I have read from the beginning of my SAM Broadcaster use to not use your station computer for anything besides your station. Somehow it contaminates your stream.

Does the restart of your encoders fix that?

Do you need to restart SAM?

Do you need to restart your entire computer?

I have a couple of applications that I need to share files with SAM. I use Remote PC to add a couple of programs and files produced and downloaded on another PC.

I have heard the degradation of the sound. But need to use the background applications.

Anything else I can do?

That's mostly historic information.
Back when SAM was built computers only had one CPU and every additional program you ran (even in the background) would strip resources off of SAM.
While that is technically still true today, modern CPUs have more than enough power to run a couple of easy tasks side-by-side.

There's one exception to that rule and that is if you set SAM to record from soundcard. In that case you must be extra cautious to not play sounds from other programs into whatever sound input/outputs you use to broadcast. (i.e. if you run mic, deck a, deck b, soundfx through separate soundcard outputs into a mixing board and then send the mixed signal back into the line in of your soundcard and broadcast that)

Fiddling with files that are currently in use by SAM is a bad idea, though. So make sure to not touch the tracks that are in the Queue or on the decks with other software or you might confuse the heck out of SAM (think wrong time information, wrong tags, wrong pictures or not being able to play the track at all).
If that is actually doing anything to SAM depends on the specific use case, just be aware that this is the danger you might run into.

If SAM's sound deteriorates, check your DSP plugin(s) and AGC settings (If you know how all the devices in the AGC - Compressor, Limiter, etc - work, it's completely fine to use them and fix/adjust your sound that way, just don't use the default settings - They're garbage for most people and it's better to simply click "bypass all" on all AGC tabs if you have no clue about sound engineering)

_________________
Benedikt Bauer - SVS (Spacial Volunteer Support)

Shop for readymade PAL scripts by countrywesterndj - Or get a custom script made by me (or others)

My Project:
Send "Now Playing" from SAM to Twitter and/or Facebook | Sourcecode

Great. I just use the Remote PC to share a couple of files with SAM for my live show. I sometimes leave the channel open as I update my weather 3 or 4 times an hour.

Thank you a whole bunch for the reassurance.

I have not had the chance to work on the other PAL script.

Your assistance is appreciated. Are you the only one around? Seems like it. LOL

I think DJ Cassio is still around as well.
He's definitely got more background knowledge about actually running a radio station than me, though. So if you have any questions about that, I'm sure he'll jump in and give you way better answers than I ever could.

Anything PAL and in-depth-software related is my expertise, probably because that's what I do for a living (build software) and because the programming language that PAL is based on (Pascal) was the first I ever learned. (It was part of my computer science class for 5 years in the German equivalent of US High-School)

_________________
Benedikt Bauer - SVS (Spacial Volunteer Support)

Shop for readymade PAL scripts by countrywesterndj - Or get a custom script made by me (or others)

My Project:
Send "Now Playing" from SAM to Twitter and/or Facebook | Sourcecode