Scheduled Player: play at random multiple playlists

[andrea]

Hi, in some Scheduled Player I have multiple playlists and every playlist runs for different time span and has multiple videos.
Is it possible to run the videos in the different playlist at random?
I’ll explain better with an example:

The Scheduled Player has these 3 playlists:

• playlist A
• playlist B
• playlist C

playlist A has these videos:

• video 1
• video 2
• video 3

playlist B has these videos:

• video 4
• video 5
• video 6

playlist C has these videos:

• video 7
• video 8
• video 9

Instead of playing the videos sequentially from 1 to 9 I would like to play them at random like: 2, 5, 1, 9, 3, 7, 6, 4, 8.

I’ve seen this discussion, but…I didn’t understand it …sorry!

Thanks!

[infobeamer-fw]

If I understand the example correctly you want to globally shuffle all videos from the combined list containing all active playlist. That is unfortunately not possible with the scheduled player at the moment.

The linked post offers something different: It would allow you to select for example to play one random video (instead of all of the videos) from a playlist each time the next playback cycle starts from the beginning. This would result (for example) with a playback like this:

• video 2 (a random video selected from playlist A)
• video 6 (a random video selected from playlist B)
• video 7 (a random video selected from playlist C)
• video 3 (a random video selected from playlist A)
• … and so on…

From your example: Should the playback order remain the same each time? Or should the order by randomized again on every cycle?

[andrea]

The playback order can (not should) change every time.
That can work too, thanks!

[infobeamer-fw]

Let me walk you through an alternative. Note that this requires a new package that is still being improved, but should handle everything you need already:

• Create a new playlist A on the playlist tab.

  • Add all the assets for playlist A, so it looks similar to this. Use the Add asset… button to add the individual assets to the playlist:

    

• Repeat the process for playlist B and C.

• Create another playlist that mixes A, B and C.

  • According to your requirements, this needs a few steps: First add A, B (and C, which I omitted in my screenshots) by using the Add child playlist… button. This will result in a combined playlist that at first plays all items of A, then all items of B and then C.

  • To mix the resulting playlists use the Add result filter dropdown and select “Mix according to strategy” option. The default for the filter is to mix playlists, so that items from each playlists don’t play consecutively, if possible.

    

  • Then click the Show scheduling button (which, due to scheduling already being activated in the screenshot is labeled “Hide scheduling” in the above screenshot). This adds options to the playlist editor to allow setting schedules for either individual items or complete playlists.

  • For each playlist A, B and C, click on the small calendar item that now shows up. A schedule editor will open where you can set a schedule for all items of a playlist. Switch to “Day” in the dropdown (from the default “Week”), activate “ Repeats” and select an end day. At them bottom, click on “Day” on the left to toggle playback for all hours of each day. Save and repeat for each playlist.

    

  • The bottom of the mixed playlist should now look similar to this: You should see all items from each playlist, each with a summary of when it will play:

    

• Playing this playlist requires you to first import this package from here. Create a new setup based on it.

  • Click on the Embed playlist… button and select the playlist to add it.

    

  • Then click on Assign to devices… as usual to add this setup to a device. It will now play your mixed playlist and use the schedules you’ve set.

[andrea]

Hi Florian,
thanks a lot for the detailed explanation. For now I’ll stick with the one random video per playlist.