[cma-l] Station Output Recording: How do you do it?

[Two Lochs Radio]

> The option to compress is to save disc space when recording (as it looks
> like it records in wav first).

Yes, a few do that - for example MCRS (which is also very good, but doesn't 
synchrinize it's start stop times to top of the clock hour).

> My apologies for getting hopes up although if you have the funds the
> Sonifex option will achieve this.

The Sonifex is a nice piece of kit, but hopelessley overpriced when you add 
up its licences.

For anyone with Aircheck I guess it can be kludged by running two instances 
(the manual shows how to do that) and recording one high rate and one low 
rate, and setting a 42 day delete time on the high rate one. Not a very good 
method though as it means there are two wav recordings going on 
continuously - a lot of disk/network traffic.

I've compared a lot of the options (and there are many!) and none of the 
cheaper standalone ones is anywhere near perfect. A pity because it's not 
rocket science and anyone one of them could be beefed up easily by the 
programmer.

Things that should be offered at least in any radio output recorder:

1) synchronize to the clockhour
2) optionally record x minutes prior to the start of a new block of timed 
recordings to catch handovers/early starts; similarly record a few minutes 
trailer on the end of a block (eg if I have programmed 1700-2100 recording, 
actually record a 1655-1700 and 2100-2105 segment as well).
3) As discussed - automatic downgrade after x days, option not to downgrade 
selected hours, option to migrate downgraded files to different folder.
4) Ideally, allow recording to local disk drive, but with background 
migration of completed recordings to network server/backup device.
4) allow replication of day patterns in recording schedule for ease of entry 
(eg duplicate Monday across Mon-Fri, and then allow individual editing).
5) Send alert in the event of recording failing. Ideally offer small 
watchdog application for independent machine to monitor it.

None of the above is at all difficult to programme in addition to the core 
recording function that all the contenders offer.

At present I use XP batch command lines/scheduled commands house utility to 
add the functionality we want to simple recorder software, but really all 
the above should be built into any serious contender. We also have a very 
cheap laptop in another room acting as a complete duplicate recorder as a 
backup (running MCRS). I expect we will migrate to the built in options of 
either Myriad or our Axia mixer system when we deploy those.

Alex