sserre's dashboard

sserre started following the idea "Create a list that summarizes user history, including topics being followed, suggested ideas, etc." in Get Satisfaction.

sserre replied on February 24, 2009 02:18 to the question "Automatic Recording - Wouldn't that be great!" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Oops, my bad! It's in the 'Details' Section for a particular program's scheduled run in the schedule screen. I got my screens mixed up! Good thing I don't work for Tech Support! :-)

sserre replied on February 21, 2009 16:52 to the question "Recording Live shows- Playback of MPEG version in New program in Evening Schedule" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Chad, can you tell me if a feature request was put in for this topic? Specifically, a way to have a particular show have a 'live' format for its first run, then a 'recorded' format for all subsequent runs, WITHOUT further user intervention (such as resending autopilot or creating a separate show ID).

As a sub-request, is there a way to tell DSK to automatically 'brand' the live run of the program with one bug text (i.e. "LIVE") and the subsequent runs with another bug text (i.e. "RECORDED EARLIER")?

sserre asked a question in Tightrope Media Systems on February 21, 2009 16:37:

Can I see a list of the topics I'm following?

It's a Get Satisfaction question. I can get an 11-page history of all the activity I've been involved with, but rather than try to sift through all 11 pages, what I want is a shorter list of the topics I'm following, the ideas I've shared, etc. Maybe with links to expand the details of each topic for easy access?

Feel free to pass this along to Get Satisfaction folks.

sserre replied on February 21, 2009 16:01 to the question "Automatic Recording - Wouldn't that be great!" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Dick, you can either schedule your SX to encode at a predetermined time and for whatever duration you choose, by using the 'Record' tab in Cablecast Schedule. No need to endlessly record to your encoder using the Force Matrix screen;

*OR*,

do what I do with my daily live morning program (also at a remote location): click the 'Record Run' box in the show record. A dialog box will pop up, asking you which recording device you want to use, and if it's an encoder, what file name you want to call the recording. After you send autopilot, your program will automatically record, saving an automation step, without further intervention on your part.

Occasionally, when we're encoding meetings (since these events are notoriously difficult to estimate for run time), we'll set the encoding as described above (for a school committee meeting, let's say 4 hours), but log in to the Force Matrix screen and stop recording if the meeting ends before that time. If for some reason we miss that opportunity to stop the encoding, we use MPEG Streamclip to trim the long file, saving space on the server.

Hope that helps!

--Shawn

sserre replied on February 20, 2009 17:43 to the question "Podcast files not showing up." in Tightrope Media Systems:

I entered the URL that points people to our cablecast server for other services, like front door, public site, etc. For us that was www.pittsfieldtv.net. I did not enter http:// or a port number, and it works.

You will eventually see the name of the acutal file in your show record. I noticed there is some latency between when the file is created, and when cablecast recognizes it.

Hope that helps!! Good luck.

sserre replied on February 20, 2009 00:55 to the question "Podcast files not showing up." in Tightrope Media Systems:

Hi Scott,

When I first set up our podcasting, I participated in the following forum thread and it was ultimately very helpful:

http://gsfn.us/t/jzj

It seems like the long way around, but it absolutely works seamlessly, you'll love the end result!! I don't know if these steps have been rolled up into a new version of cablecast yet, perhaps one of the TRMS staff can better answer that for you.

Good Luck!

--Shawn

sserre started following the question "Batch upload pictures" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre started following the question "Commercials on VOD startup" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre started following the question "Commercial Insertion" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre replied on February 11, 2009 04:14 to the question "Does anyone have a weather Radar feed displaying on their tightrope?" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Update: I tried it again using the same URL, and for some reason this time it worked great, no blurring! Weird, but I'm not asking questions. Now I've just got to make sure it's updating OK and I'll be all set!

Awesome use of the web picture feature, thanks for the great ideas on this discussion.

sserre replied on February 10, 2009 21:03 to the question "Does anyone have a weather Radar feed displaying on their tightrope?" in Tightrope Media Systems:

I switched to a web picture in a standard bulletin, and used a link to the northeast radar provided in the post above. However, I come up with a picture that looks like I need a new pair of glasses:

http://www.pittsfieldtv.net/Carousel/...

What would be causing this blurring?? The resolution of the gif image is good enough for this window.

sserre replied on February 10, 2009 04:54 to the idea "Informational Emails from Cablecast" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Ray, did you ever get a chance to look at this idea? I'd still like to explore this further. Like you don't have any other oars in the water... Let me know!

sserre replied on February 10, 2009 04:50 to the question "Add Flash Video to Streaming Servers" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Not including the server.

sserre replied on February 10, 2009 04:41 to the question "Add Flash Video to Streaming Servers" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Hey, thought I'd give a quick update to this thread.

I contacted the folks at Viewcast. It turns out that Simulstream is embedded in the Osprey 230 card, but needs to be activated in order to work. We downloaded the driver software from the Viewcast website, and ran the executable on the streaming server. The setting for activating Simulscan (in 'evaluation' mode) is tucked away in one of the tabs in that program.

Once this was activated, sure enough, we were able to continue to use the streaming server as designed by TRMS (wmv), PLUS provide a Flash stream at the same time. It did not add a big burden onto the CPU or memory. Of course, in 'evaluation' mode, the Viewcast logo was plastered over our video, so we turned it off for now. But it showed that this is a doable solution for us.

Getting Simulstream registrations for each of our three streaming servers will cost us $1,500.00, so right now we're still considering adding this functionality. But I can say with confidence that it can be done!

sserre replied on February 10, 2009 04:12 to the question "Does anyone have a weather Radar feed displaying on their tightrope?" in Tightrope Media Systems:

How long does it take for the system to download the radar image? I tried the same steps discussed above and I get the same problem that Dan brought up: a black screen for a moment (with the NWS frame around it, but no image in the middle), back to the default page, then onto the next page.

Chad, I have the page dwell set to 30 seconds, that should be enough, right?

sserre replied on January 28, 2009 11:21 to the question "Carousel Supreme Alert Page" in Tightrope Media Systems:

I've got the same winter storm coming this morning, and I've already put up all of my school canceled messages as full-screen alerts... My problem is I have video programming scheduled during this time, which will negate these Carousel messages as soon as the programs automatically play.

My request would be: to have a way to allow permissions to users to create an alert page that either:

1) Overrides the current cablecast automation for the period of time that the alert page is scheduled to run; or

2) Creates a DSK crawl with the same text as the alert page, which can then run over the video programming when it switches over

Perhaps both of the above are possible, switchable as a preference by the channel administrator?

sserre replied on January 28, 2009 01:50 to the question "Video Server and Carausel intergrating with Webpage?" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Paul, feel free to give me a call or email if you would like to chat about how we've implemented our Tightrope system here in Pittsfield. 413-445-4234 or sserre@pittsfieldtv.org.

sserre replied on January 28, 2009 01:46 to the idea "Request: Don't show 'Watch Now' until transcode is complete" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Or perhaps show text that says "processing..." or something like that, showing that transcoding is underway?

sserre started following the idea "Request: Don't show 'Watch Now' until transcode is complete" in Tightrope Media Systems.