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Advanced Scheduling Options

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Shane C Mason edited this page Jun 7, 2025 · 28 revisions

About the Scheduler:

FieldStation42s scheduler was code-named Liquid Scheduler due to the conceptual way it works to fill the schedule. The first scheduler only allowed for fixed duration of either 30, 60 or 120 minutes per show to keep schedules aligned.

Flexible Schedule Increments

Liquid Scheduler keeps schedules aligned by introducing the configuration concept of schedule_increment=N where N is the number of minutes in duration. Meaning, schedules will be generated to always end on those increments. For example, traditional networks tend to use 30 minute blocks, meaning most shows are 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes in length, but may occasionally go to longer, but always tend to end on an even increment of 30 minutes. A movie channel may only have 5 minute increments with a few short bumps in between. Other channels may have no buffering, breaks or station identifications at all.

  • By default shows are set to end in 30 minute increments
    • A 22 minute show will be buffered to 30 minutes in length
    • A 47 minute show will be buffered to 60 minutes in length
    • A 78 minute show will be buffered to 90 minutes in length and so on
  • Set schedule_increment=N and shows will be be buffered to end in N minute increments
    • If N=5 a 22 minute show will be 25 min and a 47 min show will be 50
    • If N=0, the schedule will not be buffered with commercials or bumps
  • Works with existing configurations - no updates required for default.

Its all relative

There are a couple of important concepts to remember when working with scheduler configurations:

  • tags are really just a relative directory path
  • All paths are relative to the station's content_dir

Configurable Time Slots

The FS42 scheduler allows for a broad set of optional time slot configurations, and understand what they do is key to using FS42s most powerful features. The following figure shows a time slot using all the parameters at once.

"20": {
    "tags": "myshow",
    "start_bump": "extra/pre-myshow.mp4",
    "end_bump": "extra/post-myshow.mp4",
    "bump_dir": "extra/myshow_bumps",
    "commercial_dir": "extra/myshow_commercials",
    "sequence": "prime",
    "sequence_start": 0.0,
    "sequence_end": 
},

Time slot start_bump and end_bump

This parameter sets a specific bump to be played at the start of a time slot. The specified bump will be played once at the start of the time slot and wont be repeated (unless its also part of the general bump pool). The same is true for end_bump, except it will only be played once at the end of the time slot.

The following will play a start and end bump in the same slot:

"20": {"tags" : "adult_swim", "start_bump": "caps/sb.mp4", "end_bump": "caps/eb.mp4"},

The following will play a start bump in one time slot and an end bump in a different time slot. This pattern wraps a time block in start and end bumps - allowing you to simulate programming blocks like Toonami and Adult Swim.

"20": {"tags" : "adult_swim", "start_bump": "caps/sb.mp4"},
"22": {"tags" : "adult_swim"},
"22": {"tags" : "adult_swim", "end_bump": "caps/eb.mp4"},

To use this, file paths are relative to the stations content_dir. So, in this case, I have a folder named caps inside of this stations content folder. Use a different folder than your standard bump folder and don't use the folder as a tag, or else your start and end bumps could be used in normal programming.

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