The Radio-Assist 8 Air-DDO broadcast module is the result of several years of research and reflection and focuses as much on the ergonomic level as on the technological. Spread over two monitor screens the GUI displays simultaneously the four broadcast channels as well as access to the numerous help and preparation tools: cuer, on-air monitoring, playlist modification, recording, production etc.

Four on-air channels

Air-DDO can be configured as required and takes up to four on-air outputs and a PFL playback simultaneously. Four on-air supports are available: the air-playlist which displays all the sounds scheduled in chronological order, the air-cartstack which gives access to a range of various sounds, another cart stack system dedicated to jingles or stingers, and a playout reserved to top-priority items. The playlist can be broadcast on 2, 3 or 4 channels.

The presenter has access to a wide range of ergonomic tools:

• General drag & drop
• Easy-to-use sound cueing
• Looping of intro and sequence
• Intro/outtro, counter/count-down and scroll bar display
• PFL playback on each channel
• Automatic sound linking (cut/mix)
• Automatic fade from one voice to another
• Dynamic playlist refresh
• Easy management of on-time, off-time, floating, manual and automatic items, etc.
• Real-time view of early or late playlist run
• Many interfaces: mouse, touch screen, mixing console, dedicated remote
• Edition of formatted as run logs.

Record, edit and schedule when on air

Several functions can be accessed at the same time via tabs: record, production, cueing, scheduling. As background tasks, the technician receives functions of monitoring and Voice Over recording.

Synchronous playlist modification and monitoring

Directly linked to the scheduling workstations, Air-DDO keeps track of the latest changes made to the playlist in real time and the refresh is automatically displayed. The technician is immediately warned by a visual alarm. What's more, the Air-DDO workstation has direct access to a scheduling tab and the program can feed a stream of on-air monitoring information to an intranet site..

Automatic, semi-automatic or manual mode

Three broadcast modes - automatic, semi-automatic or manual - are permanently available and the user can switch from one to another at will. The semi-automatic mode is useful for integrating slots at a set time (such as a commercial break). The commercial will go on air automatically at the specified time, but a time lag of ± x seconds can be defined for it. Air-DDO in automatic mode comes into its own for overnight music programmes.