Now Playing Cue sheet file format

Introduction

Myriad has always been able to send now playing information updates about the currently playing items to external systems such as websites, internet streams etc, Myriad v5.29 significantly extends this by adding the ability to send updates DURING media items as well.

For example, you might have a pre-recorded show that is an hour long (or even broken into 15 minute sections) and you want Now Playing information to be sent as each song in that show starts playing.

This information is entered via the Media Editor, and Myriad can automatically generate this information itself when mixing down a Pad or from the Scheduled Log etc, however it can also be imported from "CUE" files when importing media files either manually, or via the AutoImporter.

Supported file formats

Myriad has it's own CUE file format, but also supports importing DAO format CUE files such as those used in Hydrogen Audio (https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Cue_sheet#History) as well as CUE files from PlayoutONE.

Important: currently, only the Myriad format CUE files are able to contain Item type information and distinct multiple artist information. This means that Myriad can be configured to send now playing information for items other than songs - for example you might show a custom sponsor message while playing an Advert.

Myriad Cue file format

The cue file is a simple plain text file making it easy to create using any scripting language. This has the same filename as the audio that it relates to and needs to be in the same folder as the audio file. For example MyShowPart1.mp3 and MyShowPart1.cue file should be side by side.

Each item in the file starts with the line "ITEM" followed by a number and the Item Type - for example, this line is for the 3rd item in the file and denotes that its a song.

The item number is actually ignored, and the item type is optional - if you don't supply it then SONG is assumed.

ITEM 3 SONG

This is then followed by one or more lines that contain the information for that item.

The supported fields are

TITLE
ARTISTS
START
END

START is required, however all other fields are optional.  

START and END times are entered as hh:mm:ss and can also have optional fractional seconds information - for example 00:03:40 means 3 mins 40, whilst 00:45:23.123 means 45 minutes, 23 seconds and 123 milliseconds.

ARTISTS can be a single artist, or multiple artists separated by a 'pipe' symbol - i.e. |  - for example:

ARTISTS Artist Name 1|Artist Name 2

An example of a typical file is attached and this is a snippet from that file. The blank lines are optional and are just included for clarity:

ITEM 1 BASICMEDIAITEM
TITLE Hour Opener
ARTISTS Hot FM
START 00:00:00
END 00:00:11.5700000

ITEM 2 SONG
TITLE Axel F
ARTISTS Crazy Frog
START 00:00:09.9170000
END 00:03:00.5330000

ITEM 3 LINK
TITLE UK HOT 10 Promo 1
ARTISTS Hot FM
START 00:02:56.5840000
END 00:03:15.2610000

ITEM 4 SONG
TITLE Just A Ride
ARTISTS Jem
START 00:03:12.7570000
END 00:06:29.8450000

ITEM 5 LINK
TITLE UK HOT 10 Promo 2
ARTISTS Hot FM
START 00:06:29.4370000
END 00:06:47.4010000

ITEM 6 SONG
TITLE You're Beautiful
ARTISTS James Blunt
START 00:06:46.1810000
END 00:10:11.9010000

ITEM 7 LINK
TITLE Top of Hour Promo 2
ARTISTS Hot FM
START 00:09:58.9510000
END 00:10:34.6540000