Do you want to send Now Playing Song Data to the your Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder, from your Radio Automation System? MetaRadio makes this possible. This article explains the setup of MetaRadio and Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder, allowing the current song title and artist to be displayed on your Triton live stream player.

Sending song now-playing information to your Triton Digital Live Stream has clear advantages for your listeners and also your station. Now Playing data enhances the listener experience by allowing them to discover new tracks. You can also use the other output options in MetaRadio to unlocks additional advertising opportunities by displaying promotional messages on your RDS and Digital Radio displays.

Triton Digital are a leading audio streaming provider. In addition to their stream hosting, they also provide ad-insertion and IAB-certified stream analytics. The Station Manager software is a Windows-based stream encoder program, designed to get your audio through to Triton’s servers, including metadata.

In this guide we will be sending data in the STWCue format to Triton Digital. This is an XML payload that contains details about the current track. This cue data can be aligned precisely with your audio in the Station Manager software.

What is MetaRadio?

MetaRadio is software which acts as a connector for your radio station’s metadata. It enables you to send your now playing data to dozens of different types of systems (including Streaming, RDS, and Digital Radio), and also unlocks new opportunities for revenue and promotions by inserting commercial and non-commercial messages between your song data. While many automation systems can send data directly to some of these third party broadcast systems, MetaRadio aims to connect all your systems together and provide advanced features.

MetaRadio takes all the hard work out of connecting your metadata. There’s no need for custom scripting – MetaRadio does everything you need out of the box.

Getting Song Data From your Radio Automation System

Before you can send your song metadata to your Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder, you must first install MetaRadio and connect it to your radio automation system.

MetaRadio has over 30 different input system – including all the major Radio Automation System vendors. If you don’t have reliable metadata available in your automation system, you may like to consider using radio stream fingerprinting software with MetaRadio.

There is a free trial of MetaRadio available so you can test the entire system before committing to purchase.

Preparing your Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder

You also need to prepare to your Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder. The support team at Triton Digital will help you setup Station Manager, including connecting your audio inputs and your streaming output. This must be done before you can continue to connect MetaRadio.

The Station Manager software displays your Mount Name on this main screen. You’ll need this information within MetaRadio.

Your Station Manager software should be on the same network as your MetaRadio PC, so the two systems can communicate. MetaRadio sends data to Triton Digital Station Manager on TCP Port 31314, although this is configurable. Make sure you find the local IP Address of your PC (e.g. 192.168.1.20) – this should be a static IP Address, so it does not change.

This port must be accessible from your PC running MetaRadio, so ensure you have a firewall or VPN configured appropriately between your PC and Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder. You will likely need to add an exception for TCP Port 31314 in the Windows Firewall on your Station Manager PC.

If you install MetaRadio and Station Manager on the same PC, you do not need to worry about IP Addresses and firewalls – simply use the IP Address ‘127.0.0.1’.

Sending Now Playing Data to your Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder

Now we have successfully configured MetaRadio, our Automation System, and our Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder – we are ready to connect all these systems together.

All configuration in this step is done in the MetaRadio Configuration App. By default, the MetaRadio configuration app is available by going to http://127.0.0.1:9606/

MetaRadio’s configuration interface lets you control all settings within MetaRadio.

  • The left contains the menu with various options – including the Input and Output settings.
  • The centre of the screen contains information about your system, including license details, and a summary of the inputs and outputs you have setup.

The options you see available will vary depending on the version you have installed, and the license options you have installed.

In the left menu of MetaRadio, click on “Outputs”. Find your station, and click “Add Output”. Now you can select Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder from the list, and configure its settings.

Click “Add Output System” under the Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder heading. You can now configure your data.

  • Enter the full URL of the Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder, including the IP Address and Port. The default address is http://<station manager pc ip address>:31314/stwcue/metadata
  • The STWCUE Mount Name must exactly match the Mount Name setup in Station Manager.
  • The Username and Password are optional, and not enabled in Station Manager by default.

Click Save, and then click “Apply & Restart” up the top to restart MetaRadio.

The black MetaRadio window will now display a status update whenever a new messages is sent to your streaming encoder.

Checking Your Data

You can now check to see if your data is being received by Triton Digital.

You can use Triton Digital’s Stream Debugger to check the metadata. Simply enter your Mount Name / Callsign, and click ‘Play’. This will display the STWCue data in realtime as it is received by the browser.

You can also check the Triton Digital Player for your station. This URL is in the format (Triton Digital’s support team can provide the full URL to you): https://player.listenlive.co/<station_id>

Advanced users may wish to use the Triton Digital API to inspect the current data. The API call is in this format: https://np.tritondigital.com/public/nowplaying?mountName=<mount_name/callsigm>&numberToFetch=50&eventType=track&rnd=ssssss

If data is not displaying on your live stream, check the following:

  • Check the black MetaRadio status windows for errors
  • Check your network allows connections from your MetaRadio PC to your Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder
  • Check your Triton Digital Station Manager streaming encoder is configured correctly.

Support & Next Steps

Thanks for choosing MetaRadio to manage your now playing song data needs. Make sure you explore all the features, such as station scheduling, message scheduling, and all of our advanced output options. Please get in touch with us if you ever need assistance!

If you have any trouble with this process or it’s not working, please send the MetaRadio log files through to our support team. We’re here to help! You’ll find the support bundle file in MetaRadio’s dashboard.