27 December 2004

Support for recording shows added to RadioWave

In between X-mas stuff, I've been adding support for scheduling recordings and adjusting time zones. The results aren't perfect, but it's very close to providing a functional tool.

You can schedule any show that is less than two hours long. The "status" column in any view displays whether each show is "not scheduled," "scheduled," "recording," or "recorded." Shows that have already passed or that are broadcast on non-streaming stations show no status. A "not scheduled" status appears as a link that will allow you to schedule the show to be recorded. Any other status links to the "Schedule" tab. If a show has been recorded, its title will appear as a link to the mp3 (depending on the duration, this could be a large file).

I'm using the dumbest computer on my network to perform the recording so (1) completed recordings might not be posted until 30 minutes after the show finishes and (2) all but the first of shows recorded back-to-back may begin late (an obvious result of #1). Finally, the feature to pad minutes to the end of the show is not yet implemented. Since some schedules are not as accurate as they could be, this is high on my list of to-dos.

All station times are normalized to Eastern (GMT -5:00). I eventually plan to add conversion to the browser client time, but from initial research I suspect that this will require user intervention (something along the lines of "click here to view local times...").

My primary concerns are those described above (allow padding of the recording time and convert to local time schedules), to add more stations, and to streamline the schedule update. Currently, loading the "Now" tab is slow because of refresh checks that are being performed. Those will be cleaned up and we'll get back to 5 to 10 second load times. Also, as more stations are added, I will need to split the main page up into groups of 20 or 30 shows.

[ posted by sstrader on 27 December 2004 at 9:34:43 PM in Music ]