Is Democracy Now! on your station’s schedule? The daily news hour is a popular news programming choice for many PEG channels. But whether it’s Democracy Now! or other content from outside sources, it can sure be a hassle to manually record the feed, replay the show, and manage the various episodes.
Unless you have Cablecast, of course. With just three rules, which can be created in minutes, you can direct your system to air the program live, record the program, and replay it as often as you’d like. Plus, you can save storage space by automatically replacing the existing program with the next episode (a useful tool for news programming, which has a limited shelf life).
The process of creating autoschedule and replay rules is simple – but first, you need to create a live show record and a replay show record. In this short video, Cablecast’s Ryan Hickok walks you through these three steps:
1. Show Record & Automation Rule to schedule a live program feed to air
2. Record Automation Rule to record the live feed
3. Replay Show Record & Automation Rule to schedule the show replay
With the show records in place, it’s time to create three rules - one for the live broadcast, one for recording the program, and one for replays. From the tools icon in the menu bar on the left side of the main user interface, you simply navigate to the autoschedule tab and create a new rule. Be sure to differentiate the rules with unique names, such as “Democracy Now Live”, “Democracy Now Recording”, and “Democracy Now Replay".
You’ll need to fill in certain information for each rule. For the live show for example, you’ll need to provide the start time. Does your program air weekly or monthly? On what days does it air? Which one of your channels will broadcast the show? You’ll need all this information and more to create your rule. Once you save your work, the rule is set.
When creating the record rule, you’ll need to set the length of the show and the device/source. “The file name is going to be important”, Hickok adds. “We want to name the file the exact same as what the original file is going to be – so that when the new recording happens, all it will do is override the previous recording and replace it with the new one".
For the replay rule, you’ll set the start times for each scheduled replay. You’ll also need to fill in the original show record – that way, Cablecast replays the same show (automatically refreshed with the most recent episode) every time.
“Now, with these three rules in place, I won’t have to do any other scheduling or setting up recordings or creating show records”, Hickok says. “It’s going to do this for me until I remove these rules.”
And don’t stop with Democracy Now! You can use these rules for any live program you want to capture and replay later. Then, you can get back to doing more exciting things at your station.
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