NextPreviousHomeDigital Signage (Playlist Features)

kugo | 13 years ago | 8 comments | 3,158 views

I need to be able to schedule different playlists to run certain times of the day, days of the week and by the month for certain holidays/promotions defined by the user. Transitions between shows is also needed even if they are just basic fades, wipes, blinds, etc.

If this already possible or if anyone has any tutorials or tips on this subject, please share. Also please respond if you also would like to see these features added so the developer can see the support. Or anyone has any programming knowledge that can write a custom interface to play do this I would be interested in talking to you.

These functions are basic necessities to use this program for digital signage and info channel applications.
I hope the developer can realize the power that a playlist scheduling interface can have and add it.




Share this on FacebookShare this on X

At the moment, the application does not offer those features.

Thank you for your inspiring suggestions!

michiel, 13 years ago


If you search this site, you can find many suggestions for forcing BT to become a very powerful digital siganage, but I think Developers of it Don't want it in this purpose really, they want it, as simple as possible for 3d titling more than anything.
I have checked some applications like scala and DcMedias and I know BT can be one of the best digital signage tools if they want.

SamSaam, 13 years ago

Some good scheduling control added would turn this already powerful beast into an automated, data driven, graphic rich, information system.

With BT's ability to produce real-time broadcast quality 3d graphics, many users would immensely benefit from flexible scheduling real-time signage applications.

It being tagged; "Outerspace Software: 3D Effects for Video Titling and Digital Signage ", I'm under the impression the developers do not intend to keep it limited to just producing "canned" graphics. The ability to connect to RSS feeds and it's real-time capabilities shows the effort for signage applications.

To take it a step further, they could tweak it with pause inserts on the timeline and hot-keys for multi-purposes (Pausing, Un-pausing objects, quick recalling shows, advance through playlist, ect) to have it serve as a solid Data Driven 3D Character Generator & Graphics source for live News, Sports, Weather, Political & Live Events.
This should be another topic... "Live Production"

I encourage and give ideas to make BT the ultimate real-time graphics engine. For the ones who would like to keep it simple, maybe there could be modules or plug-ins to enhance the capabilities for the more professional types without penalizing the average users.

BT is like a stick of dynamite, small yet very powerful.
We just need some more control over it to blast off when we want it to!

kugo, 13 years ago

Please don't be confused. I'm not trying to suggest to add too many bells and whistles, only important functionality. Very simple yet essential for taking advantage of the programs power. It doesn't have to be marketed, it just needs to be available for those who need the ability to schedule playlists to run at different times of the day, days of the week, month, etc.
It's really quite simple.

kugo, 13 years ago

I like the idea. It just makes an already great product better, and increases its potential uses.

DigitalMagic, 13 years ago

I may have a solution for scheduling playlists. I'll be testing more but so far my idea is to save multiple playlists named the same, such as "master.btpl" all located in folders named e.g. Monday AM, Monday PM, Tuesday AM, Tuesday PM, etc. Each playlist file would be be unique (having different shows) for that particular time of the day. A Master folder will hold the master.btpl file that BT will always be running and will be replaced using a file backup utliity for each day of the week.

The problem is while BT is running the playlist, it does not recognize and start to play the new playlist file once the master.btpl is replaced, rather it only plays from resident memory so the work around is to have a file backup utility execute the playlist file upon the scheduled replacement. This works, however the only problem is that BT will launch it in a new window. It needs to open over the current playlist in fullscreen.

I may be at a dead-end here but if any one has any ideas or suggestions for a work around, I would be grateful to hear them.

This program is very primitive for digital signage applications without flexible scheduling of playlists.

kugo, 13 years ago

It is possible to do this with the use of 3. party app like "Auto play media studio". With the BF command you can force the window to open in an window in "Auto play..". Then it possible to open even more windows on the screen. Each window can be controlled inside "Auto play..". I tried this with up to 5 windows at once.

stor, 13 years ago

Thank you very much for your advice Stor! I'll be looking into AutoPlay as a solution for scheduling BT shows/playlists. I need to run them in fullscreen mode, looping with no menus for unattended application. I'm not sure how your test with AutoPlay (running multiple windows at once) has any relation with scheduling BT shows/playlists, but if AutoPlay can send commands to run BT shows/playlists in it's own window at different times I'm open to this as a solution.

I have no programming skills so I don't how to control BT using commands or arguments from other apps. If you or anyone reading this has any knowledge you can share in more detail, I would greatly appreciate it. We really need more control over BT without having to learn scripting.
I like the idea of scripts for even more control, though I'll need to learn this and it's a little intimidating to be honest.

Questions:
What does BF stand for?

Do you know which command/s would be needed to execute a specific playlist or show to loop in fullscreen mode and how to configure AutoPlay to do this?

kugo, 13 years ago

Comment to this article

You must be logged in before you can comment to this article. Login | Register