TRT Radio Automation System
27 TRT Radio
by Hakan Kacmaz Chief Engineer, TRT Radio Department
summary
This article mentions in general terms, the installation, update and operating process of the Radio Automation System that has been used in Ankara Radio since 2003.
Introduction
In conventional radio broadcasting, technical processes were independent and various types of seperate sound devices and materials were used. In the early 90s, in parallel with the improvements in Hard Disk based systems, new systems, allowing these processes to be implemented by software, on certain standards and platforms and called Radio Automation Systems, were developed. These Radio Automation Systems enabled an uninterrupted chain through planning, editing and broadcasting stages on a digital platform and within certain standards. Although there were huge advantages there were also a few disadvantages typical of digital disk-based systems.
Advantages
l The monitoring and control of the broadcast chain at all stages (scheduling, editing and on-air).
l Standard sound quality throughout all stages of production and broadcast.
l Allowing more flexible and dynamic broadcast l Reduction in workload.
l Reduction in traffic of broadcast materials such as tape, CD, etc.
Disadvantages l Security vulnerabilities due to the operating systems used.
l The potential impact on all stages of the broadcast chain in the case of server malfunctions.
l The dependency upon the supplier of the system purchased, for updating, maintenance etc. due to the lack of open source codes provided by the company.
Radio Automation System
Since 2003 a Radio Automation System has been used in Ankara Radio, a the centre of the TRT radio network.
The Radio Automation System for TRT was selected 2002 and throughout that year the integration of the system and software, installation, training and tests were performed. The automation of four national radio stations was launched in 2003.
The Radio Automation System was planned to fulfill three basic functions that can be summarised as, 1. Schedule preparation units for producers, 2. Editing units for technicians and, 3. Broadcasting (on air) units. The editing and scheduling workstations are terminals to servers, so that no data or audio is stored on the workstations. On the other hand, on-air stations have a captive database and sound storage. All sound files, together with the databases of the programmes to be broadcast, are also copied to the local database and sound storage of the broadcast workstations. In the case of an interruption from the main server this allows the broadcast to continue from the local storage for some time.
Architecture of Cluster and Mirrored Servers
The first installation of the system, in 2003, had a central server with a cluster structure. Sound files were stored in the shared storage of the cluster structure and the database, linked to the sound files, was stored in local disks of the main and backup servers, which worked as mirrored storage. The shared storage area was in a Raid 5 structure consisting of 20 SCSI disks having 146 GB capacity. Two DAT recorders, using DAT casettes, provided backup for the databases, but there was no backup for sound file storage. If any problem occured in the storage area of the main servers, the editing and schedule units of the system would be out of order until the problem was fixed. Besides this, in a case where the sound files suffered partial or complete damage, these had to be reloaded to the system.
New System in 2007
Because of the handicaps of the cluster architecture mentioned above, the architecture of the server, including
Automation System
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