BayCom PAD-Encoder / MOT-Server

Contents

PAD-Encoder Configuration

Tree Item of Type PAD
Tree Item of Type RDS
Tree Item of Type DL
Tree Item of Type MOT
Statistics Page
General Informationen

MOT-Server Configuration

Tree Item of Type Global Settings
Tree Item of Type Slot
Statistics Page
General Informationen

General Description of Operation

The software package consists of two modules:

1. The PAD-Encoder is responsible for multiplexing different data sources (dynamic labels and MOT services) and packing them into smaller packets. Those Pakets are sent to a Musicam, RDS- or ADR encoder.
The PAD encoder supports the standard format for ancillary data of Musicam-Encoders in DAB-Mode and the UEC protocol of RDS/ADR encoders.

The software was tested successfully with those encoders:

• R&S Music
• CCS CDQ Prima
• AVT Magic

2. The MOT-Server codes single files, whole directories or arbitrary data streams accortding to the MOT specification. The server creates so called  MOT segments which are sent over a network connection to the PAD encoder. The MOT server itself is capable of managing multiple data sources and sending them simultanously.

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Configuration

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PAD-Encoder Configuration

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Tree Item of Type PAD

PAD-Size : This value selects the size of the PAD data packets sent to the Musicam encoder for a single MPEG1 Layer 2 frame. Normally the maximum value of 48 should be selected to get the best data rate for the program associated data.
However older encoders like the R&S Music or the AVT Magic do only transmit realiable 16-24 bytes per frame otherwise the bit error rate increases significantly.

Typ: Selects the type of connection to the Musicam encoder. The default is Dummy which does not transmit any data and is just for testing purposes or usage without any PAD encoders. Normally RS232 should be selected. A software Musicam encoder is connected via TCP/IP . This option is currently not available under windows.

Dest/Port: Is used to select the symbolic name of a serial port (COM1, COM2, etc.) or an IP address.

Baudrate: When connecting a Musicam encoders via RS232 a  baudrate must be selected. The default value is 38400 Bit/s which is in most cases correct.

Monitor Mode: The PAD encoder has got a built in PAD decoder which allows to monitor the transmit data in the same manner as a DAB radio would do it . Therefor a Folder has to be selected.

Apply: Press apply to save and change the configuration of the PAD encoder. The checkbox in the upper left corner of the dialog activated or deactivates a complete configuration.

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Tree Item of Type RDS

Typ: Selects the type of connection to the Musicam encoder. The default is Dummy which does not transmit any data and is just for testing purposes or usage without any RDS/ADR encoder encoders. Normally RS232 should be selected.

Protocol: Selects the communication protocol being used. Currently only UECP is supported.

Adresse/DSN/PSN: Normally 0. You can find detailed information at the RDS Universal Encoder Communication Protocol UECP Version 5.1 specification

Dest/Port: Is used to select the symbolic name of a serial port (COM1, COM2, etc.) or an IP address.

Baudrate: When connecting a RDS/ADR encoders via RS232 a baudrate must be selected. The default value is 38400 Bit/s which is in most cases correct.

RT-Source/PS-Source: Selects the DL-Source which is sent via RDS/ADR. The labels of the combo box correspond to the names of DL-Sources. RT means Radiotext (64 characters maximum,  every 5 seconds), PS means Programm Station, i.e. the name of the station (8 characters maximum, every 2 seconds).
 

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Tree Item of Type DL

Type:

• Telnet allows to enter dynamic labels via a telnet client, perl script or any other program. Therefor a TCP/IP port has to be entered at the Port field.
• In case dynamic labels are encoded as radiotext via the "Funkhaustelegramm" (FHT) protocol via RS323, you have to select RS232 FHT . You have to select an appropriate Baudrate .
• "Funkhaustelegramme" via UDP are accepted by the setting UDP FHT .

The neccessary  TCP/IP Port has to be entered in the Port field.
• If dynamic labels should be taken from an ASCII file you have to select File .  The file has to be selected in the Source field. Every line of such a file corresponds to one dynamic label. The encoder jumps to the next line after the Display Time . The field Period selects the time after the file is reopened again.
• If a program or script is selected as Source for dynamic labels Pipe may be selected. The source field contains path and filename of the program being executed. This redirects and converts the standard output into Dynamic Labels. The field Period selects the time until the program started again.
• There is a proprietary TCP interface which is reserved for future use.

Repeat Count: The number of transmission repetitions for dynamic labels.

Repeat Rate: Specifies the numbe of MPEG frames after a dynamic label will repeated.

Display Time: This parameter specifies the time in seconds until the next dynamic label may be sent. All dynamic labels received in the meantime are buffered.

Period: When using file or pipe sources this field specifies a time in seconds after which a source is read again.

Charactertable: For every DL source a character translation table can be specified. This might become important if umlauts should be transmitted. DAB define a character table according to an extended ISO-646 standard. A table which converts the normal PC-OEM umlauts can be found in your installation directory named ISO646.TXT. If the field is empty or contains 'none' no conversion is done.
 

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Tree Items of Type MOT

Type: The setting TCP describes how the MOT server is connected to the PAD encoder.

TCP-Port : The TCP/IP port can be selected here.

Password/Allowed IPs: These forms allow to set passwords and lists of IP addresses (seperated by semicolons) to prevent the PAD encoder from unauthorized access.

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Statistics

TX-Frames: Shows the number of transmitted audio frames. If the communication with the Musicam encoder broke down or is disturbed this value does not increment constantly.

Dynamic Labels/DL-Bytes: Shows the number of dynamic labels and bytes transmitted of all sources.

MOT-Segments/MOT-Bytes: Shows the number of MOT segments and bytes of all sources.

Uptime: Number of days, hours and minutes since the software was started.

The lower part of the statistics page shows textual output of the current internal state.

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General Information

• Up to a maximum of 16 DL and MOT data sources may be added which should be sufficient in most cases. PAD destinations currently cannot be instantiated. However it is possible to start multiple instances of the PAD encoder on the same computer.  Therefore each PAD encoder has to be started in a seperate working directory. For the communication between MOT server and PAD encoder on the same system the ip address 127.0.0.1 or the hostname localhost can be used.
• The PAD encoder should even on slow pentium systems (at least 133MHz) be ablte to communicate in realtime with the Musicam encoder, because a special device driver for the serial port is used. We strongly recommend at least 64MByte RAM. The maximum latency of PAD data is 1.5ms.  Computers with non standard serial ports which are not accessed by the regular serial driver of the operating system are not suitable for the PAD encoder.
• We recommend to name tree items according to their application:

Configuration of the MOT server

Tree Item of Type Global Settings

Type: The value Dummy allows to test a configuration without connection to a PAD encoder. The value TCP binds a MOT server to a PAD encoder or a FHG-MMDS on a specified  IP address and a port.

Transport ID Start: If more MOT servers are bound to a PAD encoder, the used transport IDs used by the different MOT servers must not interfere. This value sets the smallest Transport ID to be used.

Transport ID Number: This value selects the number of Transport IDs for a particular MOT server.

Repetitions: If MOT segments should be repeated then this value selects the number of repetitions.

Segment size: The size of bytes for the MOT segments can be selected here.

PAD-Encoder IP address: Here you have to set the TCP/IP destination address of the PAD encoder. If MOT server and PAD encdoder is running on the same computer localhost or 127.0.0.1 has to be set.

PAD-Encoder IP-Port: Here the TCP/IP Port of the PAD encoders is set. By default port 8881 is used.

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Tree Item of Type Slot

Type: Here different data and file types of the sources can be selected:

Base File is a single file, which is used to transmit the start page of interactive data services. As Source a file has to be selected. The Name is equivalent to the transmitted filename for that file. This allows for instance to transmit a file index.html as base.htm. As Label normally something like 'Index' is supplied.
A Rootdirectory can be chosen to complete the path of the transmitted file.

Directory takes a directory from the local filesystem from where all contained files are transmitted cyclically. Source has to be the full path to a directory. The Rootdirectory selects the path for the files from the directory. If the files of a directory should be transmitted as a slideshow just check the box Slideshow .

File List points to a list of files which are transmitted periodically. This list containes on each line a full path to a file. As a common path the input from the Replace path field is taken. Optionally seperated by a pipe symbol (|) followed by a number selects the seconds until the next file is transmitted. A further pipe symbol followed by 5 numbers selects the time of transmission in crontab style. The format looks like that:
 

Filename       Displaytime  Minutes Hour   Day Mon Weekday
---------------------------------------------------------
noon.jpg        | 12       | *      12     *   *   *
studiocam.jpg   | 10       | 6-59   *      *   *   *
traffic.jpg     | 20       | 5,30   6-21   *   *   *
news.jpg        | 15       | 0-4    6-21   *   *   *
stationlogo.jpg | 10       | */5    *      *   *   *
weekend.jpg     | 5        | *      *      *   *   6-7   

The example above desmonstrated different facilities of the crontab format. The first column denotes the minutes followed by hours, day of the month and finally the weekday. It is possible to specifiy single or multiple points in time separated by comma or a period can be specified by using a dash (see line 1-4).
If a file should be transmitted every point in time a star has to be set in the corresponding column. If every column contains a star the file will be transmitted every minute. Intervals can be specified by */ followed by a number. Line 5 of the example above will transmit the stationlogo.jpg picture every 5 minutes.
The last line will only be active on days 6 and 7 i.e. saturday and sunday. 

URL allow to specify a HTTP:// a ddress, to fetch data directly from the internet and transmit them immediately.
URL-List specifies a file containing HTTP:// a ddresses,  to fetch data directly from the internet and transmit them immediately.
Pipe calls an external programm and transmit its standard output.
 

Name: Specifies the name of the file to be used as Base File .

Label: allows to associate a file with a symbolic name for the Base File .

Rootdirectory: Specifies a virtual path of the file on the receiving host (DAB receiver).

Repetition Rate: Priority of this slot. The smaller tha value is the less frequent segments from this slot are transmitted.

Replace Path: When using filelists the leading path can be replaced by an arbitrary one.

Slideshow: Sets the trigger time to now for all files being transmitted. This makes a receiver display a slideshow.

Example for Rootdirectory/Replace path:

The filelist contains only files with (absolute) path names, which all start with "/radio1/mot/html/". To let the receiver put these files into "/service1/html/", a rootdirectory "/service1/" and a replace path "/radio1/mot/" have to be selected.

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Statistics

Files: Number of transmitted files.

Bytes: Number of transmitted bytes.

Uptime: Number of days, hours and minutes since the software was started.

The lower part of the statistics page shows textual output of the current internal state.
 

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General Information

• You can add up to 16 MOT slot data sources, which should be sufficient in most cases. PAD-targets currently cannot be instantiated. However it is possible to start more MOT servers on one computer.  Therefore the MOT server has to be started from a separate working directory.  For the communication between MOT server and PAD encoder on the same system the ip address 127.0.0.1 or the hostname localhost can be used.
• We recommend to name tree items according to their application:

Troubleshooting

The example above shows a critical condition, because the newly restarted software caused a drop out in the PAD data stream. This problem could be fixed by the software. A non correctable error is the message 'Bind to UDP 8880 failed'. This error says that the port 8880 is already in use by another application. To fix the problem the user has to change the port configuration.

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Tips & Tricks

• If a new data source was added and configured it had to be activated afterwards by clicking the checkbox in the upper left corner of the dialog window.
• The software does not run under Windows 95, 98 or ME, because special properties of  Windows NT/2000 are necessary for proper operation.
• The software itself cannot be installed by simply copying the program files, because it is necessary to install a special device driver. This task is done by the offical installer.
• The working directory of the sofwtare contains some .ini files which contain the full configuration. If more than one instance should be started it is necessary to create a seperate program link with a different working directory.
• The software currently is available for Windows NT/2000 and Linux. The .ini files are fully compatible and so the platform can be changed whenever you like.

 

Software updates can be found at http://www.baycom.de
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Appendix A: Keywords of the file padenc.ini

Section [PAD] : PAD-general settings

Command	Parameter-Type	Allowed values	Description
type	String	dummy, rs232	Output of the PAD stream
port	String	COM1 etc., /dev/ttyS0 etc.	Port for PAD output
baudrate	String	9600, 19200, 38400, 57600 etc...	RS232-Baudrate
active	Integer	0,1	Activation of the PAD encoder
description	String	...	textual description
monitor_enable	Integer	0,1	activation of the monitor mode
monitor_path	String	...	Index of the HTML-Monitor file

Section [DLx] : Settings Dynamic Label Source x

Command	Parameter-Type	Allowed values	Description
type	String	telnet, tcp, udp-fht, udp-rs232, file, pipe	DL Source
port	String	COM1 etc., /dev/ttyS0 etc, TCP-Port (1024-65535)	Port for DL-Source (rs232/udp/telnet/tcp)
baudrate	String	9600, 19200, 38400, 57600 etc...	RS232-Baudrate
active	Integer	0,1	activation of PAD encoder
description	String	...	Textual decription
password	String	...	Password DL-Source
accept_ip	String	...	Allowed IP addresses (udp/telnet/tcp)
repeat_count	Integer	0-99999	DL repetitions
repeat_time	Integer	0-99999	time between repetitions (MP2-Frames)
priority	Integer	0-99999	minimum display time (s)
period	Integer	0-99999	Update time (s)

Section [MOTx] : Settings MOT Source x

Command	Parameter-Type	Allowed values	Description
type	String	tcp	MOT Source
port	String	TCP-Port (1024-65535)	Port for MOT source
active	Integer	0,1	activation of the PAD encoders
description	String	...	Textueal description
password	String	...	Password DL source
accept_ip	String	...	Allowed IP addresses (udp/telnet/tcp)

Appendix B: Keywords of the file motserv.ini

Section [MOT] : MOT-general settings

Command	Parameter-Type	Allowed values	Description
type	String	tcp	MOT target
pad_host	String	TCP-Port (1024-65535)	Host for MOT-target
pad_port	String	TCP-Port (1024-65535)	Port for MOT-target
transaction_id_start	Integer	0-64000	Start Transport-IDs
transaction_id_size	Integer	0-64000	Number of Transport-IDs
segment_length	Integer	0-64000	MOT-Segmentsize
description	String	...	Textual description

Section [SLOTx] : Settings MOT Source x

Command	Parameter-Type	Allowed values	Description
type	String	basefile, directory, filelist, url, urllist	Sourcetype
active	Integer	0,1	activation of the MOT-Slot
source	String	...	Filepath/Directory/Fileliste
label	String	...	Label for base file
rate	Integer	1-10000	Priority
slideshow	Integer	0,1	Slideshow (Triggertime=now)
description	String	...	Textual description
name	String	...	File name of the Startfile
root	String	...	Receiver root directory
replace	String	...	base directory of the filelist