This article applies to terrestrial radio stations using Station Manager with RAS Adapter to stream their audio to the internet via the Triton Streaming Network.
Also see: Create a triggered whiteout in RAS Adapter.
A “whiteout” is a period of time in which the station’s audio stream is sent to the internet without interruption from digital ad insertion. Typically, you use a whiteout during a broadcast of a special event, such as a concert or a sports event, in which you want the full event to be streamed, uninterrupted.
There are two kinds of whiteout that you can create with RAS Adapter:
A timed whiteout, in which the whiteout occurs according to a schedule that you create. Instructions for this method are found below.
A triggered whiteout, in which the whiteout occurs when triggered by a data event from your station’s RAS. Instructions for this method are found in this article.
The instructions below use the example case of a 90-minute (5400 second) whiteout created for a recurring event every Saturday evening. The work is done in Station Manager, on the computer connected to your broadcast stream and RAS. The RAS chain you see in your installation might differ from the illustrations below.
To create a timed whiteout in RAS Adapter:
In Station Manager, go to the RAS Adapter tab.
Click in the blank space to the right of your RAS chain to highlight the chain and make the menu buttons appear at the bottom.
Click the Pencil icon (Modify RAS Chain).
In the Edit RAS Chain window that appears, click the + button at the bottom to add a new processor element to the chain.
From the dropdown menu for the processor type, select Timed Drop.
The whiteout event configuration components appear. If this is not the first timed whiteout created on this system you will see the previous whiteouts.Enter the whiteout events:
Name = A description of the event
Start Date/ Start Time = When you want the event to start, using the 24-hour clock (e.g., 3:00PM would be 15:00)
Duration = How long you want this event to last (in seconds)
Day of the Week = Which days of the week the event should occur (if this is a recurring event)
End Date = What day this event should expire (important if this is a recurring event)
In the example below, the event is a 90-minute whiteout Called “Blork Reunion Concerts” that occurs every Saturday starting at 19:00.
Click Save.
The Timed Drop is saved and appears in your RAS chain.
Notes:
For a one-time event, you can enter the precise date and time you want the whiteout to start. It is not necessary to select the day of the week.
Use the day-of-the-week selectors when creating a repeating event that occurs on the same day(s) every week. You have the option of including an end-date, or you can leave it open to run indefinitely or until you edit or delete the RAS chain element.
Optional Abort Triggers
When you create timed whiteouts, you have the option of creating triggers that can be used to abort the whiteout at any time. The abort trigger is sent from your RAS.
There are two kinds of abort triggers:
Master abort trigger: a single trigger that will abort any configured whiteout.
Event abort trigger: a trigger that is specific to a configured whiteout event and will only abort that event.
Regardless of the type, abort triggers are composed of two things:
Abort key: choose the type of key (from the RAS Adapter mappings) that will trigger the abort.
Abort value: choose the value that will trigger the abort. This can be any short string, such as ABORT WEEKEND EVENT.
Example
The image below shows:
Master abort trigger, using the cue_title key and ABORT ALL value.
Event abort trigger section of Whiteout events.
Event abort trigger for the third event, using the cue_title key and ABORT WEEKEND EVENT value (you cannot see the full value in this image).
