Alcorn Mcbride Digital Video Machine 4, User Manual

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Scheduler 43
Scheduler
The DVM4 has a down-to-the-minute scheduler based upon its internal real
time clock. According to the time of day and date of year, the DVM4 can start a
video, banner, image, etc… at 3pm on January 1
st
2002, for example. This
functionality is built into a feature called the Scheduler .
The Basic Idea for Commands
All commands available to the Serial, UDP, and Playlist interface are available
to the Scheduler interface as well. Though there is a list of example commands
in the event table later in this section, please see the
General Command
Summary section for a complete table of commands. The following section
describes how you format these commands for use in the scheduler.
File Format / Tutorial
The Scheduler uses a text file loaded in the SCHEDULES folder of the DVM4.
The text file can be edited in a text editor, like notepad.
A schedule is composed of a list of events. An event is some sort of action that
must happen at a given time, whether it is changing to a new video or changing
the font.
An event has a variety of parameters that can be applied to it, in order to
customize the DVM4’s control to your show. In order to understand how you
define an event in the DVM4, let’s take this simplest example and build it to the
most feature-rich example.
Example 1:
T:13:46 D:01/1/2000 E:COMMAND 1:11PL
An event exists on one line. It is made up of several fields. Example 1 shows
the minimum number of fields you need to define an event, which are an Event,
a Start Time, the first data field, and a Start Date. Each field begins with a
delimiter.