DPS stands for Digital Playout System.
DPS is capable of playing mp3 files, mp2 files ( if you rename them to .mp3 ) , wav files and
most compressed wave (RIFF) formats.
DPS is capable of reading Wavestation and Myriad style LIST and CART chunk data from wav and compressed wav files on initial import. Fields supported are Artist, Title, Sectone, Intro, endstyle and Category. The success of the inital import depends on the settings used when encoding the tags in the old playout system. If you have files that you know have this info, but DPS won't import it, please contact us.
DPS is capable of reading "Broadcast style" headers on wav files produced in Cool Edit. Support is limited to initial import of Artist, Title, Sectone (in ms from end of cut) and category and level.
DPS will not write to the headers of any wav files. Header writing of information for all dps supported tones is supported, however, for mp2 and mp3. Note this does not mean that you cannot change, for example, the sectone on a wav file. The information is stored elsewhere, thats all.
DPS relies on tonfiles to store data such as Artist, Title and Sectone. These tonfiles are in the dpsdata directory (either the default one - or one you choose) and hold all of the following information in a simple text file (that you may open, for example, with wordpad):
Sectone(fires the next piece of audio)
CueIn (power start point)
DropStart (alternative segue point for sweepers ending in sfx)
DropStop (not implemented)
Intro
Endstyle
Speed
SoftDump(not implemented)
Category
Category Level
Opener
Tertiary tone (opens line in fader)
Artist
Title
Year
HardDiskLocation (of audio)
Filename (of audio)
Volume
Duration
..and more!
Once an item of audio is imported into the DPS library, these tonfiles are used to reference all dat from then on. If you change the tones in a wav, the wav itself is untouched but its corresponding tonfile is updated. For mp3 and mp2, the header of these files is updated as well.
On initial import, if a tonfile has no sectone, or one does not exist then DPS reads the header information from the file itself. If the header was never updated (in the case of wav files) there will be no or even old info to import if you lose the data folder! So its vital to back up the dps data folder (which may even be on a network), especially if you use any number of wav files.