Hi all, I am a newbie to the forums here and am using centova 3. I got a few ideas that could make it a better product for all. However, it may take a while to get things sorted.
First, as many of you have mentioned, Centova could do with Top Of The Hour Support, so that a jingle and news can be played. We do use news here at Shout, but it has to be manually faded in and out from a separate channel the desk.
So if that can be sorted, onto my next idea, which is a refresh of the GUI interface for Station Managers. Each station would have it's own simple to use Ajax based Web GUI, which would allow scheduling, playlist creation and would allow management of schedules and users.
Along the left, would display a summery of what is coming up in the next 3 hours, programming wise. (Playlists, pre- records etc. In the middle, would be the current playlist with what the currently scheduled show or pl;playlist is playing. This would use Ajax, to allow a Station manager to drag and drop or change the order of the playlist.
On the left is the VU meters, giving a visual indicator of what's playing. Under the playlist, you have your tabs for playlists, media library, users, system setup etc. Each would go to a page for managing these settings, using an ajax window.
At the top, is Emergency Stop - It says what it does on the tin, it kicks the current source (good for naughty DJ's who are playing songs with swear words!) and goes to an emergency playlist
For scheduling, you could make it so that content has a regular slot or is a one off, like before. However, you would have a check box to select the correct option. In the user manager, there would be the option to only allow a DJ to encode with their login when they have shows booked, so that there is no unauthorized usage. This is currently a feature, but as others have said, it needs to be more transparent, to allow access to users, when they are meant to be on air. Also, it would allow a permissions system, to allow users who have been granted permission, to access the web GUI and modify settings per permissions. (This again needs to be made more transparent.
With these ideas, Centova could become a really good product, which is easy to use, easy to setup and still sound good.
Ideas