Live Audio Suggestions

[datainmotion]

Originally Posted by James_Bond_007

please add a VU input meter to streaming software as an aid in setting audio levels

I use Paul Marshall's Digital Level Meter which is free and lets you run multiple instances concurrently (scroll about halfway down the page for the download link)

[bengals24]

I like to listen to the Cincinnati Police Scanner. Cincinnati has five districts plus the feed includes the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office and other smaller jurisdictions. However, I really only have an interest in listening to one district in Cincinnati, District 4, not all the other departments. I was wondering if there might be a way to have separate feeds for each district in Cincinnati since all the districts have their own frequencies. Such as District 4's frequency is 460.2750 Thanks.

[saleen49]

I'm always looking for ways to improve my scanner feed. I provide a multi agency stereo feed and it is common for me to add or delete certain bands for the overall good of the feed. I would like to see a comment/suggestion button added to the feeds. I'm not sure my listeners understand the report a problem button, or that it directly links to me. I've only had 3 or 4 listeners use the report a problem button for concerns regarding the feed. It would be cool to gather geographical data, similar to what Youtube provides in order to see which town has the majority of listeners in it. Just a thought..

[ab9on]

Yesterday I upgraded my feed - went from one radio scanning two frequencies, to two radios scanning two frequencies each, fed via RR as a stereo stream. This works reasonably well when there's activity on one channel or the other, but when both sides are going, things get chaotic. When listening on headphones, there's good spatial separation so it's easy to distinguish the two. If you listen through a car stereo, you can keep your finger on the balance knob to pan as desired. But in a mono listening environment, such as on an office PC, communications can be difficult to comprehend.

So, a farfetched idea: What if RadioReference gave listeners the ability to split a stereo feed? They could have three options - to monitor the left side only, the right side only, or (default) both.

Is that remotely feasible or even desirable?

73,
Mic

[ProScan]

Originally Posted by ab9on

Yesterday I upgraded my feed - went from one radio scanning two frequencies, to two radios scanning two frequencies each, fed via RR as a stereo stream. This works reasonably well when there's activity on one channel or the other, but when both sides are going, things get chaotic. When listening on headphones, there's good spatial separation so it's easy to distinguish the two. If you listen through a car stereo, you can keep your finger on the balance knob to pan as desired. But in a mono listening environment, such as on an office PC, communications can be difficult to comprehend.

So, a farfetched idea: What if RadioReference gave listeners the ability to split a stereo feed? They could have three options - to monitor the left side only, the right side only, or (default) both.

Is that remotely feasible or even desirable?

73,
Mic

Doesn't the media player balance control do the same thing as you are suggesting to the RR folks? The WinAmp balance control works that way on a stereo feed, pans from left to right on the input(internet) side and sends the audio to the sound card playback side. Doesn't matter if the playback is a "mono listening environment". The left or right channel can be selected because it's the input side that's selected.

[ab9on]

Originally Posted by ProScan

Doesn't the media player balance control do the same thing as you are suggesting to the RR folks?

It probably would, if there was a balance control on all media players. RR's web player, iTunes, phone scanner apps do not feature balance controls.

Thanks for the reply.

[itnavigate]

Is it possible to get the Statistics page modified to include UTC offset in the "Hourly Listener Statistics" and "Hourly Uptime Statistics" ?

e.g.
Current: Hour (CST)

Proposed New: Hour (CST : UTC+/-xx:yy) Where xx:yy is the CST offset from UTC/GMT.

This would make it much easier for international feed providers to calculate the local time from your charts.

I have no idea if or when you have any daylight savings changes, but if you do, they would also need to be factored in.

I expect this type of change would just be changing display text in the settings for the graphs (Unless of course you use daylight savings, then you would need some code to change the text at the appropriate times).

Another option would be to just use UTC instead of CST, no need to worry about daylight savings, offset calculations are easier to do in your head, 1 calculation instead of 2. Makes your product look like a more globally aware product.

I expect this would require a coding or configuration change to adjust the timestamp on the graph as well as the change to the display text.

I would like to see teh second option implemented, but understand that the first option may be easier to implement.

Thanks for reading,

Colin.

[TheKilowatt]

A few comments after reading this...
I'm using darkice and it allows you to set low pass and high pass frequencies. I've set 300 as high pass and 3000 as low. I can't remember the exact syntax but it was in the darkice.cfg man page once installed.

I'd like to request that feeds be available in Ogg Vorbis format.
I listen via proxy server to get around a firewall.
The feeds that I listen to via Ogg Vorbis don't have the squeaks and pops that happen in other formats.
I think this is because this format has start of frame and sequence error detection so dropped or
missing packets don't cause random noise.

[datainmotion]

Originally Posted by ab9on

It probably would, if there was a balance control on all media players. RR's web player, iTunes, phone scanner apps do not feature balance controls.

Thanks for the reply.

The ScannerRadio app does.

[mjbjr]

Would it be possible to add a delay start up on the program? I have to run this computer wireless and if i have to reboot it,the program starts up before it is actually able to connect to the internet.So if i could have it auto start up 2 minutes later that would alleviate the issue.

[datainmotion]

Originally Posted by mjbjr

Would it be possible to add a delay start up on the program? I have to run this computer wireless and if i have to reboot it,the program starts up before it is actually able to connect to the internet.So if i could have it auto start up 2 minutes later that would alleviate the issue.

Which program are you referring to?
It sounds like, whatever it is, you have it in your "Start" file - why not just start it manually to alleviate the issue?

[mjbjr]

Scanenrcast is the program.And im normally not home,so I have my wife restart the computer when it needs it.And having her start a program is asking alot to be honest.I know its a simple thing to just wait a few minutes and click and icon,but i was just looking for some sort of delay.

[ScanPEI]

Originally Posted by mjbjr

Scanenrcast is the program.And im normally not home,so I have my wife restart the computer when it needs it.And having her start a program is asking alot to be honest.I know its a simple thing to just wait a few minutes and click and icon,but i was just looking for some sort of delay.

This article might be of help.

[medictod]

May I add to the wish list.... I have multiple feeds, and when one (or multiple) feeds go down I receive notification including the feed name and number.
When they come back online, I am again notified, but only with the feed number, sometimes leaving me to wonder which one came back. Please consider adding the name to both, and thank you.

[mikev]

How about updating the User Agents for the "Feed Listeners" on the General Details page... right now Google Chrome identifies as Safari, since they're both Webkit-based browsers.

[nfd24norf]

It would be great to see Miami/Dade County Fire feed, and Las Vegas/Clark County feed. Unfortunately I am not in location to provide feed but would be willing to donate to anyone able to provide a fire and ems feed for those cities. (contact me via pvt msg) A little surprised there aren't any considering they are such large metropolitan area. Be safe all.

[canav844]

It would be nice to be able to when listening to a feed that supports Radio ID Tags, to be able to select one of the ID tags and listen to just that one tagged object; understanding it has no control over the scanner, so when the scanner hits on another object it's muted and I get silence, but I am able to then listen only to the object of interest.

[James_Bond_007]

probably too complex code to implement for something only a very small handful of users might be interested in. then as you stated it would only work on feeds forwarding tag info and on top of that only via the RR web player.

my guess is for webmaster to even consider the addition there would need to be a significant interest from the membership.

as stated i do not believe it's easy to add just a small string of code and have it work.

it might be better getting implemented by 3rd party programs that are floating around the net and used for listening to RR streams.

i could be wrong in all my assumptions

[webstar22]

To the person who wanted the tag selected audio. All it would take is the streamer to change one letter in the tags to render that useless.

[canav844]

Originally Posted by James_Bond_007

probably too complex code to implement for something only a very small handful of users might be interested in. then as you stated it would only work on feeds forwarding tag info and on top of that only via the RR web player.

my guess is for webmaster to even consider the addition there would need to be a significant interest from the membership.

as stated i do not believe it's easy to add just a small string of code and have it work.

it might be better getting implemented by 3rd party programs that are floating around the net and used for listening to RR streams.

i could be wrong in all my assumptions

Yeah I admin a car forum, I know that specific things like that are almost never plug and play, but every once in a while a seed gets planted in a programmers mind, I figured it was best to speak up if for only that chance, which on RR seems to actually have higher odds than the general population. And maybe I'm the only one with interest, but if I don't throw it out there, how will I know?

Almost every P25 capable scanner on the market today can support tags out the com port (scanner cast at the current state isn't fully there as far as being able to interpret them all, but I know it does see updates over time). It's been a trend lately with lots of sales pitches from the big radio companies to go digital to meet narrowbanding; so many more feeds have started to support tags than 2-3 years ago. As the P25 capable scanners become more common, I suspect the number of feeds supporting tags will increase as time goes on. Though I do understand that it probably will never be universal as with some feeds it's just not needed. It also allows feed providers to load up more objects (channels, frequencies or talkgroups) to bring in more listeners, but helps the users listen to just what happens to interest them, thus reducing infrastructure cost for streamers that would have to invest in multiple audio cards and scanners to provide the same service. If 3rd parties can apply it to mobile apps, then cell phones become much closer to portable scanners than just audio streamers, perhaps making it so that some need not invest in a base and portable scanner, and software for both, if they can make their base do double duty, and still listen to their item of interest, making them more likely to be willing to sacrifice a $500 scanner for exclusive feed duty.

Originally Posted by webstar22

To the person who wanted the tag selected audio. All it would take is the streamer to change one letter in the tags to render that useless.

Tags rarely get updated by streamers, most feeds are set it and foreget it once all the initial audio quality and updates get shut off and anit-virus software accommodations are ironed out, even then my computer doesn't store the IDs from a scanner it downloads them every time I pull up the feed, so if you wait for the ID tag you want then press a hold button it could mute all other audio unless that same tag field comes through, if the streaming side does make a change simply exit out and reload the feed, click the new label of interest.