While this panel does have a lot of controls, it is actually quite easy to use.
Studio365-Live can be operated in the standard broadcast mode, and now in a "Standalone" Archiving mode. The latter will let you record audio only, without having to be hooked up to a network. Perfect to doing recordings "in the field" when Live broadcasting is not needed or for archiving large quantities of old material such as sermon tapes from your church. To launch Studio365-Live in archive mode, use the new "Archiver" icon which will be on your desktop after installation.
File drop-down Menu
- New - will create a new archive file (.MP3)
- Playback - plays back the most recently created file
- Exit - exits the archive window
Starts saving your broadcast out to disk. You must have the broadcast or "Monitor" button depressed first. That will let Studio365-Live accept audio so you can set the volume. When ready, you can then select this button, which will start saving it to the file.
Stop button
Stops the recording. Clicking the Record button again will continue recording in the current file.
Next button
Selecting Next will cause the Archiver to start a new .MP3 file, closing the current one. This can be handy if you are recording a long session with natural breaks in-between such as a little league baseball game. You might elect to create a new file for each inning, making it easier to handle and preserve. "Next" will do that with one click of the mouse.
Tag button
Permits you to create an ID3 tag for the current file. Although you can always do it later if you want.
Autosplit
Autosplit is something like an automatic "Next button", in that it will split a long broadcast up into smaller more manageable pieces. They are small enough to just fit onto a floppy. When checked, you will see a dropdown of various file sizes, with the duration of each size displayed to the right. For example, a 1.4 meg file saved at 56K will be able to support 3 minutes and 20 seconds of audio.
Autostop
The Archiver can be made to do a fixed period of unattended recording. So if you are dubbing your church's old sermon tapes from 60 minute cassettes, you can set the Archiver to stop after one side of 30 minutes long. That way, you don't have to worry about baby-sitting the software to turn it off when the tape runs out.
Mbytes Saved/Mbytes Left/Time Saved/Time Left
These displays give usage values for both actual memory used and duration represented by each process.
Output Quality
As with live broadcasting, the output quality can vary quite a bit. If you are doing a friend's musical concert, you would want to have the highest possible quality, at the expense of larger files. On the other hand, the spoken word will sound just fine at lower speeds.
Check Free Space
Before you starting saving out your archives, you may want to check the free-space available on your hard drive both memory and duration available is displayed. Note that the selected drive doesn't choose where your files are going to be placed.
Voice Activation checkbox
Checking this on will turn on the "VOX", or "voice operated relay" system. This will cause the Archiver to record material ONLY when there is actual audio on the line. This can be used for doing cleanly edited voice announcements so you don't have to be very precise with the Record/Stop buttons. Or more interestingly, it could be used to record a long stretch of audio from say, a police scanner in a fairly small space by removing all of the dead air.
Sensitivity
The higher the sensitivity, the lower the input volume needed to trigger the recording.
Delay
The amount of time to continue recording a segment after the audio ceases. So a setting of say 2, would insert 2 seconds of dead-air in between segments. Useful for keeping a recording from sounding too cluttered.
From this window, the entire Studio365-Live session is controlled. There are four drop-down menus (Controls, Audio Source, Extras, Help). There are these available "on-top" controls:
- Monitor (button) - Starts accepting input from the source when in the archiver standalone mode, so you can check out the system and see if your levels are set correctly before you start recording.
- Pause (button) - Will pause your currently playlist. Useful for adding in voice commentary.
- Playlist (button) - Displays the current Playlist.
- Listening Volume (sliding scale) - Only changes current speaker volume, not broadcast volume.
- Current Track: (info) - Name of the track.
- Elapsed Time: (info) - Amount of time into the current track.
- Remaining Time: (info) - Amount of time remaining on the current track.
- Visual Display (embedded window) - Show up to four graphic display types for monitoring your Broadcast. Can display one or more at the same time.
Controls Drop-down Menu
- Play mode -
Displays another menu with two choices:
- Continuous Loop - Sets the Broadcast to play continuously, looping back to the top of the playlist when it finishes the last track.
- Random - Randomizes the playlist each time through.
- Playlist Scheduler... - Click on Playlist Scheduler to display a tool that will allow you to build a schedule of your playlists to begin at various times throughout the day. See Playlist Scheduler Window.
- Playlist... - Clicking on Playlist displays the current Playlist.
- Status... - Clicking on Status brings up an informational window with detailed broadcast information. See Status Window for details.
- Exit... - Ends the Studio365-Live Broadcast and closes the Studio365-Live software. Your current broadcast configuration is saved.
The Audio Source drop-down menu contains the following items:
- Playlist... - Selects your Playlist as the audio source of your Broadcast. (All MP3 files must be on your hard drive.)
- Voiceover... - Activates your microphone so that you can speak over the audio stream of your Broadcast (if not broadcasting, a warning window informs you).
- External Source...
- CD, Line In, Microphone, Volume, Mixer... - Allows you to select an Audio Source other than your Playlist. You have a choice of CD (streams from your CD player), Line In (streams from the Line In jack on your system), Microphone (streams only from your microphone) or Mixer (streams from the system mixer panel). The Mixer represents the audio channel, which is sent to your computer's speakers. This is useful for more complex mixing operations that you might be able to do via other products. Use volume to set the level of any of these sources. The one drawback is that everything you hear on your local system will be broadcast, meaning even standard window alert sounds will be heard by your audience.
- All input sources... - Displays every input source your own audio card can support. Some of these duplicate the above sources, others might be for more sophisticated users. In some cases, you may find that the standard source selection, such as CD for example, may not work on your system. This simply means that your audio card manufacturer might have selected a non-standard input line to support. On some Windows-ME systems, the Windows Media Player doesn’t play music CD’s through the CD channel as one might assume, but uses the “Stereo Out” channel instead available only on this menu.
- Save to Archive File... - Permits you to save your show to your hard drive either while you are broadcasting or for future broadcast.
Extras Drop-down Menu
The Extras drop-down menu provides additional flexibility in your Broadcast.
- Priority > Normal, Medium, High... - Sets the priority level of your Broadcast. (Priority means the amount of CPU capability dedicated to broadcasting.) The higher the priority, the more solid your broadcast is likely to be, but the slower your other applications will run. This may be useful only on slower machines.
- Restart Server... - Contacts the Live365 server to reset and begin the current Playlist from the start. (A last resort if Studio365-Live cannot start your Broadcast due to server problems.)
- Show Log... - Opens up the "live_log.txt" file which shows you the history of your broadcast including listener stats and times of each track. Logs are saved for each session, and are consecutively numbered. So your first session will create "live_log0.txt", the next will be "live_log1.txt", and so on.
- Visuals > Scope, Spectrum, VU Scrolling, VU Stereo - The small embedded window on the right can display any combination of the four graphic displays.
Help Drop-down Menu
- Studio365-Live Help... - Links directly to the Live365.com's Studio365-Live Help files.
- Technical Support... - Click to send an Email to the Technical Support Department in Live365. This should be used for questions and bugs (problems with the software).
If you are reporting a problem (bug), please include the following:
- Description of Problem (error message text) and whether you can repeat the message.
- Attach the log file for your most recent session. It will be located in your Studio365/Live folder. So for example, if you installed the application in the default location, you will find the logs in "C:/Program Files/studio365/live." Look for the files named something like "live_log42.txt."
- Tell a Friend... - Lets you email a friend with a URL to your broadcast.
- Tips 'n Tricks... - Displays various tips to improve the technical quality of your show.
For step-by-step instructions on how to use the Archiver, please visit the Archiving Live Sets page.