Time signal

Comments: 4

• 23 Feb, '21
  Arnaldo Pérez

  This is an absolute must in radio software. The workaround I've seen in other software is having a set of recordings corresponding to hours and minutes, besides some optional start and end tracks for every reproduction of the clock.
  
  So you would have:
  - An hours folder with 00.mp3, 01.mp3, 02.mp3 ... 23.mp3
  - A minutes folder with 00.mp3, 01.mp3, 03.mp3 ... 58.mp3, 59.mp3
  - A start.mp3 track that would say something like "In our radio the current time is..."
  - An end.mp3 track that would say ".... now keep enjoying our music."
  
  Then the software can set up any radio clock for any time it needs using those files, ex: For 2:03 p.m. would reproduce start.mp3 + hours/14.mp3 + minutes/03.mp3 + end.mp3.
  
  In some scenarios I've seen software pre-rendering the current time every minute, so is ready to play at any time, by mixing the start, hour, minute, and end track into one (current-time.mp3).
  
  This method is commonly used, so you can find these sets of hours/mins tracks online pre-recorded

• 23 Feb
  Moonbase59

  I use a cron job on the host that runs every minute and produces a "/tmp/saytime.wav" using a TTS engine. The file can easily be mounted into the docker and you can always simply play it while being sure that it will announce the correct time (and message).

• 01 Mar
  Moonbase59

  See https://github.com/savonet/liquidsoap/discussions/2493#discussioncomment-5171331 for a more detailed description & script example.

• 30 May
  Moonbase59

  See "Time & Station ID Announcement (TOTH) in AzuraCast using Text-To-Speech" (https://blog.syvi.net/tech-snippets/time-und-station-id-announcement-toth-in-azuracast-using-text-to-speech) for a solution using TTS and just ONE FILE to be used in a playlist—anytime.