RMS II
RMS Rater Application

RMS Rater

• Introduction
• System Requirements
• Software Components
• Software Installation
• Software Setup
• Notes

Introduction

The RMS Rater application lets users SDO rate a set of RMS sound files which have previously been recorded by an RMS Server. RMS Rater lets users listen to an RMS sound file and then SDO rate the sound using an interface similar to that used in the PalmRater application. Once a set of sounds has been rated, the user can generate a "ratings" text file which includes the SDO rating for each sound file. This ratings text file can then be submitted directly to the FMDS system via FTP.

System Requirements

CPU:           Any 680x0 or PowerPC Macintosh, PowerBook, or clone
Memory Usage:  3.0MB
Disk Usage:    2.0MB
Network:       none required
OS:            System 9.1 or later, with CarbonLib 1.6 or later; or OS X 10.2 or later (10.4 or later to use .tgz)

Software Components

• RMS Rater application (v4.5)
• RealNetworks RealPlayer application (v5.0) for Real Audio only; QuickTime for mp4 sounds
• Languages (sample file)
• Broadcasters (sample file)
• Locations (sample file)

Software Installation

1. Copy the application file "RMS Rater" to a folder on the Mac's hard disk.
2. Copy the "Languages", "Broadcasters", and "Locations" files to the same folder that contains the RMS Rater application.
3. Install the RealPlayer application using the installer provided by RealNetworks, Inc.
4. Restart your Mac and rebuild the desktop (restart your Mac and then hold down the Option and Command keys just after the row of icons at the bottom of your screen finishes appearing, but before the desktop windows appear).

Software Setup

Before you can rate sounds with the RMS Rater application, you must first edit the Languages, Broadcasters, and Locations files to include the languages, broadcasters, and locations that are appropriate for your rating session.

The Languages and Broadcasters text files contain a list of the languages and broadcasters, respectively, which are appropriate for your location. The languages and broadcasters listed in these text files will appear in the RMS Rater window, and are used when rating an RMS sound file.

Each line in these files contains a single text string, which is either a language or a broadcaster. Language strings are limited to 4 characters, and Broadcaster strings are limited to 6 characters. Any language and broadcaster strings which exceed these limits will be truncated by RMS Rater. To edit the Languages and Broadcasters files:

1. Quit the RMS Rater application.
2. Open the Languages or Broadcasters file in the BBEdit application. Simply add/change/remove strings from the text file and then save the file. Note that all leading and trailing spaces on a line, as well as blank lines, will be ignored. The next time you run RMS Rater application, it will utilize the new Languages and Broadcasters settings in its SDO rating dialogs.

The Locations text file contains a list of RMS locations and their equivalent FMDS counterparts. In order for you to rate sounds from a given location, it must appear in this file.

Each line in this file contains a text string of the form <RMSlocation> = <FMDSlocation> where <RMSlocation> is a 4 character RMS site code and <FMDSlocation> is the corresponding 3 character FMDS location code. To edit the Locations file:

1. Quit the RMS Rater application.
2. Open the Locations file in the BBEdit application. Simply add/change/remove lines from the text file and then save the file. Note that all leading and trailing spaces on a line will be ignored. The next time you run the RMS Rater application, it will utilize the new Locations mappings when it generates an FMDS observations file.

Notes

• When you run RMS Rater for the first time, you'll notice that it creates 4 folders on your hard disk, in the same location as the Rater application: "_Sounds", "_Sounds Rated", "_For FMDS", and "_For FMDS - Sent". The "_Sounds" folder contains the sound files you wish to SDO rate, and "_Sounds Rated" contains the sound files you've already rated and then recorded via the Generate Ratings File command. "_For FMDS" contains observation files that you've generated, and "_For FMDS - Sent" contains the observation files after the application has FTP'ed them to FMDS.
   
• To use RMS Rater, you must first place the sound files you wish to rate into the "_Sounds" folder. The easiest method for locating the sounds to rate is to use the RMS Web Player to select the set of sound files you're interested in, and then download them from the Web using the Web Player (for more information on how to use the RMS Web Player, refer to the RMS Web Player documentation). Or, to automate this process, your TMO can set up RMS AutoDownloader to provide you with a directory on an FTP server that is automatically refreshed with compressed archives of sounds to rate. In this case, you can use the Fetch Sounds to Rate menu command to fetch (via FTP) the sounds from that folder into the "_Sounds" folder on your local computer. Note that you may place entire folders of sound files into the "_Sounds" folder; these source folders may contain other sub-folders nested to any level. Once you've placed the files to rate in the "_Sounds" folder, run the RMS Rater application, or use the Refresh Sounds List command.

  If you use the Fetch Sounds to Rate option, you may enter the URLs for up to 4 different FTP servers. You can turn On or Off fetching from a particular server by clicking the ENABLED check box next to each URL. At the bottom of the window are check boxes that give you the option to automatically delete files from the FTP server after downloading, and/or automatically delete the downloaded archives after expanding on your local computer.
   

• When the RMS Rater application starts up, it displays a "Sounds to Rate" window containing the list of sounds to be rated. You may zero in on sounds from a specific location using the popup menu, or view sounds from all locations. Sounds which have not yet been rated appear in black text, with no check mark in the first column. Rated sounds appear in blue and have a check mark in the first column. To listen to a sound, select it in the list and click the Play button, or simply double click the sound in the list. RMS Rater will start the RealPlayer or QuickTime application to play the sound.
   
• RMS Rater also displays a SDO Rating section, which is used to rate the currently selected sound. To rate a sound, first select the sound in the list, then use the buttons, popups, and edit fields in the SDO Rating section to enter the rating information for the sound. Once you've filled in the rating information, you need to submit the rating in order for the rating data to be saved. To do this, click the Submit button in the SDO Rating window. Once submitted, the rated sound will be "checked off" and drawn in blue in the "Sounds to Rate" window. Note that once a sound is rated, it cannot be re-rated.
   
• As a shortcut, you may click the 'Submit, Then Play' button (or merely type the Return or Enter key) to submit the current rating data and then automatically play the next sound in the list.
   
• There are several shortcuts to entering the SDO rating information using the keyboard. The dark outline focus that appears around the button clusters and edit boxes determines where the keyboard input is directed.
  1. If the focus is around a cluster of buttons, you may type the button label to "push" that button. For example, if the focus is around the Signal buttons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then typing "4" will push the button labelled "4". For convenience, the focus is automatically advanced to the next input area (in this example, to the Degradation button cluster).
  2. For the button clusters that have a blank button, a lower case button, and an upper case button (e.g. " ", "v", "V"), you may type the space bar, the lower case character, or the upper case character respectively to "push" the appropriate button.
  3. You may type the Tab key to skip to the next focus area, and Shift-Tab to go back to the previous focus area.
  4. For Offset data entry, you may click one of the provided buttons (e.g. -10, -5, 0, 5, 10), or just type the offset number into the associated edit box. Typing into the edit box also allows you to enter offsets that are not provided by one of the buttons (e.g. -3).
  5. Typing the Return or Enter key is the same as clicking the "Submit, Then Play" button.
  6. Typing the Up and Down arrow keys changes the selection in the list of sounds (when not focused in an edit box).
     
• You may only rate AM sounds, not FM ones. If you select an FM sound (i.e. a frequency that has a "." in it, implying MHz) you may listen to it, but the SDO Rating section will be disabled.
   
• When you've finished rating the sounds, invoke the Generate Ratings File command in the File menu. The Rater will create a text file that contains the ratings for each of the sounds you've rated for each location. Once the file(s) are generated, each rated sound file in "_Sounds" will automatically be moved to the "_Sounds Rated" folder. In addition, the list of sounds in the "Sounds to Rate" window will update to indicate the rated sounds are no longer available for rating. The Rater will then give you the opportunity to FTP the ratings files to an ftp URL that you specify. You can enter the FMDS "modat_incoming" url to have the files sent to that directory via FTP. After the files are sent to FMDS, they are moved to the "_For FMDS - Sent" folder on your computer. Contact your TMO to determine the correct URL to use when FTP'ing the ratings files to FMDS.