Automatic guide — a “Now on …” channel built from your channels

Castreon can build a guide channel by itself: a page that shows, for the channels you pick, the current picture, what is on (and how much is left) and what comes next. The page updates itself from the channels' schedule and picture — there is nothing to edit and no file to upload. The guide becomes the source of a Castreon channel, so it is delivered like any channel: HLS, HTTP-TS, push, DRM, or as a block in another channel's schedule.

Available since Castreon 1.9.1, in the Enterprise edition.

Since Castreon 2.1.0, the automatic guide also makes pages from your own source — agenda, results and news: see Agenda, results and news from your own source.

What the page shows

• The header: the title (for example “Now on our channels”), your logo, the clock and the date — in the guide's language and time zone.
• A card for each channel: the channel's current picture (the same one as in the panel, refreshed in rotation, one channel every 2 seconds), the channel name, the programme title, the progress bar, “X min left” and “Next”, with the time and title.
• 4, 6 or 9 channels per page. Pages change by themselves after the number of seconds you choose, with a smooth transition.
• The “Coming up” strip (optional): what starts in the next minutes on the guide's channels.
• The page's fixed texts (“Next”, “left”, “Coming up”, the date) in English, Romanian, German, Italian or Spanish.

Castreon draws the page itself, without a browser, and outputs it as a 1920×1080 video stream at 25 frames per second, H.264 with AAC sound.

Where the schedule comes from

• File-based channels — from their real timeline: playlists, the day / hour schedule, live takeovers. See 24/7 channels from files (playout).
• DVB channels — from the TV schedule received with the mux. See TV guide (EPG) from DVB.
• Other channels (for example network sources) have no schedule in Castreon: the card shows the picture and the channel name, plus the fallback label if you wrote one.

When the title in the schedule is missing or is just a file name (for example series_s02e05_final.mp4), the guide shows the channel's fallback label, with “season N” if the season can be read from the title — never the file name.

Channels that are not working — stopped, starting, failing or on the “no signal” image — are left out of the guide (the Hide channels that aren't running option, on by default). Disabled channels and channels that are guides themselves never appear.

A new guide

Settings → Automatic guide → New guide:

1. Name (panel only), Title on the page (up to 60 characters), Page language, Time zone (empty = the server's time zone), Text after the date (for example the zone's name; empty = date only) and Logo (a transparent PNG is recommended).
2. Channels in the guide: whole groups and channels picked one by one, in the order you want, plus channels left out of the groups. The channels picked one by one come first, then the ones from the groups. The summary shows how many channels and pages you get.
3. Page: channels per page (4, 6 or 9), seconds per page (5–120), the “Coming up” strip and for how many minutes (1–180), Hide channels that aren't running.
4. Colors: the background and the accent — a gradient of 1 to 8 colors (the progress bar, the highlights).
5. Music (optional): a file from the Library, looped; empty = silence. The volume is leveled to −23 LUFS when the file has been measured; Music volume corrects it between −30 and +12 dB.
6. Fallback labels: a channel's text for when its schedule is missing or the title is a file name (for example “Cartoons all day”).

Preview shows the first page with the current pictures and schedule — also for settings not saved yet. Then Save.

Putting the guide on air

1. Channels → new channel → under Sources, the Automatic guide type → pick the guide. The source has no address, headers or maps: Castreon makes the picture and the sound.
2. Profile: without a profile (passthrough), the guide's stream goes out as it is; with a profile, it is transcoded like any channel (for example another resolution or several qualities).
3. Outputs: as for any channel.

The guide only runs while it is used: it starts with the first channel that reads it and stops one minute after the last one. An On demand channel with the “Automatic guide” source uses nothing while nobody is watching.

The list under Settings → Automatic guide shows which channels broadcast each guide and whether the guide is running now. A guide used by a channel cannot be deleted — change the channel's source first.

In another channel's schedule

A file-based channel can put the guide on air at set times: in Schedule, a live takeover block with the source channel: followed by the guide channel's slug (for example channel:guide). The block reads the guide channel's HTTP-TS output, so the guide channel needs one. See Schedule, live takeover and as-run report.

Monitoring

On a channel with the “Automatic guide” source, the sound check is not done: Castreon makes the sound, and silence (a guide without music) is intended. Black or frozen picture is still checked.

Guides can also be read and changed through the API (/api/v1/guides), including the preview.

Common problems

• A channel is missing from the guide — it is not running (stopped, error, “no signal”), it is disabled, or it was left out of its group under channels left out of the groups.
• The card has a picture but no title — the channel has no schedule in Castreon (it is not file-based or DVB) or the title is a file name: write a fallback label.
• The times are off — check the guide's Time zone; empty means the server's time zone.
• A channel's picture is missing — the guide uses the same picture as the channel list in the panel; if the channel has no picture there either, check the channel's outputs.
• The “Automatic guide” type shows “— Enterprise” — the feature is part of the Enterprise edition.