Scheduled player for every 1/2 hour

bassmoss · March 14, 2021, 9:30pm

Hi there, I would like to put an announcement up on our screens every 1/2 hour for about 3 minutes. I think the current scheduler allows this for every hour. Can I modify it to do every 1/2 hour?

Thanks,

Andrew

infobeamer-fw · April 13, 2021, 11:33am

This is only possible using the “Exact time spans” option. But even then it might not necessarily show the content during that time: If you have a default loop of content with a 10 minute duration (called loop below), the 3 minute content (called 3M below) might never get scheduled.

                             .--- The 3 minute window for your content
                             v
    11:40      11:50     12:00     12:10      12:20
      |          |         |XXX|     |          |
      [loop     ][loop    ][loop + 3M   ][loop     ][loop    ]
                           ^
                           '--- Decision what to schedule made here.
                                As it's made on 12:00 it includes the 3 minute
                                content.

Lets consider a different scenario:

                             .--- The 3 minute window for your content
                             v
    11:40      11:50     12:00     12:10      12:20
      |          |         |XXX|     |          |
  [loop     ][loop    ][loop    ][loop     ][loop    ]
                       ^         ^
                       |         '-- Another decision made here. Now it's to
                       |             12:06 at too late for the 3 minute content.
                       |
                       '--- Decision what to schedule made here.
                            It's made on 11:56. So it does *not*
                            include the 3 minute content.

The problem is that all scheduling decision as made at the start of each loop. At that point in time all decisions are made what to show. Then all schedule content is shown until the next loop starts.

I guess this problem is really hard and requires mode thinking. There are scenarios that are difficult to solve correctly. For example given these two scheduling settings:

Show content 1 (a 5 minute video) between 12:00 and 12:05.
Show content 2 (a 3 minute video) between 12:00 and 12:03.

They obviously conflict and there’s no clear way to solve this without either

Violating a time constraint for one of the items (for example showing content 2 at 12:05 instead of 12:00)
Now showing content. For example content 2 in this example.

Most of these issues are irrelevant for schedule time spans that are a lot longer than a content cycle. There will be a vastly more flexible way to scheduling content in the future and this will be addressed in some way.