TV channels

A video element can show a live TV channel instead of a file — the match in the bar, the news in the lobby, inside your own frame with the time and a lower third. Channels come from the lists your TV provider gives you, and they belong to the venue whose internet line carries them.

• Upload or link. An uploaded file is kept with its list: Download gets it back and Re-import reads it again. A linked list is fetched again every day, and the last five versions are kept — Use this one makes an older one active.
• One channel, several sources. Add the multicast and the HLS list: the same station becomes one channel with two sources. Re-importing updates channels and never makes duplicates.
• Logos are stored by Wunderframe, so screens never ask the provider for them.
• Where it works… on a list, or Limit… on one source, changes the venues later.

• Multicast (addresses such as udp://@233.…) only plays inside the network that carries it — usually the venue’s TV network or VLAN. Android TV and Raspberry Pi players play it.
• HLS plays over the internet, but most providers only allow it on their own line. Every player can play HLS, including browsers — unless the provider does not let browsers read its streams. Such a channel plays on TV players only; the editor and the Live board show a still that says Plays on TV players.

A player takes the first source it can play: an Android TV or Pi on the venue network tries multicast first, then HLS. A multicast group that does not answer on a network is remembered for a day, so the screen goes straight to HLS next time.

A TV list only works on the line it belongs to, so a test from your office proves nothing about the hotel. Ask a screen that is there.

The answer is remembered on the source — Works at Hotel Belvedere · tested on Café screen · 09:30, or Refused by the provider at Hotel Belvedere — and the channel pickers show it: ✓ Works here or ✕ Refused here. When a test fails it says why: the provider refused the stream, the stream is offline, the screen has no free video decoder right now (it is playing a video itself — try another screen), or the screen did not answer.

Desktop players test HLS only; test multicast from an Android TV player. Try in this browser plays an HLS source with the browser’s own player, and only tells you something when you stand on the venue’s network.

In a video element, choose the source:

• File — a video from your assets.
• TV channel — always this one channel. The Live board and stage rules do not change it.
• The stage’s channel, with a default — each stage plays its own current channel, and the Live board and rules switch it. One design then serves every room. Choose this one whenever someone may want to change the channel later.

The editor has no stage, so its channel picker asks for Channels at a venue and offers what that venue receives. Write {channel} in a text to show the name of the stage’s channel: Now on {channel} becomes Now on SRF 1, and follows every switch. It needs a video set to The stage’s channel; next to a fixed channel it says TV.

On Android TV and Raspberry Pi players the channel does not play in the page: the box’s own video player shows it underneath, and your design is drawn on top with a hole where the video is. That is what makes TV smooth on small boxes. Two things to know.

• Rounded corners yes, border and shadow no. The box’s player clips rounded corners itself. A border, a shadow, a rotation, another shape, a filter or a blend mode on the video element make the screen play the channel in the page instead. Most providers do not allow that (Init7 does not), so the screen shows the Plays on TV players still. The editor warns you under the video’s source. For a frame, put the border on its own element above the video, a little larger than the video so it overlaps its edge.
• On an older box, go easy on a moving background. A moving background (drift, flow, aurora…) behind live TV is redrawn many times a second. Most boxes do that easily; if an older or very small one makes the picture stutter or fall behind the sound, make the motion slower or less intense, or keep the background still on that scene.

The frame lies over the video in the editor too: to change the channel, select the video in the timeline’s layer list rather than on the canvas.

• On the stage card — under Stages, each stage has a Channel picker: Automatic or one of the channels its venue receives.
• On the Live board — each tile, and the phone’s stage sheet, has a Channel line. Tap it and pick a logo. Only the video changes; the rest of the slide stays. Your pick holds until you choose Automatic. A stage a live show holds is its controller’s to change.
• By a rule — a stage rule can switch the channel instead of the content: when it is between 20:00 and 23:00, switch the stage’s channel to SRF zwei. The tile then says Channel: SRF zwei · by rule “Match night”. A channel picked on the Live board wins over a rule.
• From other tools — the API and AI agents.

Pickers only offer channels the stage’s venue can receive; the others show as Not available at …. Changing a channel never needs a publish.

A story of one TV scene plays the channel all day and never restarts. For the news and then two minutes of TV, put the TV scene in a story after the news and set Play this chapter for 2 minutes on it in Playback order — or let Get started → News, then TV make it in one step. A video kept running across shots can shrink the channel into a corner and back: see Loops and continuity.