Managing many campaigns

[mati 6]

Hello,
we've got quite big number of stations and different campaings (usually one campaign per station).
The more stations we have got the more difficult it is to manage them - especially when we want to display content on all of them.

Let me explain how every campaign looks:

We've got a single 24h timeline with 'repeat to fit' option enabled.
We cen easly add single video to this timeline, use 'remove spacing' option and that's all. We don't have to change the length of the timeline and so on.
We make sure that all videos and images on single timeline do not surpass 6min length.
For example we can have 24 videos 15sec each (that makes 6min of content - perfect).
That means every piece of content on the timeline is displayed every 6min.
We've got a great control over timeline. We can set which video comes after which and so on.


When the problem appears?

Let's say we've got 50 or 100 stations and we want to display some video everywhere.
The simplest scenario is that we put the video on every campaign(timeline) and use 'remove spacing'. Quite time-consuming.
But what if we want to swap this video by another? We have to delete the old one (that leaves empty space in every timeline) and put new video over there.
A lot of work - again.
When we just want to stop displaying this video - again we have to remove it from the system and remove spacing on EVERY SINGLE TIMELINE.

But there is a whole 'scene' system - why don't you use it?
Scene is a very helpful tool - but not a perfect tool. We obviously use it alot. Let me explain what are the problems with scenes:
Obviously you have to manually add the instance of the scene to every single timeline (some kind of initialization).
When you want to swap the content inside of the scene it is very easy. You don't have to edit every single timeline.
When you want to change the length of the scene - that is a problem. You have to manually edit every instance of the scene on every timeline - a lot of work.
When you want to stop displaying the content inside the scene: again you have to delete instance of scene (and remove spacing) on every single timeline.
You cannot leave the scene empty. It causes the empty screen on every player with instance of that scene.

But there is a whole 'adnet' system. It is so powerful and you can easly push new content to many players at once. Why don't you use it?

To be honest we're not convinced to adnet at all. First of all many of our stations have got older version of signageplayer ( i know it is bad, but we've got problems with updating it remotely - a lot of them just crash. We don't have a teamviewer and/or similar tool on all of our stations). That already exclude adnet as a solution.
If we'd like to put all the content via adnet component we would lost the concept of timeline. We would no longer have a view what video comes after another one and so on. It seems a little bit 'non-deterministic'. Sometimes we have to have a total control over what is going on on our timeline. One single 24h adnet component wouldn't give it to us.


So these are the problems we've got while using Digital Signage system.
First of all guys tell me please if you are facing these problems too and/or you've got some solutions for it.

What would help us?
How about 'global remove spacing' function? One click to remove spacing on every timeline of every campaign.
When you delete the scene there is [deleted scene] component in place of every instance of deleted scene. It should be also automatically deleted (with the global remove spacing option).

Would it be possible to create some new interface for adding content?
It could be similar to scene, but we could be able to select all campaigns/timelines from a list (for example list with checkboxes). Instance of that scene would be automatically pushed to the end of selected timelines.

With mechanism like that we would be able to easly add/edit/remove/replace content on all/big_number_of stations and that is our goal.


Please let me know if there is something unclear.
Kind regards.

[admin]

So here are a few thoughts...
1. mediaADNET, but like you said, maybe some players don't have latest version, but this would be ideal, easy and packed with features
2. Pepper API, do anything you want automatically via our open source API, but does require some JavaScript skills
3. Use the collection component, so you don't need to worry about sizing, as it is just a list, but opt #1 and #2 are more powerful
4. Use common channel to share content, but again will only help like in #3 if sharing a campaign within a single account
5. Possible having single timeline with multiple outputs, each output can be assigned to a different station so the timeline is now a shared module, again within a single campaign.

my choice #1 or #2... if possible

regards

[mati 6]

hey,thanks for your thoughts.

Collection component forces equal length of every resource. We also have to care about the length of a whole component (maybe if it would be the only one component on the timeline it wouldn't be a problem). We use it in some cases.

Every solution you mentioned has some limits we want to avoid. Maybe excluding API.
Is it really possible (with API) to build all these things I've mentioned before? The apps that would work simultaneously with StudioPro?
Like I could add some video at the end of every timeline in every campaign VIA api and 'remove spaces', then see the these changes in studioPro?
That would be amazing. I know some basics of JS but not enough to easly use your API yet.
Is here someone who already played with managing the content on the timelines via API?

[Gert]

Hi Mati,

We have experience with Pepper.api

Regards,
Gert

[gsmedia]

I know this is an old thread but did you ever manage to find a solution?