A Series consists of a group of episodes, usually of similar duration, that may typically be ingested on a regular schedule, such as every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6PM.
The HyperCaster v6.0 supports a Series feature under the Content tab, where you can add a Series to the HyperCaster Content Library as a group of TBDs (program placeholders for future, incoming programs you want to schedule and show in your guide but do not actually have yet). The TBD placeholders can be filled by importing files, and manual and scheduled recordings.
To add a Series:
Select the Series link from the Content tab pulldown to get to the Series Listing page:
Series Actions
From this table, you can access several Series actions:
- To edit the metadata in a Series, click on the name of the Series, or on the Edit icon
in the Actions column. It will take you to the Edit Series page - To delete the Series, click on the Delete icon
- To list the episodes that make up this Series, click on the items icon
- To create a new Series, click the Add New icon
. The Add Series screen is displayed.
Series:
- Name your Series.
- Describe it.
- Private? – If you want this Series contents to be invisible to other users, check this box. Private series will not even be displayed in the content window for users who do not own them; they will be invisible. However, users with Admin privileges can see all private series, even those they do not own.
TBD Generation – Metadata
If you check the “Generate TBD’s” option, the HyperCaster will create a TBD placeholder for every episode of this Series.
TBD generation for series supports variable replacement for the following metadata fields of each content file created: Filename, Program, Episode, Program Code, Episode Code, Description.
- %d – Zero padded Day of the month (01..31)
- %e – Blank padded day of the month (‘ 1′..’31’)
- %-d – Non-padded day of the month (1..31)
- %A – Day of the week (Monday..Friday)
- %a – Abbreviated day of the week (Mon..Fri)
- %m – Zero-padded month of the year (01..12)
- %_m – Blank-padded month of the year (‘ 1′..’12’)
- %-m – Non-padded month of the year (1..12)
- %B – Month name (January..December)
- %b – Abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
- %y – Year with century (4 digits)
- %i – Episode sequence number
- %n – The name of the series
TBD Generation – Duration, Date & Time Information
Note – You must fill in all these fields to generate a series of TBDs:
- Duration – Enter the expected duration of each episode
- Start – Enter the date and time the Series will 1st be ingested
- End – Enter the final ingest date and time of the Series
- Days of the Week – Check one or more boxes for the day(s) the program will be ingested. The UI fills in the time for the ingest. You can change the time if necessary, as long as it is later than the ingest time.
When you have finished setting the Series information, click the Save button.
Note that TBD episodes created as part of a series cannot be scheduled before their expected ingest date & time. The individual TBD episodes will show in Content, as well as in the Series Episodes view. You can edit details for individual TBD episodes, just like editing other Content, or you can edit the Series rule. Editing the series rule, such as changing the dates, day of weeks etc… will prompt if you want to continue. Doing so will delete all existing future TBD episodes and re-generate episodes from the new rule. Any episodes that were added manually that do not match the new rule defined will not be regenerated.