Stereo Tool

I've requested this before, just re-submitting it in case it was forgotten.

Radiotext+ (RT) is a feature in some FM Radio receivers in cars, phones, and media players that allow a station's radiotext string to be converted into a song tag. An example of RT+ is below:


While the image is of an HD Radio station, the metadata shown below is the same.

The radiotext is the same, with some new bits added to the RDS stream to indicate where a song title starts, length, artist name, length, etc. An example of this can be found here:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
<rds>
    <group type="0A">
....Normal RDS things.....
    </group>
    <group type="2A">
        <field name="Text_AB" type="bool">false</field>
        <field name="RadioText" type="string">Playing: SONG NAME by ARTIST</field>
    </group>
    <group type="3A">
    </group>
    <group type="11A">
        <field name="ToggleBit" type="bool">false</field>
        <field name="RunningBit" type="bool">true</field>
        <field name="Type1" type="int">1</field>
        <field name="Start1" type="int">9</field>
        <field name="Length1" type="int">11</field>
        <field name="Type2" type="int">4</field>
        <field name="Start2" type="int">20</field>
        <field name="Length2" type="int">7</field>
    </group>
</rds>

Documentation can be found here, and here.

It would be a great feature to have in Stereo Tool. If you get around to implementing it, and need help testing it, let me know.

I would definitely need your help because I don't have a receiver that understand RT+. The biggest problem is how I can add it to my RDS strings. Once I know which character is the start of something (for example a song name) and how long it is it should be easy enough to transmit that.

Maybe something like this could work:

\X1=Madonna\x
Where 1 could also be replaced by artist:
\Xartist=Madonna\x

For this to really work well I also need a better way to inject RDS strings. I'm currently working on the web interface, which - if I can make it easier to access for external programs - might be a good candidate for that.

The Radiotext string itself is unaltered from what I understand, it is the bits in the ODA that define the start (offset from "0"), length of each "field".

EDIT: I think I see what you mean now, what would be put in by the user to denote the start and end, from say, something like AMIP, or what I use in Linux to update the RDS string... that would be interesting, perhaps provide both the usual RDS text input with specuial escape characters; and maybe another input with 2-3 feilds e.g "Song title", "Artist", "Album"?

I think alone the XML file for altering data in RDS data groups would be awesome. Now Stereo Tool's RDS transmits minimal amount of data that just and just is enough for normal operation. And fast reaction time for new data would also be cool. Now even the update for Radiotext takes forever (30 seconds or more?) to take action.

For RT put 5s: in front of it and it will switch in a few seconds...

Yeah, I noticed ST RDS updates are kind of slow. I'll have to try the 5 second refresh idea.

Anyway, any progress on the implementation of RDS+? Been meaning to ask, but didn't have an excuse to bump this thread.

Just added it. For now it only works if you use a single RT line. Will be available in the next beta.

Ooh! I can't wait to see it in action. How exactly does it work? I still have a crappy CZH FM transmitter lying around. I'll test it on my Zune HD once this beta comes out.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5910&p=29085#p29085

Note: For now it only works with a static text!

Cool! I'll get to testing later tonight, and report my results. So, what's the syntax for separating a title from artist, etc?