ENCO

["Rob Walker" <robanddella@bendcable.com>]

Hi Guys ... I too have been subjected to the "horrors of ENCO". After the
last few years of working with Prophet and Scott Studios, I agree that ENCO,
by far, is the worst system I've ever seen for live assist. And ENCO's tech
support? Forget about it.

To answer a few points that I've seen in this thread, you can set up Scott
to accept a voice track when you build the clocks in Selector (or whatever
music scheduling software you use.)
Simply build a breaknote in each talk position, and instead of making it a
"com" line, make it a "vtk" or "vto" (depending on your system) and when you
open the log, there will be a ready-made voice track avail in each talk
spot. If you don't use it, just delete it. It saves having to go back and
re-edit the log when you need to voice track in a hurry.

As far as ENCO goes, I'm fed up to the point of putting it in a box and
shipping it back. I agree that it does great things in a fully automated
satellite environment, but as a live assist box, it's lacking in the
creature comforts that make Scott a joy to use.

Here's some of the issues I've found with it:

Element to Element navigation is poor. When in the "master log" screen, the
default for my 3 music stations, the operator has no way to easily find and
insert a specific element, unless it's added to an array panel.

There's no way to simply add an element into the active log by keying in a
cart number.

There's no way to time stamp the log with "actual" air times, to see where
you are in the hour. The ENCO system uses the "projected times" that are
imported with the music scheduler, and if you add an element, it does not
increase the time, it just is assigned a "position number". Very confusing.

The ENCO system was originally designed to play music and sfx in sporting
arenas via touch screen. For Hockey games, I'd give it a thumbs up. For
mission critical radio, it's a great idea that was executed poorly.

I know not many people on this list are "Clear Channel supporters", but
after spending a while working for them, I can say that they have the
digital automation tiger by the tail. Not only is the PSI Prophet system
robust and stable, but the features that some of the Clear Channel
workstations have, are sheer genius. The way that stations can share logs
and talent across the WAN may seem like the end of the local "Disc Jockey"
to some, but if you're a teach geek, like me, the work that went into that
system to make it happen simply blows my mind.

Anyway, I'm sorry about the Anti-ENCO rant, I've just had it up to my ears
with the thing, and would love to actually have someone with a shred of
customer service skill answer the tech support phone, so I could tell them
what I really think.

Have a great weekend.

Rob Walker
Bend Oregon