On behalf of the entire Rivendell development team, I'm pleased to announce the release of the first BETA snapshot of Rivendell 2.x, v2.0.0beta0. Rivendell is a full-featured radio automation system targeted for use in professional broadcast environments. It is available under the GNU General Public License. Rivendell 2.x features many changes and improvements over the 1.x series, some of which are highlighted in the NEWS file, excerpted below: *** snip snip *** This is the initial BETA release of Rivendell 2.x. Some of the major changes over 1.x include: MPEG Capture/Playout. Rivendell can now be optionally compiled to support use of MPEG Layer 2 in the core storage library for all audio driver families (ALSA and JACK as well as AudioScience HPI). Web Services Architecture. Many internal services within Rivendell are now implemented via a web services API. Among other benefits, this approach allows these services to be easily accessed by third-party systems by means of the widely support HTTP protocol. Linux User Support. Any 'regular' user account can now access Rivendell; gone is the concept of a single 'Rivendell User' under which all Rivendell operations must occur. Replicators. Rivendell now sports a generic replication interface that can be used to create services to transport audio and other Rivendell data to/from external systems. Many other changes too numerous to list here have occurred as well; see the ChangeLog for details. For a concise summary of changes from the point of view of a system administrator looking to upgrade an existing Rivendell 1.x system to 2.x, see the file 'UPGRADING'. Database Update: This version of Rivendell uses database schema version 199, and will automatically upgrade any earlier versions. To see the current schema version prior to upgrade, see RDAdmin->SystemInfo. As always, be sure to run RDAdmin immediately after upgrading to allow any necessary changes to the database schema to be applied. Due to the complexity of the schema changes required for this update, the process may take significantly longer to execute than is commonly the case; users are cautioned to allow for ample time operationally. *** snip snip *** Please note that this is a BETA release; it is intended primarily for testing and verification. Do NOT put it on the air unless you understand precisely what you are doing. Further information, screenshots and download links are available at: http://www.rivendellaudio.org/ Cheers! |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Frederick F. Gleason, Jr. | Chief Developer | | | Paravel Systems | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. | | -- Leonard Brandwein | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|