above,  and a new printed, paper manual that will be offered for sale, TuneTracker Systems is also coming out with Haiku versions of two products that can be ordered separately:

TT Anywhere is a remote VNC server, with a graphical interface, auto-launch-on-reboot, logging, customizable port numbers, and other capabilities.

TunePrepper is a sophisticated CD ripper and music prepper, which contains its own Army Knife-like attribute editor.

The entire product line, plus an accompanying array of pre-configured “Station-in-a-Box” computers containing the system, will come out in about a month.

Snoozy Lately

I don’t know if it’s a lull after the holidays or what, but there really hasn’t been much to report on lately, related to audio in Haiku.  I did see a nice new development on another front though.   Buzzer Giovanni Mugnai has ported over a very handsome looking word processor that runs in the QT environment, called Scribus.  Here’s a screen grab.

Aside from that, I can report that the developers of Haiku continue their noble work, and new nightly versions keep getting better and better all the time. As there’s more to report on the media side, I’ll pop back in here with a story.