Providing Remote Control Over Inputs to Distributed Program Bus

The receivers for both the TV and background music audio are located in the rack room with the HAL and are, therefore, connected directly to HAL analog input ports. Let's assume there are three TV audio receivers and five background music receivers.

1. In the I/O palette in the Processing Workspace, locate the Analog Input Ports to which the TV and music receivers are connected and drag their Mic/Line Input blocks into your Processing Map.
2. Customize the Channel names for each block. We'll call the background music channels Classical, Jazz, Soft Rock, Swing, Folk. We'll call the TV inputs College Sports, Professional Sports, and News.

note: These names will serve as the initial DR display names when you link a DR to these inputs.

3. Configure the Sensitivity and Level appropriately for each Mic/Line Input block.

Remember that, in this case, we are providing selection control before the input reaches the Distributed Program Bus.

1. In the Hardware Workspace, add two DR2s to the Hardware Map. Name one of them TV Audio and the other Background Music. A DR2 works well as it contains a Selector control. We could also use a DR3, but we do not need the additional volume control available on a DR3. The manager will be making an input selection only. (For details on working with DRs, click here.)
2. Return to the Processing Workspace and click the DSP tab. In the Selectors category, drag two Selector blocks into the Processing Map, placing one of them to the right of the TV inputs and the other to the right of the Music input blocks.
3. Wire the TV inputs to the TV Selector block. Wire the music inputs to the music Selector block. Customize the names of the inputs on each Selector block.
4. Double-click each Selector block to open their properties dialog boxes.
5. In the Control tab, locate the DR intended for selecting the TV audio and link it to the TV Selector in the Processing Map (by dragging the DR's link icon from the palette and dropping it on the Selector block's link icon). Repeat this process for the DR intended for selecting the background music channel.

note: In this example, the work flow mixes together the configuration of inputs with the creation of control links, but you could configure all of your inputs first and then create your control links.

1. In the DSP palette, locate the Distributed Program Bus (in the Paging/Room Combine category) and drag it into the Processing Map, placing it to the right of the Selector blocks you just configured.
2. Wire the output from each Selector block to the Distributed Program Bus. To do so, simply click a Selector Output node and then click the available DPB input node. Each time you connect a new input to the Distributed Program Bus, a new node is made available.
3. Customize the names of the input nodes on the Distributed Program Bus by clicking the node name and then typing the new name in the text edit box that appears. In this scenario, the two inputs might be called TV and Music.

note: These names will serve as the initial DR display names when you link a DR to these inputs.

There are three zones in this audio system: Bar, Dining Room, Banquet Room.

1. In the DSP palette, locate the Zone Processor block (in the Paging/Room Combine category).
2. Drag three Zone Processor blocks into your Processing Map. For identification, customize the name of each Zone Processor by clicking its name and typing the new name in the text edit box that appears. We'll call them Bar,  Dining Room, and Banquet Room.

As you can see, the Distributed Program Bus is included in each Zone Processor by default.

note: At this point you would configure various aspects of each Zone Processor. But we're going to skip over most of that configuration as this scenario is focused on the Distributed Program Bus. Instead, we'll jump right to giving your end users remote access to the input channels delivered via the Distributed Program Bus. For details on working with Zone Processors, click here.

note: You would also, of course, need to wire the audio to one or more outputs, but we'll skip those steps as well to keep our focus on the Distributed Program Bus.

The Distributed Program Bus delivers to all three zones the TV audio and the music audio selected by the manager. The restaurant staff person in a specific zone then chooses which of these two channels to play. To provide this control, you configure a control link between a DR and the zone's incoming channels.

1. In the Hardware Workspace, configure three DR3s—one for each zone. We've chosen the DR3 as it will also give the end user control over the volume of the TV audio or background music.
2. We'll now walk through the creation of the control link for only one of the zones. In the Processing Workspace, double-click the Bar Zone Processor (in the Processing Map) to display its properties dialog box—which contains a Priority Selector block, a Level block, and a Paging Zone block.
3. Double-click the Priority Selector block to displays its properties, one of which is the selection of input channels for the zone. Notice that this selection list is linkable. To provide end users with control over these channels (TV and Music), you simply link this selection list to a DR.
4. In the Control palette, locate the DR3 intended for the Bar. Link its Selector control to the selection list in the Priority Selector block (by dragging the DR3 Selector link icon and dropping it on the Priority Selector selection list link icon).

There are other parameters to configure (the Priority Inputs, a link between the Level block and the DR3 Level control, and so on), but we'll save those discussions for another topic. As far as providing the restaurant staff with control over playing TV or Music channels (supplied by the Distributed Program Bus), you're done! You would, of course, repeat this process for each of the three zones.