sserre's dashboard

sserre replied on March 31, 2009 01:33 to the question "NAB 2009 - What's up?" in Tightrope Media Systems:

April is fast approaching, and we're making plans for the nights of NAB... are there any TRMS plans brewing, and what night would we be looking at??

sserre replied on March 30, 2009 21:40 to the problem "Cablecast 4.8.2 Update: VOD Files Not Transcoding" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Any luck finding the problem?

sserre reported a problem in Tightrope Media Systems on March 27, 2009 02:22:

Cablecast 4.8.2 Update: VOD Files Not Transcoding

After upgrading to Cablecast 4.8.2 today, I noticed that VOD files were no longer transcoding on the ODIP server. The error messages in the TRMS section of the event viewer are as follows:

>Error getting enseo component setting, defaulting to composite;

>Unable to open Enseo driver

>Failed to close the encoder. Exception: Exception in StopStreaming() Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

I have checked all the Cablecast Device Control services (on Cablecast Pro server and ODIP server), and they all log on as the administrator, with the correct password. I have restarted both machines, and tried stopping/restarting the services. No luck yet.

Any ideas?

sserre started following the idea "Bulk image bulletin uploader idea" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre shared an idea in Tightrope Media Systems on March 19, 2009 20:52:

Digital File Management

Is it possible to have a sub-menu in Cablecast for Digital File Management, for selecting only the device/devices I am interested in maintaining?

We have a VS4, which shows up as "Video Server" and "Encoder" in this screen, as well as our VOD server, which is listed as "ODIP." We are building up quite a library of VOD files, so it seems like the Cablecast server needs to check on all these devices to list every file on the next screen. When I click the D.F.M. link, I swear it takes about 20 minutes for the next screen to load!!

So what would be great would be a checkbox sub-screen, to select which devices I want digital files listed under (similar to the screen I see when I click on the "reporting" page). Then I don't need to wait a long time, just to sift through a very long list of files, just to get to my video server files.

sserre started following the question "SDI output with CBL-CGSDI" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre started following the idea "Carousel, clock, digital, analog, block" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre replied on March 12, 2009 03:34 to the question "Win32/Parite worm on Video Server - and it's spreading through the network!" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Norton AntiVirus has worked well for us also, except... the standard version of Norton will work with Windows XP machines, but NOT with Windows Server 2003, which we have loaded on our Cablecast Pro server and VOD server. Norton's installer simply shuts down and says it's not the appropriate product for this operating system.

What product has anyone had success with on these machines?

sserre replied on March 12, 2009 03:04 to the discussion "PowerPoint Play as-is" in Tightrope Media Systems:

This is EXACTLY the issue we ran into this week. One of our more advanced users started submitting ppt presentations (which look awesome), but they do two bad things: Each presentation (regardless of whether it's 1 page or 10 pages long) fades the current Carousel page to black first, then starts the presentation. At the same time, it fades down our background audio and plays a mouse 'click' sound per page, or just silence. Both bad outcomes.

The Powerpoint feature of Carousel is awesome and powerful... however I think we need some more tools at our disposal as channel administrators to deal with submissions from users. Sean's suggestions in this post would be good solutions. Anything to be able to allow me to preview the submission, download and edit the submission, or block a user from that privilege would be a great feature request.

sserre started following the idea "Our customers would like to subscribe to Company Updates" in Get Satisfaction.

sserre replied on March 12, 2009 02:04 to the question "Wordpress, Websites, RSS and Cablecast" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Thank you Ray, I would definitely appreciate having that code. I'll email you with the info.

To the RSS question, is the standard RSS schedule query available in Cablecast under 'extras', the best or only RSS information provided by Cablecast? And is there a better way to pare down that information based on the current time? When I use that query, I get three day's worth of programs, all with no start times, beginning with 12:00 midnight.

Anyone well versed in RSS, I would welcome your suggestions.

sserre asked a question in Tightrope Media Systems on March 11, 2009 03:52:

Wordpress, Websites, RSS and Cablecast

We're currently in the process of rebuilding our website using Wordpress. We would like to display Cablecast schedule data on our home page (i.e. next three programs coming up, including channel and time).

I realize we could use the Cablecast Web Service if we had a bit more coding experience... but I suspect rss might be a good first step. What is the best way to use the rss feed from Cablecast to show schedule data on our website?

sserre started following the idea "When will a full background/layers idea be implemented?" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre started following the idea "Group Bulletin Approvals" in Tightrope Media Systems.

sserre replied on March 02, 2009 20:08 to the question "Shows cutting off playback in Cablecast" in Tightrope Media Systems:

Thanks Chad. I have some further info for you on this: In desperation on Sunday, I noticed in the location settings--I/O--Control Module Sets screen, each of our locations had a CMS named 'Sigma.' So I renamed these 'Sigma-AP', 'Sigma-ETV', and 'Sigma-CL' to give them unique names. I then re-sent autopilot on all three channels.

Since then, I haven't observed a problem. That's not to say it's not happening any more, but that I haven't seen it happen since. Is it possible that this would have an effect?

sserre replied on March 01, 2009 15:41 to the question "Shows cutting off playback in Cablecast" in Tightrope Media Systems:

It happened again just now... it DEFINITELY is corresponding to router switches intended for the Government Channel. Every program running on ETV is vulnerable to switching problems!

Aaaaahhhh!!!

p.s. I have restarted the Cablecast Pro server and tried re-sending Autopilot as potential solutions...

sserre replied on March 01, 2009 15:00 to the question "Shows cutting off playback in Cablecast" in Tightrope Media Systems:

I just observed another instance of the problem! Again, the Sigma router log shows that Cablecast fired off three incorrect router executions, during a program scheduled to run on ETV from 9 AM--9:56:57. Here is what the log shows:

9:00 AM: Switch Both; Router Input 5 (VS4), Router Output 1 (on-air)
9:29:45: Switch Both; Router Input 1 (Demod), Router Output 1
9:29:46: Switch Both, Router Input 14 (MVP Player), Router Output 1
9:30:00: Switch Both, Router Inut 5 (VS4), Router Output 1

So Cablecast seems to want to switch the router to two different inputs I normally don't use, then 14 seconds later, switch back to the VS4 playing the correct file.

Coincidentally, both of our other channels had VS4 programs playing at 9:30 AM, which on those routers, is also located at input 5. Also, the Gov Channel had an MVP player program scheduled for 9:29:45 AM.

One more observation: looking at the log for the Sigma router CMS, under location settings for the ETV Location: I noticed that events for port #3 and port #4 both show up there... but NOT events for port #5 (which would be the Gov channel). Shouldn't I only see events for port #4, which is connected to the ETV Router??

This may be limited to a problem with the Sigma CMS, and not a larger build problem? Help!!

sserre replied on February 28, 2009 22:26 to the question "Shows cutting off playback in Cablecast" in Tightrope Media Systems:

I found two rogue events in the log of the Sigma Router CMS, that did not reconcile with the event table in autopilot! Here is the offending log entry, which switched back to Carousel during a running program. Again, this event does not correlate with any scheduled program, or any event in the autopilot table:

Details

Event Date:

2/28/2009 5:07:07 PM

CMS ID:

0

Port Setting:

4

Additional Settings:

Auth String:

Event ID:

1906307

Event Status:

Executed

Error Description:

Device Action:

SwitchBoth

Router Input:

16

Router Output:

1

Router Take Delay:

0

Device Cue:

0

Device Slot:

0

Device Title:

0

Device Chapter:

0

Device Primitive Format:

NONE

Device Record Copy UNC:

Device Record Quality:

0

Device File Key:

Device Address:

sserre replied on February 28, 2009 22:19 to the question "Shows cutting off playback in Cablecast" in Tightrope Media Systems:

I have observed three such instances here, (one right now while a program was playing!) in the last couple of days. Program run times, etc. are all correct. This most recent one, the program length is 1:47:18, but Carousel switched over **at 8 minutes into the program!!** So I don't think it could be a difference in time settings between Cablecast and the VS4 server.

VS4 playback channel continues to play the file, but Cablecast seems to be firing off a router command to switch the router to Carousel prematurely!! I've had to use the force matrix screen to force the VS4 back on the air. DSK still thinks there is a program running, since the bug shows over Carousel.

Cablecast version info:
Release Version: 4.7.7 Build 44
Database Version: 4.6.0

Let me know if there's any more pertinent info that would help track this down...

sserre started following the question "Creating income from VOD success" in Tightrope Media Systems.