RDS metadata processing for Stereo Tool

Sanitize NowPlaying for Stereo Tool

A PowerShell-based tool that monitors nowplaying.txt in real time and transforms noisy artist/title metadata into clean, predictable RDS RadioText, RT+ and prefix output files for Stereo Tool. It is optimized for Windows-based broadcast systems and designed to keep on-air text consistent without manually retagging an entire music library.

Download ZIP View source on GitHub

Purpose-built for RDS

The tool continuously watches playout metadata, removes common library noise, intelligently applies RDS-aware length rules and writes output files that Stereo Tool can read consistently.

Consistent RT and RT+

It first builds the final RadioText string and then derives RT+ artist/title tagging from that same result, keeping the visible RT text and RT+ metadata aligned.

No library retagging

Encoder tags, bitrate notes, format labels, platform names, duplicate fragments, country/year suffixes and bracketed clutter are filtered at runtime.

Typical signal path

1. Playout softwareWrites artist/title data to nowplaying.txt
2. SanitizerNormalizes text, removes metadata noise and creates the final RT/RT+ strings.
3. Output filesWrites nowplaying_rt.txt nowplaying_rtplus.txt and nowplaying_prefix.txt
4. Stereo ToolReads the sanitized files for RDS RadioText and RT+ processing.

Designed for live use

  • Real-time monitoring of nowplaying.txt
  • Startup freshness check to avoid stale metadata
  • Persistent JSON configuration
  • Single-instance protection
  • Atomic writes during normal operation
  • Output flush on exit to prevent stale RDS data

Metadata handling

  • Artist/title cleanup and conservative splitting
  • Configurable delimiter, including U+241F, TAB and custom values
  • Duplicate detection and bracket handling
  • Country, year and suffix cleanup
  • Language-aware tails such as live, edit, mix and version
  • Adaptive trimming to the 64-character RDS limit
  • Optional Greek/Cyrillic transliteration and ASCII-safe mode

Console interface

  • Color status view for input, prefix, RT and RT+
  • F10 settings menu
  • Working-directory setup wizard
  • Multilingual “Now playing” prefix
  • Configurable playout delimiter
  • Shutdown flush feedback

Quick start

Download the ZIP from the repository, place the standalone executable in a writable folder, and configure your playout software to write nowplaying.txt to the selected working directory. Then point Stereo Tool to the sanitized RT, RT+ and prefix output files.

conhost.exe "C:\RDS\Sanitize-NowPlaying.exe"

Using the classic console host is recommended on Windows 11 when predictable console sizing and appearance are preferred over Windows Terminal tabs.

What this page adds

This landing page gives search engines and visitors a concise overview of the project. The GitHub repository remains the authoritative source for the script, release ZIP, screenshots and full technical notes.