|
bot detect the appropriate values from each file at the time of making the FAT's, but files of Mismatched sampling rates would not sound very good for professional broadcast - the sound quality would rise and drop according to the differing sampling rates. We recommend that you use 128K for MP3's and 44100 for WAV files. You may use higher or lower values but you must ensure that you rip or record each file at the same rate you have selected. If for some reason robot plays a file that is outside these values it will still play but may play appreciably longer or shorter than its intended length.
This isn't as tiresome as it sounds, because most people use the same program to manage their audio and pretty much just use the highest sample rates they can 'afford' in hard drive space. This is a standard practice in radio and Robot is designed precisely for radio.
I am running Robot 24 hours a day
Robot is designed to run non-stop. Because it runs in windows however, Robot is susceptible to the ups and downs of windows, its management of audio buffers and various other issues which we the programmer can do nothing about. This guide is based on our experiences using the software on a slave DELL MMX 200Mhz running Windows 98Se (32M RAM) which is perhaps the minimum possible operating environment. If you are using Windows 2000 or XP or the WINE windows emulator in Linux you may not encounter any or all of these problems.
How long you can run Robot in Windows non-stop is very much dependent upon the "grunt" of the computer you are using. The following Windows issues also seem to be important:-
Using WAV files instead of MP3's. As WAV files are not compressed the possibility of running out of audio buffers is significantly reduced.
Plenty of RAM memory. You should have as much RAM memory as you can afford / install. Windows fills up the available RAM and does not release it very well, hence it runs out of buffer space which it needs to generate audio.
A fast processor. If you are using MP3's the fastest processor possible will help reduce the possibility of windows crashes.
Windows 2000. I hate to say it but if you are running Windows 98 se it might be time to "upgrade" to windows 2000. Whilst this is generally a pain to run and operate it is a lot more stable in the way it controls the memory.
The latest version of windows Media player. As Robot accesses some of the common windows libraries you should have the latest media player updates installed for stability.
In Power management (control panel) make sure that the hard drive never switches off, usually selecting 'always on' does this for you.
Turn off the screensaver, set it to none. If you want to preserve the life of your monitor then switch it off at the power manually. Both the screen saver and power management cause unending problems for programs running constantly. In later versions of windows their is a setting for the power 'presentation' you should choose this.
|
|
