31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project1 Hospital Radio Interactive Play-out System Jonathan Hart Supervisor: Dr John Cosmas

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project2 Presentation Outline Introduction Aim and Objectives General Requirements Research Results System Design Web Application Design Future work Project Schedule Questions

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project3 Introduction What is it? An automated system by which music can be selected from a database and played on demand Why? Hospital Radio stations only broadcast live material when volunteers are available The remainder of the time a random selection of music is played Who would use it? Hospital Patients Hospital Staff Radio station volunteers

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project4 Aim and Objectives Objectives: Investigate existing systems Preliminary research Research suitable database systems Produce system specification Design system Implement system Test system Produce project report (including user documentation) Aim: To develop an interactive web based ‘on demand’ play-out system by which hospital patients and staff can browse a record database and submit record requests

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project5 General Requirements Simple, easy to use user interface Low development cost Implementation of project at Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow Utilise existing infrastructure:-  Two Pentium servers  Linux operating system  NHSnet connection (NHS Intranet)  Audio broadcast system (Medium Wave and PatientLine)  PatientLine terminals Incorporate existing record library database (30,000+ records)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project6 Research – Existing systems Commercial products Good User interface ‘Networkable’  Mostly assisted play-out systems  Expensive! FOR MORE INFO... Interim Report – Appendix I (Section 8.1) Open source products Cheap (Free!) Source code available  Poor user interface  Tend to be ‘personal’ play-out systems, not multi-user

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project7 Research - PatientLine Terminals Network of terminals by patients bedside (Two models in use T1 and T2) 16 Television channels (ITVdigital) Pay-per-view movies (T2 only) Internet Access (T2 only) Telephone (Incoming & Outgoing) 6 Radio stations Talking books (T2 only) Games (T2 only) Patients medical record information (T2 only) FOR MORE INFO... Interim Report – Appendix I (Section 8.3) PatientLine T2 Terminal

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project8 Research - PatientLine Terminals Majority of listeners will access the play-out system from T2 terminals T2 web browser compatibility Genie v3.0 (customised version of Microsoft Personal Internet Explorer) Audio distribution Use existing radio channel Shared between listeners FOR MORE INFO... Interim Report – Appendix I (Section 8.3 & Section 8.5)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project9 Research – Database Systems Open Source database systems No cost Well supported and documented Large user base Database Requirements Fast Efficient Web interface Large storage capability mySQL - 2^63 maximum table size = 8 million terabytes Practical limit – Hard disk Size (100 Gigabyte = 25 thousand audio files) (based on MP3 file format, 160 Kbps sampling rate, 3 minutes length)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project10 System Design Web clients Client terminals that are used to access the system

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project11 System Design Web server Runs web application software Handles all client web browser requests Retrieves record database information from audio database server

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project12 System Design Audio Database server Stores record database and digital audio files Daemon (background software process) runs on this server and outputs the listeners choice of music ‘on-demand’

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project13 System Design PatientLine switch room Distributes audio and data to PatientLine terminals Data connection to web server (Ethernet) Audio connection to audio server (Balanced Stereo)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project14 System Design 945MW Transmitter Broadcasts to a network of induction loops Amplitude modulated on 945kHz carrier wave Audio connection to audio server (Balanced Mono)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project15 System Design

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project16 System Design Web clients Client terminals that are used to access the system Web server Runs web application software Handles all client web browser requests Retrieves record database information from audio database server Audio Database server Hold record database and digital audio files Daemon (background software process) runs on this server and outputs the listeners choice of music ‘on-demand’

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project17 System Design (continued) PatientLine switch room Distributes audio and data to PatientLine terminals Data connection to web server (Ethernet) Audio connection to audio server (Balanced Stereo) 945MW Transmitter Broadcasts to network of induction loops Amplitude modulated on 945kHz carrier wave Audio connection to audio server (Balanced Mono)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project18 Web Application Specification Support different user access levels Public, Presenter, Library administrator, System Administrator ‘Manual’ Request facility for recordings not available for play-out Maintain statistics on records (Nº times played, last played) Intelligent system to prevent the same artiste or recording from being played repeatedly Play-list generation for presenters Reports –Top played recordings –Music log (of all recordings played) Administration interface FOR MORE INFO... Interim Report – System specification (Section 5)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project19 Web Application Design Public user view system flow Each box represents a module in the web application FOR MORE INFO... Interim Report – Web application overview (Section 6.3)

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project20 Future work Implementation will be carried out in two stages Implementation of web application Implementation of audio server daemon Test system Feedback from users Produce user documentation Produce final report

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project21 Schedule Overview of project schedule FOR MORE INFO... Interim report – Project schedule (Section 9.5) JanFebMarAprMay Web Application Audio daemon Testing Documentation

31/1/2002Brunel University - BEng Final Year Project22 Questions?