Playout Feature Comparison

This table provides a comparison of the 3 versions of OAS Playout which are available. The Full and Lite 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	Lite	Freeware	Comments
2 independent music players
Auto/Manual modes
2 independent jingle/ad players
Jingle/advert sub-categories
2 independent button walls				Only a single wall (the "floating" button wall) is active on displays less than 1280x1024.
Multiple button wall categories
ASIO driver 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 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				Requires pre-processing by Playout Manager
Playlists
Automated playlist creation
Playlist editor				Provided by Playout Manager. Lite version supports use of third party created m3u playlists which can then be executed by Playout.
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. Lite version supports this directly whilst Playout Manager in the full version provides an m3u import/export capability.
Voicetracking				Fully featured editor included in Playout Manager. Includes ability to schedule playback at given date/time
User profiles				Presenter can customise which categories of audio are available for selection.
Track Listers				Allows "track now playing" details to appear on your website
Volume controls				Only available in display modes of 1280x1024 & higher
Speed controls				Only available in display modes of 1280x1024 & higher
Scrolling message				Only available in display modes of 1280x1024 & higher. Text is only configurable in the full version.
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, some free capable packages which can achieve this notably Shoutcast.
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 version.
- lease version				12 or 6 month leases
- full unrestricted version				Licensed on a per PC basis.