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CONTINUOUS CHANNEL

SIGNAGE STUDIO COMPONENTS

In this Chapter we will discuss the Continuous Channel. This is a new feature that allows you to playback channels across timelines. We will explain how to take advantage of the Continuous Channel.

For our example we have two Timelines. Timeline 1 and Timeline 2. If we decrease the length of a resource at this point, that resource will still play for the duration of the channel since there are no other resources after it on the channel.

Things are different when it comes to the connection of channels between Timelines. For example, if we play the Channel 1 all the way and then when Timeline 2 starts it will switch to Channel 1 present on that Timeline.

However, if we decrease the length of the resource in a way that it will start not from the beginning, but from the middle of the resource, what will happen is that the playback will start from Timeline 1 and it will play all the way through and when it switches to Timeline 2 the videos or resource will continue to play into Timeline 2 until half way through when it reaches the beginning of our resource.

So essentially, continuous channel allows you to play channel content through timelines as long as there is no content at the beginning of the following Timeline. In our scenario, it is simple to set up because you can see the Timeline 1 and Timeline 2 have the same exact screen division configuration. But let’s see what happens if we have a new Timeline, called Timeline 3 that has a different configuration for the screen layout. So let’s go ahead and add another Timeline.

This time we will select a different screen configuration.

Next we will add some content that will start later in the Channel.

Now if we switch between Timeline 2 and 3, we can see that we do not have the same number of Screen Divisions.

So the system will try its best to actually map the screen divisions using their index numbers into the following screen division.

So to wrap things up, the Continuous Channel allows you to play videos or RSS or any type of content from one Timeline to the next and this actually blends very nicely with the transition effects because with transitions you can simply enable transitions between content and not really have to worry about the transitions between timelines. If you are not familiar with the GPU transition feature i recommend you read the dedicated chapter.