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Playout Feature Comparison
This table provides a comparison of the 3 versions of OAS Playout which are available. The Full and Express versions are the two mainstream versions of the software whilst the Freeware version is designed to allow a basic evaluation of the core product prior to purchase.
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Full
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Express
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Freeware
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| 2 independent music players |
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| Auto/Manual modes |
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| 2 independent jingle/ad players |
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| Jingle/advert sub-categories |
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| 2 independent button walls |
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| Multiple button wall categories |
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| ASIO driver support |
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| JACK audio support |
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| Track history display |
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| Searchable music database |
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Sub-string search for title, artist, album and genre. |
| Music logging |
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| Advert logging |
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| Metadata (eg. ID3 tags) read capability |
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| Metadata editor/write |
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Provided by Playout Manager |
| Audio database management software |
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Playout Manager/Express provides full control of all music, playlists, logging, voicetracking etc. |
| Automatic start/end cue point calculation |
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Automatically determines optimum start point (skipping any preceding silence) and fade out point (auto modes only). The freeware version only computes the end point. |
| Manual cue point setting |
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Allows the user to manually adjust the cue points from their automatically calculated settings. |
| Normalisation |
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Supports peak level and loudness normalizsation. Requires pre-processing by Playout Manager |
| Playlists |
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| Automated playlist creation |
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| Playlist editor |
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Provided by Playout Manager/Express. |
| Automation |
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Unattended execution of 1 or more playlists with error recovery |
| Scheduled playlist execution |
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Ability to run a playlist at a specified date/time |
| Playlist exchange |
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Allows playlists to be exchanged between other third party software which supports the m3u playlist format. |
| Voicetracking |
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Fully featured editor included in Playout Manager. Includes ability to schedule playback at given date/time |
| Track Listers |
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Allows "track now playing" details to appear on your website |
| Volume controls |
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| Web consoles |
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Customisable web content. |
| CD Ripping |
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There are any number of freely available CD rippers available which provide all the capability you would need to use the files with Playout, this includes Windows Media Player which ships with all current versions of Windows as standard. OAS recommend the highly capable Audiograbber for both ripping & encoding. |
| Audio Encoding (eg. MP3 creation) |
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There are any number of freely available audio encoders (including the ability to retrieve & embed metadata into the files) available which provide all the capability you would need to use the files with Playout, this includes Windows Media Player which ships with all current versions of Windows as standard. OAS recommend the highly capable Audiograbber for both ripping & encoding. |
| Audio internet streaming |
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Playout's audio outputs are designed to be mixed externally (possibly with other sources) before being fed to the broadcast media. For this reason it is not logically to include internet streaming as part of the main package. There are also many 3rd party, free packages which can achieve eg. Butt. However using the JACK audio interface does offer possibilities of more complex audio routining, including streaming. |
| Remote control API |
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Playout includes a dedicated remote control API (including Python bindings) which allow third party applications to control various aspects of the software including start/stop of player consoles, load playlists and adjust the volume levels. |
| Media Sharing |
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Provides the ability for Playout Manager to share media content with Playout Express users via the cloud |
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File formats |
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| - MPEG 1, Layer 2 .mp2 |
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- MPEG 1, Layer 3 .mp3 |
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| - Windows media .wma |
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Not DRM formats |
| - PCM/Wave .wav |
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Natively supports uncompressed 16bit mono/stereo format. Additional formats are supported via the use of the optional libsndfile library. This also adds support for additional (notably uncompressed) formats such as .aiff |
| - OGG/Vorbis .ogg |
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| - Free Lossless Audio Codec .flac |
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| - Advanced Audio Codec .aac / .m4a / .mp4 |
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Requires additional 3rd party codecs. Not iTunes DRM protected (.m4p files). |
| Online Help |
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| User Manual |
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| Licensing | ||||
| - time limited demo |
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Freeware version available here for download. Email for information on trialing the full/express versions. |
| - lease version |
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12 or 6 month leases |
| - full unrestricted version |
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Licensed on a per PC basis. |