Interview with Dane Scott.
28 May 2002, 12:48gmt, by , Senior Journalist
From the handing-out-rocks department...

The BeOS Journal recently had time to speak with Dane Scott about his thoughts on TuneTracker, openBeOS, and more...

T.B.J. : Hey Dane! Thanks for allowing us a moment of your precious time as we poke, prod, and cajole our way to answers we're all dying to hear... ;)

In all seriousness though, we do appreciate the many hours you've spent building up BeOS Radio, and the countless hours helping others in and around the BeOS Community.

Dane : Thanks, every minute has been fun.

T.B.J. : Ok, first off the bat... How is the work on TuneTracker progressing? Can you describe how it's doing today, versus your expectations of say, one year ago even?

Dane : We're in great shape. The TuneTracker 2 System is golden now and we're taking orders. We ship June 1st. If people who want to run a pro-quality radio station inexpensively and they don't check out TuneTracker 2, running on BeOS, they'll really be missing the boat.

That's how confident I am in this.

But then again, we made the BeOS community pay for our certainty. Originally we were going to have TT2 ready last Fall, but new ideas for features kept popping into our heads, and little bugs emerged here and there. Ultimately, we decided we'd rather wait until the whole thing had the features we wanted and ran like a top before we even thought about putting it out.

We're at that point now. We've got the product and it's great. Now we just have to communicate that well so the world beats a path to our door.

T.B.J. : As already noted, you run a BeOS centric Radio Station. Please tell us how that began, and if you have the time, some of the troubles you've overcome in it's history.

Dane : During 1999, it was clear to me that BeOS was THE place to do radio automation, but at that time, a few pieces still needed to fall into place to make it happen, chief among them Internet streaming. When Marco Nelissen added that to SoundPlay, I could see the potential to do radio broadcasting. I actually thought about just using SoundPlay initially, but then a thought occurred to me. If we could have an outboard program that handled the playlist in a more radio-like manner, and it was capable of feeding content and sending control commands to SoundPlay, we'd have the best of both worlds; a rock-solid audio engine, and a radio-smart front end.

I started talking about it on leBuzz.com, and ultimately a programmer, Cedric Degea, took me up on the challenge of designing such a system. Our relationship since that day has been nothing short of extraordinary.

We work together so well it's scary. In a little over a month we already had a working version of BRS, the BeOS Radio Scripter, and it was far enough along to allow us to automate a full broadcast day. So in November of 2000, after much planning and work, we launched BeOSRADIO to prove to the world that BeOS truly could do real radio. Over that winter, we refined things a lot, and in the Spring, released TuneTracker.

Also that Spring, after some startling bills arrived for our ISDN service, we were relieved to gain the help of Ben Raymond at Benton R.E.A., who set up a TuneTracker computer at the Benton R.E.A. offices, streaming to three simultaneous bandwidths 24 hours a day. We were thrilled.

Our rebroadcaster, Live365, has since started changing how it provides its service, and we've had to do some fast shuffling to keep up. At present we're down to one low bandwidth signal broadcast from my location while a Benton R.E.A. server computer is repaired. As soon as that's resolved, people should again be able to grab whichever of three bandwidths they like.

The other Spring 2001 milestone was the addition of Neil Morris, who wrote news for us, and ultimately took over news reporting duties as well. Neil has beome a good friend, and I'd be lost without him. He lives near London, so his cool accent gives us a nice international flavor.

One of the real success stories of BeOSRADIO is its consistency. BeOSRADIO has run 24/7 for a year and a half, and I can't even tell you the last time it failed. It just runs and runs and runs. So our little BRS Radio Scripter project and BeOSRADIO have achieved their objective, proving without a doubt that BeOS is an incredibly good platform for radio automation.

T.B.J. : What brought you to use BeOS in the first place, and how long have you been using it?

Dane : In 1998, I saw a demonstration on an old cable network called PC Television or something. A demo was being done of BeOS which touted it for its smooth media handling capabilities. After looking into it, I purchased BeOS 3 in the Fall, and received the PC-compatible BeOS 4 upgrade in January 1999. I loved it right away, and just a month later started lebuzz.com to help promote BeOS as a great place to do audio work.

T.B.J. : What is your background education in Broadcasting?

Dane : After college, I did a one year stint at Brown Institute of Broadcasting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then took my first radio job.

T.B.J. : How long have you been a "broadcaster"?

Dane : Since 1976. I'm, 46 now, by the way. May as well get that out in the open so everybody can get over the shock. :-)

T.B.J. : Can you share some of your thoughts on your immediate future? What sorts of projects would you like to announce (at this time) that are associated with BeOS?

Dane : It's just in the talking stages right now, but we may release a concurrent version of TuneTracker eventually called TuneTracker 2 Pro, which has even more features and is aimed squarely at commercial broadcast operations.

If we do it, it will likely be able to interface with satelite music services, take control pulses from outside devices, integrate data from commercial traffic software, etc. We're also looking at making TuneTracker skinnable, which is more for eye-appeal than anything else. Personally, I like it just the way it is, but some folks love to make skins, and lots of people love to use them, so we may accommodate that need.

T.B.J. : What do you think of the openBeOS project?

Dane : I love it. Wish there was just the one, though. I feel too much developer time is being lost on little side efforts right now. My hope is that, sooner rather than later, developers working on other alternatives will wholeheartedly join the OpenBeOS effort and help accelerate that one instead.

T.B.J. : How did your involvement with BeOS change after the famed "focus shift"?

Dane : It really didn't change at all. My heart sunk at the news along with everyone else's, but the very fact that we didn't even *start* TuneTracker until later that year demonstrates how much I still believe in BeOS' potential and its future.

T.B.J. : What do you think of BeShare?

Dane : It's the best thing since sliced bread, and everybody who has any interest in BeOS ought to check it out. It's the place to be if you're into BeOS.

It also demonstrates how incredibly nice the BeOS community is. Having been involved in this crowd and also the Amiga crowd, the difference is like night and day.

T.B.J. : What would you say to a person who was new to BeOS, and wanted to know how to start using this amazing operating system?

Dane : I'd say, forget all about the fact there's no company behind BeOS anymore. It's totally irrelevant. BeOS 5 PE is so incredibly good, and the help from BeOS gurus in BeShare is so immediate and complete that company support is just plain not needed.

Even if new hardware comes out which is not supported, there will always be new and used hardware that it works great on, and bargain basement prices. And if the OBOS project succeeds, BeOS will live on for many many many years to come.

T.B.J. : Thanks again Dane. It's been a real pleasure. We look forward to seeing you in and around the community. Till next time, peace out!

Dane : My pleasure.

Dane Scott is the owner and operator of BeOS Radio, as well as lead contributor and founding member of LeBuzz.com, and BeOSRadio.com. He is quick to respond to email, and is quite active with BeShare, usually popping in daily to help out the BeOS Community.