Introduction | Manual

Introduction

January 22, 2020 by

Thank you for choosing PLAYDECK! We are convinced that with PLAYDECK you will significantly increase your productivity, whether you produce live events, stadium TV, theatre performances, museums, TV broadcasts or virtual and hybrid streaming events. You can run PLAYDECK both on-site and cloud-based.

PLAYDECK provides you (from the Plus version upwards) with two completely independent output channels in which you can organise your videos, graphics, audio files, live inputs or YouTube clips simply by dragging and dropping. If you like, you can select different resolutions and frame rates for both channels. For example, you can play full-screen videos from channel 1, while animated lower-thirds with alpha channel are sent from channel 2.

PLAYDECK supports almost any codec and converts all content to the selected output format in real time. The output is completely flexible via dedicated output cards (e.g. from Blackmagic, AJA, Bluefish, …), via the extended desktop or via NDI.

In the Studio Edition, an additional recording channel is also available. The recorded signal can be edited while the recording is still running (edit-while-ingest, e.g. highlight editing), played back with a time delay or streamed. For maximum flexibility you can choose from a wide range of different recording formats.

But PLAYDECK (depending on your licence) is much, much more than a simple playout system:
You can trim and crop your content, you can automatically adjust the volume, you can schedule the start of your contributions, you can control the playlist externally, you can start playback via your video switcher, you can transfer closed captions, you can completely customise PLAYDECK with advanced scripting functions, you can…

You are welcome to inform yourself about the incredible functionality of PLAYDECK in the following chapters. We are sure you will love it!

Playlist Area

Playlist Area

January 22, 2020 by

The largest area of the user interface is available below the control section for the playlist and its configuration. Here, you will find all clips that you have prepared for playback with PLAYDECK, clearly arranged in the respective playback blocks. A playback block consists of the block header with block name and information about scheduled start times, one or more lines of media (videos, still images, audio tracks) or live inputs with the associated information, and a block end that defines the behavior of PLAYDECK when reaching the end of a block. To keep track of longer blocks, the view of the playlist can be customized in many ways. For more information about working with playlists, please refer to chapter 3.

Overlay and Action Buttons

Overlay and Action Buttons

January 22, 2020 by

Below the playlist you will find the buttons for controlling the overlays and the actions.

Overlays can be graphics or videos (with or without transparency), text overlays / text crawlers or HTML websites or templates, which you can place manually or automatically over the output video signal during playback from the playlist.

Actions are individual media files in direct access. Pressing an action button interrupts the current playback and starts the stored media file. You can set how PLAYDECK should behave after the action file has finished playing. Action buttons can also send internal or external TCP commands. Please refer to chapter 4.2 Working with Actions for more details.