Part III — Gathering the fruits
11 · Sound and screen: albums, podcasts, radio and TV
The drum speaks far. What is played under the baobab can reach whoever is on the other side of the river — right now, or kept for later.
Works of sound
A single song is a media saber. But a whole album, a book read aloud or a show that comes out every week are works: they have an order, a cover, people who made each part. Baobáxia has a kind of saber for each — choose the type in ☰ → Create saber:
| Type | For | Parts |
|---|---|---|
| album | a record, a CD, a compilation | tracks |
| audiobook | a book read aloud | chapters |
| podcast | the show (the "series") | episodes, each one a saber |
| episode | one programme of that series | its audio files |
Uploading an album
- ☰ → Create saber, type album, and upload all the album's audio files at once.
- Files usually carry data recorded inside them (the "ID3"): each track's title, number, artists, composers, the album name, the year, the genre, and sometimes the cover. Baobáxia reads it all: each track gets its own line, and what belongs to the album goes up to the saber. An embedded cover becomes the saber's cover.
- Check it in the editor, under Tracks: fix a title, change the order (by dragging or with number in file order), write the lyrics. What you typed by hand is not replaced later.
- With internet, Search MusicBrainz fills in what is missing (the cover too) from the album name and the artist.
The audiobook works the same way: chapters instead of tracks; whoever wrote the text goes under artists and whoever read it under composers/narration.
Podcast and episodes
The podcast is the show: name, cover, description. Each episode is a separate saber, linked to the show (in the form, Show), with a number and a season. The podcast page lists the Episodes in order and offers Listen from the first.
The podcast's RSS feed is an address to paste into a podcast app on your phone: the public episodes arrive on their own.
Listening
Play album (or Listen to the book) puts the whole work in the player, in order. The player shows the cover, the track and who made it — also on the phone's lock screen and on headphones with buttons, which skip to the next one. download → with data takes the file with the title, the number, the artists and the album name written inside: any player elsewhere shows them right.
Channels: the community's radio and TV
A channel is a radio or a TV made from the archive itself. You build the schedule — "Monday to Friday, 7 to 9 am, the morning show with these albums and this podcast" — and the channel plays on its own, every day, at the same time for everyone.
Creating a channel
☰ → Create saber, type channel (radio/TV); choose radio or TV and save. Then, in the editor:
- Schedule — ＋ time slot: the show's name, the weekdays (or one day only), from … to …, and the sources: roots, albums, podcasts, media. shuffle plays the sources in random order.
- Rotation — what plays outside the scheduled slots, in a continuous loop.
- schedule time zone — the channel's clock. It shows on the page as 🌐 UTC−3, next to 📻 or 📺.
When you pick sources, each one shows how many playable items it has and for how long. If a warning appears, the channel will skip that source — hover over it to see why:
- no video — TV only plays videos (an audio album stays out);
- won't play here — the files are not on this mucua;
- not public — the channel only plays what is public (listeners are not logged in);
- empty — it has no audio or video.
The channel's identity
Attach to the channel itself the logo image and the audio (radio) or video (TV) jingles. In Channel identity you give each attachment its role: the logo becomes the channel's cover (and, on TV, can stay as a watermark in the corner of the picture), and the jingles come in every N items, taking turns.
On the channel page these attachments are folded under Content — visitors want to see what is playing, not the files.
Listening and watching
On the channel page: on air (what is playing now, until when), Up next and the day's Schedule, with previous day and next day.
- Listen / Watch plays straight from the files, at the right point — on the mucua's network, no internet needed.
- With Broadcast stream on in the editor, the channel's mucua also produces a stream: an address for a radio app, VLC or a community FM transmitter (open in app).
Channels that are broadcasting show up on the home page, under On air now.
Going live
A channel can Accept live: someone broadcasts from the circle, the festival, the meeting — and while it lasts, the live broadcast takes the schedule's place. When it ends, the schedule comes back on its own.
Three ways to go live:
- from the browser, nothing to install — on the channel page, Go live from here. Choose the camera, the microphone and the Video quality (High 720p, Medium 480p, Light 360p — Light for a weak network), test and Go live. You can switch camera midway (front to back). It needs a secure address (https://);
- from a phone app (Larix, Streamlabs, PRISM, IRL Pro…) or from OBS on a computer: the channel editor has the Server and the Stream key. Whoever edits the channel can change the key or write one that is easy to type in the app;
- over SRT, for bad networks — the address is also in the editor.
The key is like a password: whoever has it can go live on the channel. Don't post it in an open group.
The recording becomes a saber
With Record the live on, when it ends the recording becomes a saber — a media saber or an episode of a podcast (Record as an episode of). It is born private: only whoever created the channel and the mucua's pajés see it. Review it, give it a title, and on the saber page use Publish (or change the visibility in the editor). The recording stays linked to the channel: its page shows recorded on channel and the channel's name.
An hour of recorded TV takes about 1 GB; of radio, around 70 MB.
If the mucua has no radio/TV
Radio and TV are optional: whoever installs the mucua chooses. On a mucua with radio/TV turned off, the channel editor says so, and the channel can be heard on another mucua that broadcasts it.
To talk about in the circle
- What records, songs and spoken stories does the community keep on CDs, tapes, phones? How about turning them into albums and audiobooks, with the cover and the names of who sings?
- What would the community radio's schedule look like? What plays in the morning, what plays at night, who makes this week's show?
- Who can go live — and what goes on air? Agree beforehand, and remember: the recording is born private precisely so the circle can review it.