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BARRCODE, the U.K.'s leading suppliers of broadcast sofware for radio.

Barrcode are Digital Radio Software Specialists

Our clients include the Capital Radio Group & GWR Radio Group.


Background

Barrcode is a limited company based in Norwich in the UK. For the past ten years it has been producing software especially tailored to the needs of British radio. Early products included sophisticated C.D. Jukebox play-out systems used by both commercial radio and the BBC. Later this was followed by some of the first ground-breaking hard-disc technology that could be used to playback ad-breaks and jingles etc.

Now, Barrcode has produced state-of-the-art software that is being used by some of the major radio stations in the UK. Among these is the Capital Radio Group, which is using the "BRIAN" Digital Editor to record and edit all the on-air material (adverts, jingles, news & sport), and then play the material to air using the "BCX II" studio play-out system. With full network compatibility, audio can be quickly and easily recorded and edited at one location, then played out from another terminal seconds later. aptX Digital compression is used that makes the most economical use of server space, and makes the transmission of files over data links possible.

BCX3

BCX3 is the latest product from the Barrcode stable. It is a flexible Windows(tm) based playout system for the radio industry.

Four ports allow the presenter to cue up jingles, music and ads. Each port has a countdown clock showing how much of the audio track is left to play. Up to eight items can be loaded to each port and these can be automatically sequenced without any DJ intervention. BCX3 computes the optimum crossover point in each track automatically. Comprehensive search facilities allow the presenter to find any music track within seconds.

Barrcode began developing BCX almost a decade ago. In that time, BCX and BCX2 have evolved into one of the most successful play-out systems available in the UK today and used in many prominent radio stations. With Barrcode's extensive experience of audio media, and its unique policy of pro-actively responding to feedback from clients, BCX3 has been developed to fulfill a broad range of applications. Not only will BCX3 sit comfortably in a radio studio of DJ console, but using its intelligent automation capabilities can provide an uninterrupted source of material for background music applications.

Although BCX is designed to run under Microsoft Windows®, a key design feature is the absence of 'geekiness' found in generic PC applications. It has been designed to be operated by virtually anyone, with the minimum of training. If we've done our job properly, you will grasp how BCX3 works without having to wade through the comprehensive manual that comes with the software.

BCX3 Bronze

Plays MP2, MP3 and Wavs.
Load, save and create playlists.
Create button boxes with user definable colour.
Create artist/song title database.
CD ripping with FreeDB automatic titling.
Audio recorder.
Auto playback of playlists.
Automatic intelligent out-point and start-point marking of audio.
Four playback ports with queuing of eight items per port.
Cross fade between items in a port.
Execution of commands when audio starts and ends.
Fader starts possible from parallel port or game port.
Execution of commands at pre-defined times (10 commands available).
Programmable on screen clock.

BCX3 Silver
All of the above plus
Voice tracking in playlists (Record your voice-links between playlist items with rehearsal)
Networking of several BCX3s using I.P. (Send commands from a machine to one or all machines)
Logging of all audio played to user definable format logs.
Transmission of audio played to Radio Data System encoders.
Importing of third party format playlists and adlogs.
Auto scheduling of music for total automation.
Input & output of serial data as commands or character sequences with user definable translation to BCX3 commands
Execution of commands at pre-defined times (100 commands available).
Control of split commercial BCX3s from a single or multiple studio machines.
Support for twin screen computers.
Built-in web server to retrieve BCX status.
Built-in time server to synchronise all BCXs to same time.
Language translation feature - program BCX3 to show your language.
Instant play feature - click a button in the button box and audio will instantly start.
Weather information for your area supplied on the time panel direct from The Weather Channel web site.

BCX3 Gold
All of the above plus
Time stretching / shrinking. This lets BCX fit your audio to the hour with no fade outs that interrupt someone's favorite song.
File path management and backup. Allows audio paths on servers and local drives to be collected. The audio on servers can then be downloaded to the local machine for repeated playback. This frees up network bandwidth. If a file on the server changes, the new file will be played from there until this new file is cached to the local machine.
Two screen operation, shows the button box permanently for fast access.

Please note: BCX3 is licenced on a per machine basis. If you want to run it on multiple machines, you will have to purchase multiple licenses. Volume discounts are available.

Download free Brian II Trial Brian II System - (2.45Mb exe) Brian II System Man - (PDF)

BRIAN II

Brian II Broadcast Digital Editor
The Brian audio editor and presentation application, now with multitrack mixing in the Brian II version is highly popular for radio programme production and in news facilities. The latest version, for Windows 2000 or XP, uses high-quality linear digital recording, and has been developed to work with modern digital media.

Specifically designed for use in newsrooms, by developers with years of personal experience working within that environment, Brian has features offering real benefits to such operations. Crucially, Brian uses non-destructive editing. An audio file is acquired by whatever means, and loaded onto the system. Each edited “version” made after this, say for different news slots or programmes, is an “edit decision list”, the original is untouched. Thus the original does not end up lost or damaged due to multiple users requiring different parts of the same audio. When networked it is perfectly acceptable for multiple desktop machines to “edit” and replay the same file simultaneously, limited mainly by the capabilities of the server machine and network infrastructure. Audio files can be shared on any storage volume to which a drive may be mapped and written from Windows by the client machines concerned. Brian II can also be used on a stand-alone machine.

The user-interface is a high contrast design, with a large horizontal view of the wave form in use, underneath which are panels which may be selected to show lists of files, clip-lists, or “button box” representing a familiar array of remote-start buttons. Clips for use in a bulletin can be pre-assigned then fired as required during live presentation by clicking the clip concerned, then clicking “play”, or may be played in order as assigned by simply clicking the play button for the next clip. Clips can be assigned to the “button box” which then can be clicked as if they were remote start buttons, or even remote controlled with “real” buttons to avoid using a mouse while presenting.

Editing is intuitive. A visual representation of the audio is provided as a waveform which can be "zoomed" in on to mark edit points. Different kinds of edits can be used to remove sections, or lift out clips for individual use, or to make a “package” or a “vox-pop”.