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.

	Full	Express	Freeware	Comments
2 independent music players
Auto/Manual modes
2 independent jingle/ad players
Jingle/advert sub-categories
2 independent button walls
Multiple button wall categories
ASIO driver support
JACK audio support
Track history display
Searchable music database				Sub-string search for title, artist, album and genre.
Music logging
Advert logging
Metadata (eg. ID3 tags) read capability
Metadata editor/write				Provided by Playout Manager
Audio database management software				Playout Manager/Express provides full control of all music, playlists, logging, voicetracking etc.
Automatic start/end cue point calculation				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				Allows the user to manually adjust the cue points from their automatically calculated settings.
Normalisation				Supports peak level and loudness normalizsation. Requires pre-processing by Playout Manager
Playlists
Automated playlist creation
Playlist editor				Provided by Playout Manager/Express.
Automation				Unattended execution of 1 or more playlists with error recovery
Scheduled playlist execution				Ability to run a playlist at a specified date/time
Playlist exchange				Allows playlists to be exchanged between other third party software which supports the m3u playlist format.
Voicetracking				Fully featured editor included in Playout Manager. Includes ability to schedule playback at given date/time
Track Listers				Allows "track now playing" details to appear on your website
Volume controls
Web consoles				Customisable web content.
CD Ripping				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)				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				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				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				Provides the ability for Playout Manager to share media content with Playout Express users via the cloud
File formats
- MPEG 1, Layer 2 .mp2
- MPEG 1, Layer 3 .mp3
- Windows media .wma				Not DRM formats
- PCM/Wave .wav				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
- Free Lossless Audio Codec .flac
- Advanced Audio Codec .aac / .m4a / .mp4				Requires additional 3rd party codecs. Not iTunes DRM protected (.m4p files).
Online Help
User Manual
Licensing
- time limited demo				Freeware version available here for download. Email for information on trialing the full/express versions.
- lease version				12 or 6 month leases
- full unrestricted version				Licensed on a per PC basis.