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'''Presenters First: A Unified Computing Experience''' was the title given to URY's [[SRA]] Best Technical Achievement candidate for the 2012 awards.  It was nominated, but didn't win.
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[[Category:In-jokes]]
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[[Category:Computing]]
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[[Category:Awards]]
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'''Less black and more graphics''' is a [[Computing]] Team [[in-joke]], originating from the [[SRAs]] 2012.
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The name was a tongue-in-cheek reference to [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Objects-First-Java-Practical-Introduction/dp/0132835541 Objects First with Java: A Practical Introduction using BlueJ], one of the then recommended textbooks for the first year of the Computer Science course.
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== Origin ==
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The judges notably offered very vague praise for the nomination (while not awarding it anything), instead professing that the systems required [[less black and more graphics]].
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It comes from the rather terse feedback from Computing Team's 2012 Best Technical Achievement entry, [[Presenters First: A Unified Computing Experience]], which is confusingly itself an in-joke. Quoted for posterity:
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== Contents ==
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<blockquote>
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Subject: The Student Radio Association - Awards Feedback (URY (Best Technical Achievement) - Presenters First: A Unified Computing Experience)<br />
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Date: 2012-12-11 15:02<br />
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From: Student Radio Awards Judges <awards@studentradio.org.uk><br />
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To: matt.windsor@ury.org.uk<br />
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<br />
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THE STUDENT RADIO ASSOCIATION - AWARDS FEEDBACK (URY (BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT) - PRESENTERS FIRST: A UNIFIED COMPUTING EXPERIENCE)<br />
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<br />
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Hi [[Matt Windsor]],<br />
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<br />
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Firstly, we're sorry that this feedback process has taken slightly longer than we would originally had hoped.<br />
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<br />
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Below you will find the feedback for 'PRESENTERS FIRST: A UNIFIED COMPUTING EXPERIENCE' that you entered into the 'BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT' category for the Student Radio Awards 2012. Depending on the  category, you may have more than one piece of feedback from different judges. To protect the judges anonymity, their names are not included. If you entered this category on behalf of someone else, please forward this on to the participants!<br />
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<br />
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* A well thought through [[Show Planner|playout system and broadcast work flow manager]]
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* Excellent system, nice use of HTML5.
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* A lot of time and effort and clearly gone in to creating this system and it does quite a few clever things. However, it slightly feels as though the system is trying to be all things to all people. Future development should perhaps focus on making the user interface more friendly ('''less black, more graphics''', standard symbolic buttons etc).
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<br />
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If you would like more information please reply to this email, where someone will get back to you.<br />
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<br />
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Many Thanks - The Student Radio Association Ltd<br />
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The Student Radio Association Ltd, a company Registered in England and Wales as a Company Limited by Guarantee, No. 06419104. VAT Registration No. 919 2489 90<br />
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Registered Office: c/o The Radio Academy, 3rd Floor, 55 New Oxford Street, London, WC1A 1BS
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</blockquote>
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This year, URY’s computing team have developed alongside the station as a whole, and its work over the 2011/12 year contributes to our belief that URY is the best student radio station in the country. By focusing on the presenters, the URY computing team have begun to transform the services that keep URY presenters on the air and with all they need to produce and present shows at their fingertips, with the aim of creating a generation of confident and content presenters who, in turn, can create great radio.
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== Controversy ==
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The URY studio clock system was developed this year and provides presenters and producers with at-a-glance information about not only the current time but the on-air status of the studios, the next shows in the schedule, and a reminder for presenters to cue-in the hourly news bulletins. Contributions such as this help presenters to effortlessly tie their shows in with the upcoming shows and bulletins, and thus allow for a higher standard of radio professionalism.
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Much was made of the SRA judges' decree that URY's computing services would be improved by less black and more graphics. It was pointed out that less black would reduce contrast (thus making it harder to read things) and more graphics would clutter the user interfaces up (thus making it harder to read things).
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The URY Studio Information System (SIS), a one-stop shop for presenters to access a wealth of information whilst inside the studio, was rebuilt and relaunched this year. This system allows presenters to view presenter information bulletins which allow the station management to keep in touch with presenters as well as providing news about competitions, local events and upcoming shows that presenters should plug on-air, the upcoming station schedule, news reports, and messages from listeners. The SIS represents a great effort to centralise all information a presenter needs in-studio and provide it in an intuitive and clean interface that presenters can easily pick up and use frequently; this in turn helps presenters make their shows more relevant to current affairs and makes URY a two-way experience for presenters and listeners.
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The other potential issue with this observation was that URY's branding at the time was, in fact, predominantly black. This email therefore specified that we would've won the award if we changed our corporate branding - something which is of course directly under the remit of "Best Technical Achievement".
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The URY Jukebox (iTones), re-written from scratch in Liquidsoap - a programming language and piece of software designed specifically for radio broadcasting. It has a series of playlists that are automatically selected from programmable ratios, including a watershed playlist and jingles that play every fifteen minutes. Dead air is combated with automatic silence detection which warns the presenters and eventually automatically switches the output back to Jukebox. Smart crossfading feature and volume equalisation using replaygain calculation provide a professional radio output. It also features a campus playout stream which allows approved shows to be broadcast into the campus bars that usually play exclusively URY Jukebox.
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A retort was sent, but not replied to. Possibly.
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The playlists for jukebox and the station as a whole are controlled centrally from a web interface front-end that integrates directly with our central music database, with autocompletion when searching for tracks and playlist revision management. The web tool also includes a requests system as well for our music team for one-off plays.
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We also developed a new online show planner, which integrates with our current custom playout system. This allows presenters to create and arrange their shows in three channels from library tracks, beds & jingles. Everything can be previewed securely from within the browser to allow full show practice and cueing preparation. As we add more and more features, we are looking towards replacing the main playout software, with a modified studio version of this which integrates fully with our broadcast mixing desk, with multiple channel outputs, auto starts and automatic track cueing.
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One of the major focuses of the team over the year, however, has been security. After a security breach of the station’s website halfway through the academic year, the decision was taken to completely rebuild our main server from scratch. We have worked to unify the log-in procedure within the internal pages of the site, saving our members from having to sign-in multiple times when navigating between different services and thus helping them use URY’s computing facilities more efficiently and productively whilst the single source of back-end code helps the computing team avoid repeated or unnecessary code, with the reduced risk of bugs or security holes. We have also implemented backup procedures for all our essential data allowing for much easier disaster recovery when things go wrong.
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[[Category: Computing]]
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[[Category: SRAs]]
 
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