Airtime 2.0, our free open source radio automation software, is out today and it couldn't have happened without the amazing Airtime community.
The focus of this release was to reduce the time and effort station managers and DJs spent on behind-the-scenes work, and thanks to the feedback of users we've been able to integrate many tasks into the Airtime interface. Configuring Icecast and SHOUTcast streams is just one of those things. We've also improved calendars, playlists, SoundCloud integration and the Media Monitor in order to make everything that little bit easier and more intuitive.
Last week we officially launched Airtime Pro, our hosted version of the software. It aims to make things easier still by taking care of installation, set-up, upgrades, security updates, server maintenance and worldwide technical support. There's a month's free trial on offer over at sourcefabric.com.
Onto the improvements!
You can now have up to three streams with different bitrates and point them to different Icecast/SHOUTcast servers. Any connection problems between Liquidsoap and Icecast are shown in the interface (no more blaming Airtime for your misconfigured Icecast server!)
First up, the playlist now expands as you add items instead of keeping everything within a small scrolled box.. There's better error checking in cases where two users alter the same data at the same time now too. We removed the intermediate "Add Playlist" screen where it asked you to fill in the name and description of the playlist. This wasnt necessary since everything could be changed from the playlist editor itself. And finally, you can now right-click on an item in the library to see the metadata for the audio file.
Ability to change the day a week starts on. Your view settings are now saved in the calendar (time scale and time increments) and playlists (number of items displayed, search term), so when you browse away and return, they'll be remembered.
Airtime's native integration with SoundCloud just got better! You can now upload any clip to SoundCloud (not just the recorded shows as it was in previous versions), upload many files at once, view the file on soundcloud.com once it is uploaded, re-upload a file (for example, if the file has been edited) and automatically set the file to be downloadable.
Change the hardware output API from within your browser! You can now switch between ALSA, OSS, AO, Pulseaudio, and Portaudio, all via the user interface!
You can now listen to your streams directly from the web interface without having to start a third party application (such as VLC). Gotta love this...
Configure time zone can now be set in the browser. Times are now stored in the database in UTC time, there is no more need to adjust server time or values stored in ".htaccess" or "php.ini" files. Woo-hoo! Another thing we moved to the browser was service monitoring. You can now see easily the status of the services and the disk space available.
The Media Monitor is also much improved. It now correctly handles the case where a watched directory or subdirectory is deleted or moved. We also fixed a very rare bug where Airtime import could start reading a file before it had finished copying, leading to import failure.
Airtime 2.0 features protection against brute-force password guessing attacks: after three failed login attempts, the user will be presented with a RECAPTCHA.
We've improved a lot of small things relating to entering information into Airtime (only allowing valid inputs, removing a few unnecessary 'required' fields). We also added a friendly 404 page design and a small indicator as to whether you have the most recent version installed.
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