This file contains a list of changes that have been made to Myriad STS and any of it's related programs. This list may not be the full history due to size limits.In the event of a query or for a complete history, please send an e-mail to support@psquared.net NOTE: Unless otherwise stated the changes shown are for STS Playout only. If the changes shown apply to STS Manager then this will be shown. Thank you for reading this information. P Squared Development team. v2.6.9 Previously STS would eject the last cart in the break once it reached it's extro rather than letting it play out in full v2.6.8 The View Advert Log window now shows in the blue caption bar at the top if the file is being viewed from the location sts checks for new files instead of the location it copies them to. Further adjustments have been made to allow for the OverFlow situation that was first addressed in v2.6.7 v2.6.7 The debug option on the Settings menu has been altered to give more debugging information to bring it into line with the older /DEBUG command line option. The routines that copy in new or updates Source Log Files has been updated to use an alternate method of reading the length of the file. This is to workaround problems with some systems having an "Overflow" error when importing files that briefly appear to be 0 bytes in length. v2.6.6 Changed the descriptions for the 2 advert log directories in Log Settings to reduce confusion. Also added to checks so you cannot use the same directory for both as STS doesn't support this configuration. Removed the message boxes displayed when /DEBUG command line option is used - these are now written to the debug logs in the root of the C Drive. The debugging mode has also been extended to track far more information. Becuase of this we recommend you only run in debug mode when nescessary and then turn the mode off otherwise performance may be affected. The /DEBUG option now writes a copy of all network traffic (send and rec) to the debug files. Added the /NONETDISPLAY command line option to inhibit showing the Network Control panel when using the /DEBUG option. As well as via the command line, you can now turn debugging on and off from the Settings window. This version of Myriad STS supports a new feature where 10 seconds before an ad break is due to finish it signals myriad to tell myriad to cue the next item (rather than myriad having to cue the item the moment the ad break starts). You need to use Myriad v2.6.27 or higher to use this feature. If STS recieves a command to cue an advert break while it is playing, it now ignores this command (as it causes STS to dump the current break). This is to allow myriad to play 2 split breaks back to back. This is not ideal however as myriad obviously has to tell STS to cue and fire immediately when the time comes which can cause a small gap in playback - so playing breaks back to back is not recommended. v2.6.5 Added a new option on the General Settings window to allow you to enable/disable hiding the Transport Controls on Players that STS is using to play adverts or cart groups. By default this option is ON. Added extra error checking and rollback functions to inserting and removing adverts from breaks. A new setting on the settings window allows you to get STS to check a certain number of days ahead for advert logs. If logs are not found, then a large red panel displays this information as a warning to the presenter. You can specify per hour how many days ahead to look - 0 means don't check for this hour. Tidied up the Split menu and extended the /NOSETTINGS command line option to hide more settings menu options. v2.6.3 Added checking for no file available when attempting to load the next days log as well as improved handling for locked source files. Fixed a problem with the Log automatically going back a day after the last advert in a days log has been played when using Automatic Hourly Log Reloading v2.6.2 Improved day rollovers when there are slight configuration mis-matches between different "slave" sts machines Several key changes in the way Myriad and STS communicate mean that you should upgrade Myriad to v2.6.16 or higher to use this version A new option in cart Groups allows you to change the captions on the Cart Group tabs You can now insert adverts into the log by either right clicking in the log where you want the advert inserted, or by dragging from the cart browser into onto the log You can now add /NOSETTINGS to the command line of Myriad STS to remove the Settings menu options from the main window. Fixed a problem that meant that you had to double click on each Cart GRoup tab to update the contents of the display v2.6.1 When an advert break or a cart group is cued/playing the plyback controls for that player are removed from screen. Therefore the only way to trigger an advert break is by using the larger control buttons above. Added support for remotely playing, cueing and pausing carts from a single screen. The Play, Pause and Cue triggers from Hardware, the keyboard or the mouse (from the players ONLY) are now "bounced" out to all other networked STS computers. This allows you to cue a single cart up in all of your splits and then trigger them from a single play button. This specifically does not start adverts though - only carts manually cued up. You can turn this off in the Network Settings Tab under general settings. v2.6.0 - Trial Release You can now adjust the audio settings independently of Myriad - a new menu option has been added to allow this. It also allows you to allocate which sound cards to use. Becuase the audio settings are now stored independently of Myriad, you have to re-set these using the new menu option detailed above. By default, advert breaks are not cued ready to go until told to by the user or by Myriad, or (if the breaks are due to play exactly at a specified time) 2 seconds before it is aired. There is a new option to force the breaks to be cued as soon as possible on the General Settings screen under miscellaneous. Myriad STS now requires 800x600 screen resolution or higher. You can now display the new look cart browser from the new view menu. You can drag and drop from here to the cart players only. Obvious one - the cart groups now have a tab strip down the right hand side to allow you choose which 20 groups are displayed on screen. Changing these on one STS computer changes the display on all other STS machines. To fire a group from the keyboard, press the appropriate number key for the first 10 (i.e. 1 to 10, 0 is for the tenth) and press the shift key with the number key for the second 10. (i.e. 11-20). The menus have been moved around to standardise the layout. The keys to move scroll up and down the log have changed from page up and down to just cursor up and down. You can now display/hide the cart groups from the new View Menu There is a new option in Log Settings that allows you to have Ad Rec files only written whilst STS has Station Control of OCP The P Squared Network Control system has been re-written to drastically improve performance when sharing control with other programs. This affects the communication with both Myriad and OCP. The hardware settings for Myriad and Q-NXT are now hidden in Hardware Setup. You can now set a Hardware Line as a Heartbeat that pulses at approx 4Hz whilst STS is running. A hardware line can now be set to control whether STS logs plays. This is under Miscellaneous on the Hardware Setup window. Individual hardware lines are also now available to inhibit logging on a per player basis. Due to changes in the Hardware Manager, you will need to re-set any lines you had set to Audio Run Ended. Added support for Myriad v2.6 cart descriptions and Cart Chunk/BWF format files. Added support for 32K audio files v2.5.24 - Trial Release Fixed an issue with computers with more than 4 sound devices. v2.5.24 - Trial Release Now using the updated P Squared Network Manager Fixed a problem with where file locations where stored. v2.5.23 - Beta Release Added extra error handling when writing log files v2.5.22 - Beta Release Fixed a problem with Q-NXT triggered Cart Groups playing out at the wrong volume. v2.5.21 - Beta Release A re-write to the P Squared Hardware manager has added support for many more Advantech Cards. We have therefore changed the name of the card to "Advantech Card" rather than "PCI1750" as it could now be one of a dozen different cards. We have also removed support for the 8255 and dual 8255 legacy ISA cards. Continued integration with the new MDI environment. STS now includes the new P Squared Network Manager instead of the older STS specific system. This is to allow for future compatibility. v2.5.19 - Beta Release Changed the name that STS logs into OCP with to include the computer name. v2.5.18 - Beta Release Myriad STS now includes the SmoothStream(TM) audio engine. STS has been changed to a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) in preparation for several visual changes. "Now and Next" information from Q-NXT is now passed down the "line" to STS slaves. v2.5.17 Corrected an issue where STS would report all of the advert breaks missed as it changed from one day to the next if Automatic Dropping was enabled, and the last ad break in the day was not played before day rollover. v2.5.16 Added in the option in STS Network under Cart Groups to get the system to check Cart Groups against Advert Breaks on a per group basis rather than the previous verion of checking ALL groups against ads. v2.5.15 Slightly improved error reporting of dropped breaks (incorrect lengths), and also tidied up handling of files that do not contain any breaks that are valid for the selected Transmitter chain. Due to changes with the P Squared License Code Manager, the system now warns you if your license code is due to expire soon. v2.5.14 Changed the way STS Network plays default carts when the advert breaks don't match the commands so the breaks are dropped rather than remaining in the system. v2.5.12 There is a new option under Log Options on the General Settings screen that allows you to tell the system to 'drop' an advert break if it hasn't been played within a certain number of minutes of the time in the advert log. There is also an option on the General Tab to force the advert breaks to be played at the time they are scheduled in the log. STS Network can now check Cart Group Play instructions against the advert log so if an advert break is loaded that is the same length as the cart group, the break is played instead of the cart group. v2.5.11 The Menu bar on the Left of the Manager now has captions under the buttons to explain their functions. Corrected a problem with creating Audiowall's from inside Myriad STS caused all the carts to be black. v2.5.10 Updated STS so Q-NXT can pre-cue cart groups and advert breaks. v2.5.7 The default option is now for characters to be Prefixed to Log filenames rather than Suffixed. This is to match the specification of the Advert Pusher. STS Network version: Added another option to the Tools menu that makes STS log every serial code it recieves to a nominated log file. the time that the characters are received is also recorded. v2.5.6 STS Network version: Improved error logging in the Com_log files further to explain why parts of the data buffer have been discarded. A new menu has been added 'Tools' with the option to view the 'data buffer' that contains the incoming commands. You can also type text into this box and click on a button to manually feed the serial buffer with commands for testing purposes. Corrected a problem where commands arriving within milliseconds of each other could be ignored. v2.5.4 STS Network version: Support for start and end codes that are greater than 1 character (ie a sequence of characters) has been added. Support for control sequences that do not have a start code has been added. This is not a good way to test for codes, as the system cannot tell if garbage has been received, and so it must try and use all codes received. The serial stream MUST have an end code to use this mode. We do not support using a fixed packet length in this mode. v2.5.3 The General Settings screen has been adjusted to simplify the display. The Audio Volumes and Router control sections have been moved to their own section. DAB Server settings have been added to the General Settings. Full support for DAB DLS information will be added shortly. You can now select whether the reconciliation file is written to the source or destination directories. The default is now to the Source directory. This can be changed from General Settings>Log Settings. You can also now log whenever a cart group is played. On the Options menu is a new option that allows you to define the Cart Locations that STS uses. Remember that as Myriad STS is part of the Myriad family, these Cart locations are shared with Myriad version 2 and version 2.5. This does not affect other products such as Scoop. STS Network version: Support has been added for control systems that do not use End codes, but have a fixed packet length instead. Such system MUST provide a Start code however. Code parsing (the bit that works out what codes do) has been improved to take into account garbage code appearing on the stream. STS now ignores any characters received that are not surrounded by a Start and End code (or are not found in a fixed length code). This helps prevent spurious commands fouling the system. When a seemingly valid code is ignored, the reasons for doing so are now shown on the Com Log files (if known) v2.5.0 The old Master/Slave relationship has been removed. Any machine may now be designated as a master for nodes to be controlled by. These nodes can then act as masters to other nodes. You will need to adjust the settings on your systems to reflect the new relationship. Under the Settings menu choose General Settings. Then select Network Settings and enter in the Master box the name of the computer you wish to follow. You must not cause a loop (where one PC controls another that in turn controls the first). If you have any questions, please contact us. A Myriad Control port has been added to the system to allow Myriad Systems to remotely control STS over a network connection. This will be detailed separately. v2.1.6 Corrected a problem with cart groups where specifying an empty cart would cause the system to cause the Cart Play List to lock up and not play any further items. v2.1.3 Corrected issues with automatic log updating causing the log to not 'rollover' midnight, and also jumping back to the top of the log. If you are Forcing Reloads, the log cannot now be jumped to the wrong day, as it will automatically return to the correct day. v2.1.0 NOTE: DUE TO CHANGES IN THE SOFTWARE,YOU MUST AGAIN SET THE HARDWARE LINE THAT THE SYSTEM ENABLES AT STARTUP, WHETHER IT MUTES THAT LINE DURING AD PLAYOUT, AND THE OPTIONS THAT ALLOW/DISALLOW AD BREAKS TO START DURING CART PLAYOUT AND CARTS TO START DURING BREAK PLAYOUT. Under General Settings, there is a new tab with Log File Options on. These allow you to force STS to reload the log file at a certain time in either the entire day, or per hour. When it reloads the file, it will jump to the next valid ad break after the current time according to the clock. This will cause it to 'step over' breaks that haven't been played prior to the 'current time'. Usefull if you occasionally don't play ad breaks and require the system to automatically 'catch up' each hour or day. The Cart groups have now been made available in Non-Network versions of the software. This has resulted in a few changes to the software: The Options menu has been shuffled to move the 'General Settings' option to the top of the menu, above the Log File Settings. The General settings window now has the options to control whether carts are allowed to be played during ad breaks, and vice versa and also what lines to mute/enable at startup and during playout of breaks and carts. v2.0.27 Added a diagnostic feature which writes an entry to a daily log in the 'Destination' directory every time a serial control command is processed. Corrected a problem that caused STS to remain in memory even after it had been quit. v2.0.26 You can now add descriptions to the Cart Groups. v2.0.22 When triggering a cart group (either by remote, RS232, IP or the button the screen) the button the screen now depresses to indicate it has been played The Network/Signalling Settings menu option has been renamed to General Settings You can now choose the volume to play out advert breaks, Cart Groups, and just Carts and these can all be set individually. They all default to 100%. To change these, use the General Settings option from the Options Menu v2.0.17 The system has been updated to include a new optional 'Network Control Mode'. Details are available on request. v2.0.15 STS Playout has been given two new configuration options that allow you to configure how long it waits before signalling that the break has ended, and also how long it signals for. The defaults are to wait 0.5 seconds before signalling and to signal for 1 second. The Options Menu in STS Playout has been altered slightly to accomdate the changes listed above. Network setup is now joined by the new signalling setup options. v2.0.14 The Manager now looks at extros rather than overall lengths of carts when checking that breaks are the same length. v2.0.13 Add an option so network masters can send a network play command when they are triggered by a hardware trigger. By default this is OFF. This might be usefull if the hardware control logic is not wired to all the split machines. Masters always send a net command when triggered by the play button or the space bar. Corrected some parts of the screen's background color to match windows settings