Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on media asset management including automation, traffic and billing.
Villanueva University of Madrid has trained professionals for more than four decades. “The university has always emphasized the great importance of imparting practical knowledge to its students,” said Audiovisual Systems Technician Mario Muncharaz, “and to this end has implemented two complete radio studios at its campus, through which more than 3,000 students have passed since 2000.”
For automation of its broadcasts, the university equipped its studios with AEQ software, beginning with Mar4Win and then migrating to the AudioPlus version.
“Not only were we surprised by the ease with which students adapted to Mar4win, but what we liked most about the new automation system was its stability and its great features in terms of audio management.”
AEQ AudioPlus incorporates tools for manual, automatic and remote-controlled playout, automatic programming of music and advertising, and content generation and editing. Designed for Windows operating systems and SQL Server databases, it has a simple self-installation wizard. It is compatible with low-cost audio cards and has complementary editing and management tools.
Muncharaz said he appreciates the stability and simplicity of AEQ’s workflow, which in this installation involves four computers located in two radio studio control rooms, connected through a continuity server.
“Its operation is simple and more agile, such as the export of objects or the possibility of ingesting material in our own managers directly from a pen-drive by simply dragging them to the manager.”
In addition, AEQ said it will soon announce the integration of its automation system with the new visual radio application VisualRplus, which allows a user to launch macros from objects in the AudioPlus playlist or in instant button templates.
Among other things the macros can trigger video clips or images related to files in the playlist, or focus a camera on a point of interest such as a talent and launch it on air.