ok everyone, settle, settle....
As many people have said, being sarcastic and condescending will not gain you much of a response, so no nned to be insulting to those who want to help you, Starman.
Many of your questions have been answered already, but if you could not understand them, please allow me to clarify:
For example, Initially the arrangement of the Home Page Index left me believing you were running two streams--one for scheduled songs--another for requested ones.
This is correct. there are 2 separate streams, one for requests, one for a set schedule, you can see the schedule
HERE. The scheduled stream just plays random tracks from the area that is says in the schedule. For example, when the schedule says EPCOT, all tracks that play will be from EPCOT, though there is no order in which the tracks will play (you could get something from the Living Seas on minute, the Germany Showcase the next, and then Universe of Energy the next, etc).
The other stream (Requests) - once logged in, you may request songs based on how many points you have. you are given a set number of points when you sign up. you can gain more points by participating in these forums.
Once I'd decided there was probably only one stream, I looked for a particular song. I found it easily enough with a notation that it was scheduled for Tuesday 7:28 a.m. Fine. I'm up Tuesday morning ready to listen.
No song...
I rechecked and the listing which now said the piece was transmitted Sunday evening 1/14.
The time that shows is for when you can next request that particular track. It will not automatically play at that date/time. Sorry that this can be confusing as we recently redesigned the site, and this was a new feature. Previously, the track was color-coded to tell you just if the track was able to be requested. This new system now tells you when you can request.
So okay, I figured I'd just try requesting the song to see what happens, though I feared I would probably just end up wasting points on a song that would come up in the middle of the night.
Now, the directions say to open the Request page, search for the title and then left-click on the yellow "R."
One problem... There is no yellow "R" to click on.
So, why are the songs not running as scheduled? What Time Zone are you using to schedule music? I'm CST, what are you? And what happened to that elusive yellow "R"?
ok, first things, the song (more than likely) would not come up in the middle of the night, unless you request it in the middle of the night. You can always check where the song is in the queue in one of 2 ways:
1) when requested, you should get a note that says your song was entered into the queue at position # "X" ("X" being what position).
2) after requesting, visit the
NOW PLAYING page (located on the left tool bar). this will tell you where your song is, as well as what is in front of it, and how long those song have left to run before yours is played.
The little yellow "R" was removed as part of the recent redesign. the owner of the site was very busy after the redesign that he did not have the time to update every little piece of the site. Please accept our apology for this issue.
To request the track, now you just have to click on the name of the track and then "Request Now". or just click the green "Now" listed next to the track that is able to be requested.
As previously stated, the time that shows is for when you can next request that particular track. It will not automatically play at that date/time. there is not set scedule of tracks, as I stated previously, the schedule is only on the scheduled stream, and it will play random songs from the area listed on the schedule page. On the requests stream, songs will play randomly with absolutley no schedule whatsoever until there are requests. once there are no requests in the queue, the player will play randomly again until there are more requests.
The site (as far as schedules) is run on PST. As far as the requests, it really has no basis.
PS. I just tried to preview this page and got a "Page Not Available" prompt. Figures...
Sorry for this problem. this would be a problem with phpBB at the time you clicked that button. That is not an issue with the site overall.
You have two streams, one scheduled and one for requests. Since on this machine I am using dial-up, I can only access the Requests stream, while people with a high speed connection can acces either one Is that correct?
in a manner of speaking, this is a correct statement, yes.
The sceduled stream is (at this time) only a 128k stream, which, being on a dial-up connection, will severely limit your using it, as it will take a very long time for your preferred media player to buffer, and may time out to buffer more frequently than if you chose a lesser bit rate stream.
The Request stream can be found on one of 3 different bit rate streams - 128k, 64k, or 24k. You would run into the same problems with the 128k stream that you would on the schedule stream, so I would reccomend not using it. Try out the 64k stream, but if you're on a 56k connection, it may buffer quite a bit. I would reccomend the 24k stream, as it will not eat up all of your bandwidth, and will not buffer quite as much.
Now, if I see a listing on the Requests index (with a PST time), that denotes the next available slot where the song MAY enter the rotation. However, am I correct, presuming nobody requests the piece for that specific time, the item is skipped over and rescheduled for another possible exposure. Is that correct?
Yes, and no. As stated, the time is only for when a track is able to be requested again. if it is not requested, it will not a resceduled for another time, but will sit, ready to be requested. If someone requests it before you, you have to wait until the next time listed for that track before it can be requested again. or, you could try just listening to the stream and it may play randomly if there are no requests.
I hops this answers your questions. If you need any further clarifications, please don't hesitate to ask. But, please ask in a polite manner, and try not to be so rude when asking for help. It's ok to vocalize your concerns, as we use those concerns to better the site.
