After another cyberattack, we thought it was important to host another disaster recovery session to review your station’s backup workflows and emergency game plan for when disaster strikes. Although we never like to assume bad things will happen, the reality is that in today’s climate, we need to be prepared for anything and with RCS products, we have multiple tools in place to keep your station on the air, playing your commercial inventory and giving your IT / engineering team a chance to properly assess and resolve the situation. During this video, we discussed how your operations can be backed up via Zetta Cloud Based Disaster Recovery, Revma, GSelector Data Exchanges and more.

We’ve covered Zetta Cloud Based Disaster Recovery extensively in the past, so please reference our older video for Zetta Cloud features here.  Meanwhile, let’s refresh ourselves with the Zetta Cloud Disaster Recovery workflow: Utilizing Zetta Site Replication, a Zetta service within the Zetta environment, we upload all audio, metadata, schedules, and backups to your Zetta Cloud instance that is housed within an Amazon Web Service S3 bucket. As in, Zetta Cloud is a piece of software, written for an on AWS, following best practices and securities. It’s not a VM, which is still valuable to cyberattacks.

With all your station’s operations in the cloud, when disaster strikes, enable your Zetta Cloud sequencer, broadcast live from your pre-configured Zetta Cloud encoder URL, usually to your transmitter site, and then continue to operate from Zetta Cloud. When your local machines are back up and running, restore your SQL backups, which will trigger an audio restore based on your current schedule and when you’re ready, make the switch back to your local Zetta system.

In regard to GSelector, don’t forget about Data Exchanges! Treated as an email, send yourself a backup of your GSelector database once a week for a current backup. RCS also maintains an emergency backup copy of your most recent Data Exchange as part of our Data Exchange Recovery. It’s free and included in your GSelector contract. You can always grab an active Data Exchange from rcsworks.com or reach out to RCS Support to help recover an older Data Exchange.

Speaking of RCS Support, we take a lot of pride in making sure you and your station are always up and running, even when disaster strikes, like a cyberattack. If anything does happen, don’t hesitate to reach out to RCS Support and we’ll do our best to get you up and running as soon as we can. Of course, if you have redundant copies of your database in multiple locations, it makes restoring your operations that much quicker and efficient. So, help us to help you by making sure your backups and paths are working correctly.

Remember, you purchase health insurance before you break your leg, not after.

Did you know that RCS is hiring? Media Monitors is looking for an Install Engineer and you can apply on our website: https://www.rcsworks.com/company/careers-at-rcs/ . Plus, we’re always looking for Beta users to test out the new Zetta 5.21.2 features. Feel free to reach out to your local RCS contact to find out more and we’ll see you next week on Facebook Live, Twitch, YouTube, or Twitter Live for another RCS Live!

Did you know that while working in GSelector’s Editor, there are ways to control the Test Bar window? That’s right, using the Station Parameters icon in the Editor, users can customize their Test Bar and in addition, during this week’s RCS Live, we also covered Scheduling Score Thresholds. If you wanted to slightly adjust what is considered the lowest allowed score for your breakable goals and rules, then enable Schedule Scoring Thresholds. Remember, all throughout GSelector, if there’s a desired scheduling outcome, GSelector has a setting for that!

Starting with Station Parameters, we jumped to the Editor and used the calculator with yellow warning sign icon: Station Parameters. Here users can define multiple settings, including Score Threshold, a visual aid attached to the Retest: Show Linear Violations. Users can also customize their F8 Navigation. By default, when users select F8, GSelector will skip to the next Category in the log. There are also options to Apply Category Color to All Fields so that if your Category is red, then GSelector will extend the red color through the entire row.

On the right of the Station Parameters, we have options to adjust the Test Bar Appearances. The Test Bar is a quick and easy way to highlight when an element violates a Closest spin, Vocalist separation or both! Use the up / down arrows to move the desired metadata to the top of the Test Bar. Then, if you want a better visual aid, adjust the color of the Test Bar attribute name and set a Threshold. For example, if you wanted to see if a Vocalist played within 45 minutes of the previous Vocalist, then set the Closest (Vocalist) to 45 minutes, adjust the Appearance (Tools | Global Settings | Appearances | Assignments: For | Test Bar) and then when GSelector identifies a vocalist spin within 45 minutes, it will highlight the field in the Test Bar. This is also a great tool when you’re focusing on Total Hour. Set a Total Time: Over / Under and GSelector will flag that hour if there’s any issues.

Finally, we covered some of the other scheduling thresholds. Treat these as pre-schedule settings. Jumping to the Goals | Priorities tab, use the calculator with yellow warning sign icon, Threshold, to define the Scheduling Threshold and the Attribute Fallback Threshold. By default, GSelector defines a breakable score as 65. Anything below that, like an Unbreakable Rule, features a score of 0. If you wanted to increase that threshold to something like 75, then GSelector will not schedule an element if it has a total goal or rule score below 75. DISCLAIMER: Remember that GSelector has an optimization process included in the schedule, so most programmers want to give GSelector the flexibility to choose the BEST song, not just the next song. If we restrict the scheduler with an aggressive Threshold, you’re not allowing GSelector to do the heavy lifting for you.

We also covered the Fly In Link Demand setting, found under Linker | Related Links | Fly In | Speed Limit icon: Configure Fly-In Link Demand. We encourage users to keep this threshold number big, as to allow GSelector to schedule Fly In Links and then use specific scheduling attributes to control rotations. For example, take The Rolling Stones, the definition of Classic Rock radio. Most likely, they’re part of your power rotation and if you’re using The Rolling Stones Fly In Link related imaging, most likey GSelector will grab those pieces of imaging first since you’re scheduling them first. Set a “The Rolling Stones Imaging” attribute and then assign a Minimum Separation of 3:20 to move the attribute across dayparts and quarter hours.

RCS IS HIRING! We’re looking for a Media Monitors Install Engineer. Found out more and apply at https://www.rcsworks.com/company/careers-at-rcs/ . Otherwise, don’t forget about becoming a Beta user, check those backups, and we’ll see you again next Thursday at 11am ET for another RCS Live!

Para RCS Live de esta semana, nos acompañaron Juan Urena Acosta, ingeniero técnico bilingüe de soporte de RCS y Horacio González, gerente de ventas de RCS, para ayudar a traducir nuestros consejos y trucos semanales para nuestros clientes de habla hispana. Dedicamos una hora a responder sus preguntas y ayudarlo a ofrecer algunas soluciones de flujo de trabajo. Los productos RCS incluyen Zetta, Zetta2GO, Zetta Cloud Based Disaster Recovery, GSelector, Selector2GO y Revma.

Comenzando con Zetta, revisamos cómo Zetta es una solución empresarial en la que varios usuarios pueden trabajar simultáneamente con sus propios diseños deseados. Introdujimos flujos de trabajo modernos como la carga automática de Zetta que puede ingerir archivos MP3, WAV o ACC, realizar un análisis de marcas (configurar los puntos de entrada, salida y separación), guardar el archivo como formato de audio predeterminado, luego realizar la normalización específica de la estación y / o estirar y apretar sin tono.

Con la emisión independiente de Zetta, normalmente alojada en un servidor en la sala de rack, podemos incorporar flujos de trabajo remotos con Zetta2GO. No es una aplicación, sino una verdadera URL con acceso de seguridad adecuado, como una VPN, los usuarios pueden iniciar sesión en Zetta2GO y continuar editando sus registros, pistas de voz, controlar el producto aéreo y activar teclas de acceso rápido con activadores de audio y sin audio.

Un usuario preguntó sobre la redundancia de Zetta. Hablamos de las tiendas de contenido de Zetta con la capacidad de incluir varias tiendas de audio y de respaldo, ya sea con ruta local, UNC o FTP. Sin embargo, con la introducción de la recuperación ante desastres basada en la nube de Zetta, los usuarios ahora pueden tener una solución de redundancia en la nube. Como recordatorio, Zetta Cloud fue escrito para y en Amazon Web Services, siguiendo las mejores prácticas y seguridad. No es una máquina virtual, Zetta Cloud permite al usuario continuar transmitiendo mientras realiza una copia de seguridad de todo su audio, metadatos, horarios y copias de seguridad SQL, lo que permite que su personal de ingeniería o de TI evalúe la situación.

Algunos usuarios incluso mencionaron algunos flujos de trabajo de programación de música con GSelector y Selector2GO. Como recordatorio, cuando se integra con Zetta, Selector2GO puede realizar cambios en vivo en GSelector, que está integrado con Zetta y su Zetta2GO correspondiente. Así que demostramos cómo un usuario podía cambiar una canción en Selector2GO y luego ver el cambio en vivo en Zetta. Como recordatorio, si está buscando soluciones remotas, incorpore la línea RCS de productos 2GO en su flujo de trabajo diario.

En caso de que se haya perdido nuestro otro RCS Live, incluido nuestro RCS Live original: En español, no olvide revisar el RCS Archive: RCS Live Archive: www.rcsworks.com/rcs-live. Volveremos el próximo jueves a las 11 a.m. ET en nuestras plataformas habituales: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter Live y Twitch. Si está buscando una oportunidad profesional única, ¡RCS también está contratando! Media Monitors está buscando un ingeniero de instalación. Si está interesado o conoce a alguien que lo esté, consulte los detalles del trabajo en: https://www.rcsworks.com/company/careers-at-rcs. Finalmente, si está interesado en convertirse en un usuario Beta, comuníquese con su contacto local de RCS. ¡Te veo la proxima semana!

In this week’s RedTech Briefing Philippe Chapot speaks to Philippe Generali, CEO of RCS Worldwide, about trends and projections in the rapidly evolving radio and podcast industries.

Generali shares figures on overall audio growth overall in the United States, emphasizing that radio is “coming back strong,” while the almost US$1-billion podcast industry is becoming bigger than the movie industry. He reminds us however that “if your business is audio entertainment you need to be where your listeners are or you are going to lose them.”

He also provides specifics on the benefits of cloud and virtualization and how RCS is facilitating this transition for broadcasters and audio professionals, as well as the importance to be able to pivot into hybrid work, and more.

General and his team will be attending Radiodays Europe in Lisbon, Oct. 9–11.

Watch the RedTech Briefing below.

After hearing all the positive feedback from last week’s Customizing Zetta Themes & Appearances, we decided to demonstrate how users can also customize their GSelector experience. For this week’s RCS Live, we covered how to change the theme, define individual attributes and user specific appearances, as well as how to assign those appearances across multiple users and stations. Remember, RCS is all about customizing your RCS experience and we want to empower you to tailor GSelector to the way you work.

Starting with themes, users can now adjust multiple themes from Dark Mode, to Blue, Coffee and more. Users can change the themes by going to Tools | Global Settings | Appearances | Style. After that, we reviewed how users can adjust specific attributes from the Goals | Balance or Categories subtabs. Aside from the Define Appearance icon, users can simply edit an appearance by right clicking on the attribute value and select the color. No need to save since it’s a display setting. We encourage programmers to adjust their formatting because there’s always that attribute that requires a visual aid to trigger the user to make note of the transition. In regards to Categories, don’t forget about confirming what your Browse Format has saved – Category Group or Category. In order to assist multi-user environments, we encourage users to keep Category Groups and Categories in a 1:1 ratio to maintain the same or similar color, so that every user knows exactly what is displayed.

But what if your appearance is close to your desired result, but not exactly how you would like it displayed? In that case, why not define your own appearance definition. We’ll return to Tools | Global Settings | Appearances and now we have access to the Definitions subtab. This is where users can edit an existing appearance or create a new one. There are options to customize the Background Color, Foreground Color, Font and Horizontal Alignment.  Moving to the Assignments For subtab, this is where we assign specific user appearances. Make a note of the overall font size icon, as well as options to Import or Export an appearance. We highly encourage users that once you get an appearance layout you love, export it so that you have a redundant copy of your desired appearance. You’ll notice that each assignment is outlined by the corresponding GSelector sections.

After you’ve assigned all the appearances definitions, we took a second to review one last configuration: Settings Persistence, found under Tools | Administration | File | Settings Persistence. This is a unique configuration window that allows administrators to define how their user appearances are shared. We have options for the Editor, Scheduler, and Browse Formats and Dynamic Statistics. Essentially, decide whether you want each section to be User specific, Station Specific or Global.

We’re back again next week for another RCS Live! You can find us on Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and Twitter Live. Don’t forget to check out the RCS Live Archive: www.rcsworks.com/rcs-live. RCS is also hiring! Media Monitors is looking for an Install Engineer. If you’re interested or know someone who is, check out the job details over at: https://www.rcsworks.com/company/careers-at-rcs. Finally, if you’re interested in becoming a Beta user, reach out to your local RCS contact. See you next week!