Muppet Central Radio Upgrades begin Saturday May 3, 2003

[Phillip]

I have some exciting news. We are going to be rolling out several major upgrades to Muppet Central Radio over the course of the next couple weeks. These upgrades are scheduled to be rolled out in two different phases.

Phase 1 will take place this Saturday, May 3. Radio will be down for about 10 hours or so during the maintenance and first phase of the upgrade. I will take MC Radio off-line Friday night at around 12 pm central standard time. If the upgrade goes as planned it will be on-line again around 10-12 hours later on Saturday morning.

Once the station is back on-line this Saturday, I will post in this discussion and announce what the updates are in the first phase of the upgrade. After phase 1 is complete, I will be happy to answer any questions that you have at that time.

Phase 2 of the rollout will happen about two weeks later. I will post more info about this in the near future.

Thank you in advance for your understanding while Muppet Central Radio is down for a short time.

 

[Phillip]

Muppet Central Radio Phase 1 Upgrades

Just a reminder that Muppet Central Radio will be going off-line late tonight around 12 pm central standard time for some upgrades. The station will be back on-line in about 10-12 hours on Saturday if everything goes smoothly.

 

[Phillip]

Re: Muppet Central Radio Phase 1 Upgrades

Muppet Central Radio will be going off-line in about 5 minutes. Then our upgrade will begin.

The station will be back on-line in 10-12 hours. I will post here once radio returns. Click on the "Subscribe to this thread" link below if you would like to receive an e-mail when Muppet Central Radio is back on-line.

 

[Phillip]

Re: Re: Muppet Central Radio Phase 1 Upgrades

Phase 1 of our upgrade is now complete. Muppet Central Radio is back on the air.

Below is a summary of the new features. If you have any questions or feedback, please post in the discussion linked below. More than a hundred hours was spent making these necessary upgrades over the course of the past several months.

Phase 1 of the updates include...

1. As you listen, you should immediatley notice a difference in the sound quality. Every single track has been digitally re-recorded in order to provide the highest quality sound possible over a small radio stream. Because the source file for every track is a higher quality, the resulting overall stream will sound better for all users.

2. In addition to every file having a higher-quality master, every track now streams at a 50% increase in quality and frequency response. Before the upgrade, the station stream was optimized for a 28k modem or higher (streaming was at 16k and topped off at a frequency response of 11,025 Hz). Now the station is optimized for a 33k modem or higher (streaming is at 24k and includes a full frequency response up to 20,050 Hz). You will notice a more filling sound stream and hear nuances in the songs that you likely never heard before.

3. Every song now includes: the full title of the tracks, the singers of the track, and the original album or show that the song originated. As you likely know, we recieve questions frequently asking where particular tracks originate. The new feature should go a long way in helping in this area.

4. In addition to the sound quality of every track being improved, the transitions from one song to another should flow much smoothly. Sometimes when streaming (especially over a slow modem), you may hear a "popping" or "cracking" sound as one track goes to another. This should be greatly reduced. If you do hear this noise in between tracks, please post the song before and after the noise as this will help me to fix the problem. If you don't know what I am talking about here, just ignore point number four. ;-)

I tried to find the right balance of keeping the stream at a small bitrite, but significantly increasing the quality for all users. Keep in mind, this is only phase 1. Phase 2 will be rolled out in a couple weeks and include more enhancements. I will announce the purpose of the phase 2 upgrade after it is complete.

Click here to listen to Muppet Central Radio...

http://www.muppetcentral.com/radio/index.shtml

If you have any questions or comments, please leave your feedback in the discussion linked below.

http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7464

 

[Phillip]

Muppet Central Radio Phase 2 Upgrades

Phase 2 of our Muppet Central Radio upgrades is scheduled for Friday May 16th. Unlike before, the station will not need to be off-line. After the updates are in place, I will post a list of the new features.

 

[Phillip]

Re: Muppet Central Radio Phase 2 Upgrades

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the phase 2 radio upgrades scheduled for today are being put on hold for up to several weeks.

On Wednesday Live365 began to roll out new broadcasting packages for all stations. All broadcasters will be moved to one of these packages on June 1st. However, in between now and then, we cannot update or change our current features with our station, making the phase 2 updates impossible. Basicly, all station features are "frozen" as they are until after June 1st.

If Live365 does offer a way to work around this before June 1st, then the phase 2 updates will happen as soon as possible. For the time being though, the phase 2 updates have been rescheduled for the end of the first week of June. I will post more about the specific time as we get closer.

Thanks for your support as the delay is beyond our control.

 

[Phillip]

Re: Re: Muppet Central Radio Phase 2 Upgrades

Great news! Phase 2 of our Muppet Central Radio upgrades are going to be rolled out sooner than planned. They will begin tomorrow Saturday May 31st.

Unlike before, the station will not need to be off-line. After the updates are in place, I will post a list of the new features in this discussion.

 

[Phillip]

Re: Re: Re: Muppet Central Radio Phase 2 Upgrades

Phase 2 of our upgrade is now complete.

Below is a summary of the new features. If you have any questions or feedback, please post in the discussion linked below. Many hours were spent making these necessary upgrades over the course of the past several months.

Phase 2 of the updates include...

1. More than 10 hours of new music has been added to our rotation. Including Classic Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Muppet Worlds and Fantasy Worlds. Some of these songs are quite rare. We are always trying to provide you, the fan, with rare titles that you either may not have ever heard or titles that you may not have heard in a long time.

I would like to thank several people who have helped with some of these additions. David Ebersole (Gorgon Heap) sent about 30 UK sketches for MC Radio. Scott Johnson (Ol' Buddy Bert) assisted with some tracks from old Sesame records. Jimmy McAllan has sent some of the instrumental versions of Muppet classics played throughout Muppet Vision 3-D.

2. Even though Live365 has never offered sophisticated playlist management software. For the first time, we now have a specialized playlist in place for our station. I have been generating specialized playlists off-line, then converting them to a format that Live365 will recognize. It does require more work and time, but the results are without question worth it. This will offer us a lot of potential and growth for the future.

What does this new playlist mean for you the listener? Basicly, in radio there is a clock for every hour which includes the times when certain songs will play. Every song is assigned to a category. This allows some songs to play more frequently and others to play less. This ensures that a popular hit is played within a specified time-frame, but that songs from the same album aren't played one after another. You may not notice this new feature at first, but after you listen for awhile, you will hear the nice spacing between tracks and artists. Everything has been totally customized for Muppet Central Radio and the genres that we play.

We will continue to update and add new music in the future. Thank you for your support as we have rolled out these major upgrades the past several weeks.

Click here to listen to Muppet Central Radio...

http://www.muppetcentral.com/radio/index.shtml

If you have any questions or comments, please leave your feedback in the discussion linked below. Let us know what you think.

http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7464