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User Guide for Cisco Digital Media Suite 5.4.x
OL-15762-05
Chapter 20 Use Channels to Play Rich Media
Concepts
Understand How Channels Prioritize Their Content
Note When you declare an emergency that affects one or more of your DMP groups, the affected DMPs stop all content
playback from their subscribed channels.
Understand Time Basis Concepts
The time basis that you set for a channel affects when its subscribed DMP endpoints render media for
playback on digital signs. The time basis can be relative to each DMP individually or absolute to one
time zone that you choose from a list. Thus, the time basis flexibility of channels helps to support global
deployments of digital signs. But this same flexibility ensures that channels can be just as relevant and
useful to small deployments as they are to large ones.
The time basis concept can become complicated in practice if you do n ot understand and plan
appropriately for its possible effects.
Relative to DMP Time Zone
Suppose that you make the time basis for a channel relative to each of its subscribed endpoints.
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Do these subscribed endpoints all share their local time zone in common?
If so, the effect is no different than choosing this time zone absolutely. An event that runs on the
channel will start and stop at precisely the same time on each subscribed endpoint. Any time of day
occurs simulaneously across them all, without any offset or unexpected complexity.
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Do these subscribed endpoints operate so remotely from each other that the local time zone will
ever differ among them?
If so, the physical distribution of these endpoints could mean that the relative time of day on any two
endpoints is offset by 1 or more hours. Consider the continental United States, where noon in
New York occurs a full 3 hours before noon the same day in San Francisco.
Special event OVERRIDES SCHEDULED PROGRAMS
— Unscheduled content that pre-empts time-specific content. For
example, the special event might be an important political speech or business announcement.
Scheduled program OVERRIDES FILLER
— Predictable, anticipated content that subscribed endpoints play at definite times
and then repeat at definite intervals.
Filler OVERRIDES NOTHING
— Typically, the “default content” for a channel would include only one quick
loop of general assets. For example, it might string together an animation of your logo, a montage of
human faces, and a few very short video clips that each convey something essential about your vision.
Your digital signs can then use this content intelligently, as needed, to prevent noticeable playback
gaps between other assets that play.