Playout systems

For nearly five out of the last six playout of certain ident being played out on STV, its jumped the gun and misted out the start. Im total confused as to why that can even happen, get fixed then got to pots again?

That is where it does start, The other two clip I have are the long versoin this If I used them the timings and pics would not match up with the clip below.


Here is the Medium lengh ident played out correct two Saturdays ago:
https://theident.gallery/player.php?id=STV-2017-ID-SNT-1

What does it all mean?

Are idents and other parts of continuity programmed into the playout system in advance, or fired manually.

A general query, not necessarily specific to STV.

Idents and ad bumpers are video files. Menus, ECP, pointers & warning slides can be automated through a broadcast graphics system such as Clarity, (i.e. it takes programme and timing information from a broadcast database system, such as IBMS) or created manually (as a 'job' or literally going into the After Effects design template and rendering as a video file format).


Typically, these are scheduled in advance by a Media Scheduler, who constructs a daily TX schedule using templates (playlist) which conforms with various legal requirements (warning slides, promo & ad break minutages etc..), adverts, continuity (including triggering on-screen bugs and IPPs), pre-recorded continuity voiceovers, they also communicate with the playout provider to ensure avoiding discrepancies with timings etc.

Looks similar to this:
http://www.ibeconnects.com/images/altImages/ArticleImages/SizedForCarousel/Web%20Pilat%20transmission%20schedule.jpg

If there are any discrepancies on that TX day, it would need to be fixed by the scheduler and re-sent to the TX provider. Might be slightly different for a more reactive channel, but thats sort of the basics.

There's also an element of 'garbage in, garbage out' - if the same ident keeps being played out incorrectly, then perhaps it was initially loaded with incorrect timecodes, and nobody in playout has spotted the error.

Indeed, there's a time where a website breakbumper was being scheduled, but the website had long been decommissioned (but no one noticed). I had to disable it in IBMS, and alert the scheduler not to use it by a certain TX date. That's incredibly minor compared a whole day's worth of continuity voiceovers were mismatched and played out in the wrong order, but no one in playout spotted it on their error reports.

UKTV are notorious for having end credit squeezes or voiceovers appear at the wrong time every time a certain episode is broadcast. Don't know if they've fixed the following example but here's one:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2011/10/how-gold-ruins-programmes-part-367234/

What bad timing for that continuity announcement.

To ask one question; when a channel is pulled off the air, is the playout server for that specific channel either completely mothballed, or used entirely for another channel?

Yes, playout systems are like any computer, they just depend on their programming. They'll do whatever the human tells it to.

The people who make them would prefer it if they could just sit and play out stuff with no human intervention, but that not possible

When you say the server you mean the playout system as a whole?

That'll be a different answer for each facilities provider and will depend on the circumstances at the time - how old it is, if it suits another channel etc. Of course if the channel has closed because the company has gone under then the component parts will just be sold

Some channels may have rebranded on-screen, but internally it may still use old channel codes for ease. But as Inspector said, it depends.

Never knew that there would be multiple factors surrounding the involvement of playout in dealing with the closure of a channel. Fascinating to say the least. I would have suspected that it would be up to the playout companies to deal with the circumstances.