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Projects: Metropolitan Washington Ear
MiniDisc Replacement |
Digital Automation |
Live Audio Stream |
Archive Audio Stream
In addition to the radio reading service offered by the Metropolitan Washington Ear, they maintain a dial-in reading service where a touch tone phone is used to request certain articles or sections of newspapers to be read back to the listener. Volunteers come in and record these files to a server which manages all the dial-in connections, and routes the appropriate audio file to the requesting telephone line. The information played throught he dial-in service is nearly identical to the information on the radio reading service, except that the radio version is scheduled and the dial-in is on-demand. The number of people that can simultaneously use this service is dependant on the number of incoming phone lines connected to the server, and the number of output devices the server was built with. In order to increase the potential audience for this service (both simultaneously and geographically), the Ear decided to create an archive audio server for the internet. A custom program (written in Wilson WindowWare WinBatch) was created to encode the radio service in one-hour blocks. These blocks of audio are stored for four full weeks on a server similar to the one created for their live audio stream - Windows NT, RealServer, RealProducer, and VNC. At the end of the four weeks, the files automatically get overwritten to conserve hard drive space. A seperate component of this project was how to display which audio files are available for request on the Ear's website. PHP was used to determine the current date and time on the web server, and then list four weeks' worth of days, times, and audio files available.
There are two machines in different locations involved in this process: one is encoding and serving the audio clips, and the other is listing which clips are available. They run different operating systems: Windows NT for the encoder, and Linux for the web server. In order for the encoded files to start and stop at the desired times, and in order for the links to the encoded files to be displayed at the desired times, both machines need a reliable time reference. The Linux machine was managed by the ISP, and it was configured to reference time from the Naval Observatory clock. AboutTime from Arachnoid was installed on the Windows NT encoder machine to also reference time from the Naval Observatory clock, so the machines are in sync.
Be sure to check out the entire Metropolitan Washington Ear website at WashEar.org.
Products used in this project can be found at the following locations:
