MidiaNinja
New Member
Hi, i've see your channel, whats your workflow to keep it live 24/7?
I have a lot of original content, and searching for solutions of 24h tv for lives news and scheduled edited content.
Automate 24/7 Stream for a scheduled Playlist
- Thread starter ledaouk
- Start date
I have a lot of original content, and searching for solutions of 24h tv for lives news and scheduled edited content.
MidiaNinja
New Member
Hi, i'm interested in a 24/7 video playlist manager.
bcoyle
Member
Hi: At this point in time, I'm basically using OBS to Stream. On Sundays, I stream about 10 years of our church videos. I'm part of the video team for our church. I put everything in a directory and use a scene that has a vlc source. I give it the directory in which I stored all the videos and set the scene for shuffle loop and tell it to go. On you tube, I have an ordinary you tube account set up for stream (easy to do). As long as I keep streaming, it stays live 24/7. If for some reason (like maintenance) I stop the stream, then youtube will close the stream after a few hours. If that happens, I have to restart the stream, no big deal, but the stream now has a different URL and you have to search again. You can't basically embed them because at on point, the url will change. You have to tell everyone about the new url or have them research for your youtube tags again to find it. Not too bad.
What would you like to see in a 24/7 manager?
bcoyle
Member
Your question about content. Basically you tube detects if you are streaming copy write material and pays the owners to play them and them make their money on ads. To test whether youtube likes this or not, you should do a normal upload and see what you tube thinks about it. I've only had trouble with one video. I played "Victory at Sea" and got block on the stream. I then uploaded and found it was blocked in certain countries, so you tube will block for everyone, if even one person block it. Disney and Micheal Jackson do blocking also.
So even if you see a someone else's video on you tube, it may be blocked in certain countries but is still allowed to be played. But when streamed, it blocks everything. Hope that answers your question. This is my experience once, so as always, take things with a grain of salt.
methodman120
New Member
So basically OBS is only good for streaming original content?
To answer your other question for a 24/7 manager I would like the following (I had mentioned some of this earlier in the forums as well so it might sound repetitive...
- a scheduler that can organize program names alphabetically, randomly, or in the desired order by user topic "such as comedy, movies".
- the software would also allow adding commercials, or other clips at interval times...such 5minutes,10 minutes, 20 minutes, etc... after the program starts. Or it can auto detect when to insert the commercial when the content fades to black. It auto detects it and adds the commercial break for the duration you set it for. I think most commercial breaks are 2.5 minutes now, 4-5 minutes if it is a movie.
- Another bonus would be the ability to add a filler clip if needed (such as time when there is no other content but you want to the station to still broadcast something"
- the auto scheduler would load the show (you select the files and import them) and the scheduler sorts the episodes out in order, or randomly, etc...
- The ability to add lower thirds during programs, and to also add a station logo "bug as it is called in the industry" on the side of the screen, the bug could be still or animated using a photo file or a video file. It can run on a timer such as appearing every 10 minutes for 10 seconds, appearing once per hour, a set duration (such as 5 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, or to always being displayed during the duration of the clip playing)...but the ability to make the bug not display during commercials as an option.
- ability to add bumpers before and after commercial breaks, or in the middle of commercial breaks.
- ability to plan out far in advance the episodes, shows played on the schedule. Same with ads, but a way to also shuffle the ad order so the commercials are not repeated in same sequence each time.
Here is another example of all that...
I will use your example from a previous post mentioning Hogan's Heroes at 9pm....If I want Hogan's Heroes on at 9pm the scheduler starts the episode, It can either play the entire episode and add the commercials/fillers after the episode ends, or it can go to a commercial on a timer...(example...Hogan's Heroes intro theme starts and finishes...the commercial clips take over for 2.5 minutes, then it goes back to resuming the Hogan's Heroes file where it left off, which was right after the into theme song. It would pad the episode to basically being 30 minutes, like a real tv station does. So it would be Hogan's Heroes at 9pm, Another Show OR episode of same show at 9:30, etc...
Is something like this possible? That is what is like in a 24/7 manager.
bcoyle
Member
Hi Again. What I said about obs is that when played on youtube, you can basically stream copy right material unless it is blocked. The same material uploaded to you tube will play okay but be blocked in the countries that block them. So you seem to be able to stream almost everything because youtube pays royalties to the copyright owner and then makes it up on ads. I image you have seen regular movies on youtube. Older movies have less trouble. I have a lot of videos on youtube where they have copyright claims, but youtube just tells you that you can't monetize them because they basically don't belong to you. This is mostly music. So you can stream old movies, but it is better to upload them first and see if youtube will block in some counties. If not blocked, and usually okay to stream. Does that answer your question?
I have been thinking along the same lines as you. You are constrained by what obs can do. Luckily for commercials, the scene that uses vlc can pause when not visible, play your commercial and resume where it left off. A another nice thing is that vlc can be put into a always play mode, you switch to you ad scene run it for 2 minutes and when you come back, the original program has continued to play and you start the video 2 minutes later, skipping over embedded commercials and replacing them with yours.
All that you ask is possible, but not with any of the tools currently available, as least as far as I know. There is a thing called advance switcher but it is not a automated tv station. Stream Labs has some sort of automated tv options, but you have to pay for them and I don't know much about them. Stream labs is build on obs and offers a free and advanced payed version.
methodman120
New Member
Have you also tried Dizque TV/Pseudo TV? I have not used VLC other than to play indivual files on my computer, never tried any playlists or broadcasts before...don't know how to do that.
As far as OBS and YouTube, I can try it out. So far I have just used Dizque TV as a test, it still has bugs and it's not perfected yet, but still learning it and need a way to have my TV read the M3U playlist stream...and I have used plex to play my media files, but Plex seems to no longer let you use plug-ins.
OBS seems nice, but it seems to not work on Plex, or Emby, or XTeve.
How far along are you on the software project you are working on?
Tormy
Member
- The ability to load the show or film sequentially as in a playlist, however with the possibility to quickly reorder them in case one is cancelled or one is added.
- Adding also stingers for ADS and Commercials playlist
- The ability to declare a playlist ad Random and other ones sequential.
- In case of the random one (used more for videoclips time) do not repeat the same video within X hours or X minutes form its first play
- During episodes, the possibility to add commercials flag where at the specific time (from the beginning of the episode or at hh:mm:ss a comercial playlist starts, preceded by episode fade out and followed by episode fade in (fade in-out time should be setup
bcoyle
Member
Hi: From your comments, I can tell that you haven't really tried OBS. In Short, OBS lets you connect to different platforms like Youtube. It consists of scenes that use a variety of sources, i.e. like vlc. In OBS, you can add a vlc source and tell it to run a file or directory in shuffle/loop mode. There are a number of useful plugins that many people have contributed. As far as I know, there is no automated tv plugin. There are scene switchers that sort of let you do things manually. Right now, I have the obs server streaming 24/7 with a variety of directories full of programs to stream. Currently it just streams out random files with no control on time. You should search on youtube or google to learn more.
I looked at dizque tv, but don't understand it yet. I'm a newbe to social media like plex. I've been learning a lot and am amazed at what's out there.
Project schedule : 1/4 to 1/2 done
Freedoms Corner
New Member
Cool beans, I really looks forward to this. Thanks a tone. You should check out zara radio scheduler. I know its radio but its format for scheduling is really nice. Thanks
Freedoms Corner
New Member
Any word on how the project is going?
Hi to everyone. I#m from germany, so i'm sorry if my english is a bit hard to unterstand.
Some time ago I searched for a way to create a 24/7 Channel. I tried even vmix with an Playlist Plugin. But somehow it was not the right thing. The complexety of the software was to high to use it as a Playout Server only. So the Project went under my desk. Last week I tried to combine OBS and VLC connected by NDI as it works very well together. The build in Playlist function in OBS gave me the Idea to work with the Playlist Files of VLC. Especially the XSPF file and its XML format gave me the clou to build an light tool for the functions I miss in OBS and VLC. I talk about the ability to calculate the end or the start time. As for prototype I wrote the tool in HTML with JavaScript. As limitation it works only in the Edge Browser because Edge do not care of the CORS policy.
My plan is to rewrite the script/tool in VB.net. But as html&js it can be used ob every OS, even on mobile phones.
Some time ago I searched for a way to create a 24/7 Channel. I tried even vmix with an Playlist Plugin. But somehow it was not the right thing. The complexety of the software was to high to use it as a Playout Server only. So the Project went under my desk. Last week I tried to combine OBS and VLC connected by NDI as it works very well together. The build in Playlist function in OBS gave me the Idea to work with the Playlist Files of VLC. Especially the XSPF file and its XML format gave me the clou to build an light tool for the functions I miss in OBS and VLC. I talk about the ability to calculate the end or the start time. As for prototype I wrote the tool in HTML with JavaScript. As limitation it works only in the Edge Browser because Edge do not care of the CORS policy.
My plan is to rewrite the script/tool in VB.net. But as html&js it can be used ob every OS, even on mobile phones.
Attachments
bcoyle
Member
Hi There. Nice to see another vb.net programmer. There are some hurdles with vb when applied to obs. But if you are just modifying a vlc playlist, it is a much easier task. If you would like to talk vb, I'm game. Name is Bill
hey bill! From a technical point of view, I think we can intervene in the functioning of OBS and control a playlist with a web interface via websocket. But! From a security point of view, we should separate OBS and the 24/7 playout function. The reason is that if OBS crashes it can simply be restarted without pausing the playlist or resetting how currently it is. I think VLC should remain our playout player over NDI and we can develop a plugin for it. We could also write our own player based on VLC with the desired functionality. I think this would be limited in VB, but it is intended for Windows.
I go one step further. There is a web interface in VLC. This is compiled as a LUA script. I looked at the interface and saw that all functions and time information are available there. One could try to adapt the source code with Javascript and instead of working with XSPF as is now my case, work directly with the playlist.
What do you think about this?
What do you think about this?
bcoyle
Member
Well, Don't know. My Thoughts: It depends on what you think of as a play list. If obs crashes and you bring it back up and are streaming to it with ndi, yes, obs would then just continue on. If vlc crashes, then you are back in the same situation as a obs crash, program interrupted. With vlc you are limited to a playlist of videos or mp3 music. You lose what obs can do for you because you are just using it as an encoder. You lose the transisions, overlays and scenes. From my point of view, you can have a more powerful playlist via vb -> websocket -> obs. Its very easy to use the obs websocket to control one scene and just have the software change the source. A problem is that you can have obs go down, come back up and your vb apt would have to restart the vlc video and get out of sync or play a "please be patient jpeg" until you can start with the next video in the playlist at the correct time. Its also very easy to turn logos on or off. A problem with talking direct to obs is that the obs websocket variables have a - (dash) in some of the names of variables you use which are illegal in vb, so a obs json decode has problems. Another problem of course is that a standard vb app is limited to windows and is not like a web interface which is useful everywhere. As you can tell, I know very little about web programming. I worked for a electronic company and wrote UI's for test equipment testing. So I have a tendency to go with what I know, which may not be the optimal solution, whereas a web based app might be better. Do you have a first name?
My name is Denys. Hi! :)
Okay Bill, you are right about VLC. If VLC crashes, the stream is not interrupted, but NDI passes the last frame from VLC to OBS in a loop until the NDI stream is available again.
In order to avoid the synchronization problems we have to work with an RTC in milliseconds. In principle it does not matter whether OBS or VLC crash. The video stream has to start again where it would normally have been in real time. Otherwise the program planning gets out of hand. That means we need some kind of system - maybe in VB - that stands above OBS and VLC and monitors the actions.
Scenario 1:
A VB application gives OBS a playlist via websocket and says - if possible directly in a .m3u8 playlist - with which time code (start position) the first video will be played. We use this to give the video a gap in the event of a crash so that we are right again with the total time.
This means:
VB gives OBS a playlist, in the playlist position 1 is a trailer with a length of 2:30 minutes. The stream starts at 14:00:00.
OBS crashes at 14:01:00 and comes back online at 14:01:30. The VB application notices the crash and that OBS has re-established a connection via websocket and can be reached.
VB automatically gives OBS a playlist again with the same video. This time the start position is not at 00:00 but at 01:30.
This means that the sequence is continued where it should now be in real time.
Scenario 2 would be similar but with VLC and NDI with LUA in the event that the OBS websocket causes problems.
Okay Bill, you are right about VLC. If VLC crashes, the stream is not interrupted, but NDI passes the last frame from VLC to OBS in a loop until the NDI stream is available again.
In order to avoid the synchronization problems we have to work with an RTC in milliseconds. In principle it does not matter whether OBS or VLC crash. The video stream has to start again where it would normally have been in real time. Otherwise the program planning gets out of hand. That means we need some kind of system - maybe in VB - that stands above OBS and VLC and monitors the actions.
Scenario 1:
A VB application gives OBS a playlist via websocket and says - if possible directly in a .m3u8 playlist - with which time code (start position) the first video will be played. We use this to give the video a gap in the event of a crash so that we are right again with the total time.
This means:
VB gives OBS a playlist, in the playlist position 1 is a trailer with a length of 2:30 minutes. The stream starts at 14:00:00.
OBS crashes at 14:01:00 and comes back online at 14:01:30. The VB application notices the crash and that OBS has re-established a connection via websocket and can be reached.
VB automatically gives OBS a playlist again with the same video. This time the start position is not at 00:00 but at 01:30.
This means that the sequence is continued where it should now be in real time.
Scenario 2 would be similar but with VLC and NDI with LUA in the event that the OBS websocket causes problems.
bcoyle
Member
Hi Denys
I guess I need to ask what is your vision and what do you mean by "Playlist". In general, everyone knows what a playlist is. In the simplest terms, you can drop a directory into OBS vlc screen and it will play them all. Basically at this point, I'm doing that. I have a bunch of directories and I have scenes with my logos, etc in them. Unfortunately, people don't know that at 8pm, i'm playing hogen's heros. So as you go on, you start thinking about tv guides. Also, I agree with you on the complexity of the tv station like programs, you end up having a career at scheduling. So the path to writing an app is for you to create a list of specifications and to storyboard your program, i.e. what the UI (User Interface) looks like and how you would interact with it. So it becomes important to know what you are attempting. With your reference to RTC (Real time Clock), it seems you want to have programs start/stop in time slots, i.e. 9am to 10am for the history show and it is important that you do everything on time. Keep in mind that in a 30 minute show, you normally have some sort of video or bumper that is squishy and can expand or contract to make the time slot come out correctly. Current, OBS doesn't have the ability to start a file under your control starting at a offset into the file. In youtube, if you go off the air, it just shows your thumbnail and a off air message. Another consideration is how easy it to program/edit the app. In vb, it's easy enough to drag / drop a bunch of files into your UI. I have found that OBS will rrun for hundreds of hours with no problems if you are just showing videos, so am not worried about losing the connection or having obs go down. So anyway, please tell me your vision. Hear from you soon, Bill
I guess I need to ask what is your vision and what do you mean by "Playlist". In general, everyone knows what a playlist is. In the simplest terms, you can drop a directory into OBS vlc screen and it will play them all. Basically at this point, I'm doing that. I have a bunch of directories and I have scenes with my logos, etc in them. Unfortunately, people don't know that at 8pm, i'm playing hogen's heros. So as you go on, you start thinking about tv guides. Also, I agree with you on the complexity of the tv station like programs, you end up having a career at scheduling. So the path to writing an app is for you to create a list of specifications and to storyboard your program, i.e. what the UI (User Interface) looks like and how you would interact with it. So it becomes important to know what you are attempting. With your reference to RTC (Real time Clock), it seems you want to have programs start/stop in time slots, i.e. 9am to 10am for the history show and it is important that you do everything on time. Keep in mind that in a 30 minute show, you normally have some sort of video or bumper that is squishy and can expand or contract to make the time slot come out correctly. Current, OBS doesn't have the ability to start a file under your control starting at a offset into the file. In youtube, if you go off the air, it just shows your thumbnail and a off air message. Another consideration is how easy it to program/edit the app. In vb, it's easy enough to drag / drop a bunch of files into your UI. I have found that OBS will rrun for hundreds of hours with no problems if you are just showing videos, so am not worried about losing the connection or having obs go down. So anyway, please tell me your vision. Hear from you soon, Bill
bcoyle
Member
I reviewed your screen shots, but it sounds like you want more. Are the screen shots working examples of your web app? Are you typing in the run time for each file or is your app figuring it out. It took me a while and a lot of google searching to have my program go and get the info and it is only good to the second on length. Did you find a good way to get fractional seconds? My current stream is "DCCATV" on youtube.