PLAYDECK can be installed on any Windows 64-bit machine. This includes Windows Server Versions or Custom Cloud Builds.
PLAYDECK needs fast modern Hardware, if pushed to the Limit. It has to transcode any given Video Format and Framerate in Real-time into your selected Output Format. Ideally without any Frame Drops.
As with all Tasks, it all depends on your use case: Are you using the LITE Edition to operate one Full HD Channel in a Live Event for some Hours? Or are you using STUDIO to broadcast multiple UHD Channel to several receiver eg Streams, NDI, and all in a 24/7 manner?
One thing is certain: Without a powerful modern NVIDIA GPU you will likely be disappointed. Dont try to run PLAYDECK over a Intel Onboard GPU, it is not designed for that. Your NVIDIA GPU should have ideally at least a Score of 8000 on the Passmark Scale.
All other PC components should not be much older than 2 years, just to meet modern driver standards, as we update PLAYDECK at least 4 times a year with the latest driver. You will want to utilize and profit from that, as all PLAYDECK updates are free of charge, as long as you have a valid license.
Here a the Specs we use for our own PLAYDECK production builds:
Some additional informations about Hardware in relation to PLAYDECK:
Output Card
IF you use a dedicated Output Card (eg BM Decklink), you will not only offload ressources to the Card and reduce overall System GPU/CPU load, but you will also benefit from:
More “true” Colors
Nearly Zero Frame Drops due to Frame Rate Control
Overall higher Picture Quality
Much more stable than HDMI over Desktop (no Windows-interference)
We support Output Cards from these Manufacturers (see complete List):
Blackmagic Design
AJA
Deltacast
Bluefish444
DekTect
Magewell
Osprey
Stream Labs
Yuan
ASIO Devices (eg DANTE)
CPU Codecs, Keying and Alpha Channel
Please note, that these Video Codecs can not be decoded via GPU currently. PLAYDECK will fall back to CPU for these Codecs, so plan a strong CPU, if you use these Codecs regulary:
ProRes
HAP
DNxHD
If you are using Keying or Alpha Channel in genereal, and you do not need the extreme high quality of ProRes, try to use the HAP-A Codec instead. It will still be decodec on the CPU, but use alot less CPU power.
Notebooks
If you are aiming for mobile productions, we go with the Razor Blade Notebook and extend it with a Blackmagic Ultra Studio card via the thunderbolt interface. If in doubt, which manufactorer to go for, decide for a Gamer Notebook. Those are designed to run at maximum performance. Avoid buying Office-type Notebooks like Dell, which are designed for power saving and can seriously limit your playout performance.
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 with 8 completely independent output channels in which you can organise your videos, graphics, audio files, live inputs, streams or YouTube clips simply by dragging and dropping.
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, via NDI or via Streams.
In the Studio Edition, your recording channel 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!
Sometimes, in Live Productions, you have to send the Audio delayed compared to the Video, to compensate for the processing Lag of huge LCD Screens (Lipsync). Or add a Limiter/Gate to the Microphone Input Audio.
Simple Audio Delay
This is actually pretty fast to implement in PLAYDECK. You add the ADELAY Audio Filter to the Channel like this. In this example we set 600ms Delay for Audio Channel 1 and 2:
This can also be set to INPUTS to compensate for any incoming Lipsync Issue.
Copy Audio and Delay
You can also COPY the Audio Channel 1 and 2 to Audio Channel 3 and 4 and delay those. The use case here is, that the Audio Mixer Person has Live Preview Audio.
This needs to be done on the Playlist Level, so clear any Audio Filter in the Settings.
First, make sure to increase the Audio Channel for your Output Channel, otherwise all Audio Channel above 2 will not be processed:
The Right-Click any Playlist Item and select AUDIO CHANNEL MAPPING:
This will copy Audio Channel 1 and 2 to Audio Channel 3 and 4:
Now right-click the Playlist Item again, select AUDIO FILTER and add the ADELAY Filter, but only for Audio Channel 3 and 4:
More Audio Filter
For a complete List of all Audio Filter, click SHOW SAMPLES. This will open a TEXT FILE with Examples.
Not please start PLAYDECK and reproduce the issue. DO NOT CLOSE PLAYDECK.
Now start the Tool “Snapshot.exe”. On the left side, right-click the first item you see, which IS NOT “MFFactory” and select “Save Snaphot”. As file format please use the pre-selected JSON format.
Now repeat this for every Item that is following. You will now have created a Snapshot of every Item, that is not MFFactory. So in the above Sample, we have 10 files in total.
3. ZIP’ing and Sending the Snapshots
Create a new ZIP File and add all Snapshots (*.json).
This article will show how to enable detailed Video Engine Logs for us to analyze.
1. Enable Logging
In PLAYDECK goto Application Settings and activate “Enable Video Engine Logging”. PLAYDECK will now ask you to restart.
2. Reproduction
After restarting now please reproduce the Issue/Problem at hand. Please make a note of the current Date/Time (and let us know). After the Issue/Problem has occured, close PLAYDECK (or use Task Manager to terminate). Do NOT OPEN PLAYDECK again, otherwise the Logs will be lost, as they are being cleaned on every Start to reduce Upload Size.
Note: The shorter the Logs the better, as it is more easy to isolate the issue. Make sure to start PLAYDECK only to reproduce the issue and don’t let PLAYDECK run for a long time.
3. ZIP’ing and sending the Logs
Create a new ZIP File and add the following Folders:
After uploading click the COPY Button and send the Link to [email protected]. Please dont forget to send the Date/Time of the Issue/Problem occurance, so we can easily find it in the Logs.
4. Clean Up
You can now safely delete your ZIP File.
Also make sure to deactive the Setting “Enable Video Engine Logging” in PLAYDECK, as it will slow down your PLAYDECK performance. This setting is not meant to be enabled all the time.
SCTE Marker are mainly used to insert Ads into the Video Output by signalling the Receiver (e.g. Streaming Server) at what time to insert Ads and with what Duration. This allows 3rd Party Systems to dynamically pick Ads from a Database. You can read more about SCTE in general on this website. We also support SCTE-104 and ANC, but for the sake of simplicity, we stick to SCTE-35 in this guide.
In PLAYDECK you can send SCTE Marker in 3 different ways: – Embed in SDI Signal via compatible Output Device (Blackmagic, Aja, Deltacast) – Embed in Outgoing Stream (UDP, DVB, SRT, HLS) – Passthru of SCTE from SDI Inputs
You can attach SCTE Marker to 4 different Objects in PLAYDECK: – Attach to Clips (any Position) – Attach to Blocks (Start and End) – Attach to Overlays (Show and Hide) – Attach to Actions Buttons
In PLAYDECK we picked a different approach over other Systems: Here you write your own SCTE Marker instead of PLAYDECK sending predefined Marker. This could mean a bit of a learning curve, but in the end, it is much more flexible. The advantage is, that you will always be compatible to all receiver.
SCTE Marker Examples
Let’s look at some SCTE-35 Sample. It represents the most used form of SCTE called “Splicing”.
Note: The SCTE Format presented here works best with Nimble Streamer (see below). Depending on your Stream Server, the Format might be different.
This will insert an Ad and return to your Program automatically after the given duration. The duration will be set automatically by PLAYDECK for your current running Clip. This can be exchanged with {blockduration} or a manual value. If you pick a manual value for duration, the formula is: CLIP DURATION multiplied by 90000 and rounded. The reason behind this is, that 90000 is default Timescale most SCTE Systems use. Example: The Clip is 12.4 seconds, so the SCTE duration would be 1116000.
Instead of sending a duration, you could also send 2 seperate SCTE Marker to Start/End the Ad. Those are called CUE-OUT (leaving your Program for Ad) and CUE-IN (return to your Program).
As you most likely have observed already, the only difference is “outOfNetworkIndicator” being 1 (CUE-OUT) and 0 (CUE-IN). The SCTE System itself will pair both Marker based on the “spliceEventId”.
Open PLAYDECK. You dont need to load any Clips yet. Right-Click on any ACTION Button, create a new Action and select COMMANDS/SCTE:
Insert the SCTE-35 Sample Tag by clicking SCTE-35. Close the Popups with OK (twice):
We are now able to send a SCTE-35 Tag to any compatible Stream (UDP, DVB, SRT). If you click the Action now, nothing will happen, as we dont have a Stream yet.
Let’s create a Test UDP Stream, where we simply send the Output to a File, so we don’t have to hassle with Server Stuff (yet). Copy the Settings as follows and start the Stream with START NOW.
We want to send our Sample SCTE-35 Tag to the Stream now. So close Settings and click your Action Button several Times, then go back to Settings and stop your Stream with STOP NOW.
Your SCTE-35 Tags have been logged by PLAYDECK. You can check the Logs, if you go back to your SCTE-35 Code on the Action Button and click OPEN EVENT LOGS:
You can also make the SCTE-35 Tags visible, which are in your recorded Stream. For this, we need a separate Tool called “DVBInspector”. This Tool also needs JAVA Runtime, so download both:
Now unzip your “DVBinspector-1.18.0-dist.zip” (or similar) and start “DVBinspector-1.18.0.jar”. Then Drag+Drop your TS File onto the Application. Open the Tree as follows to view your SCTE Marker.
Test SCTE Marker in Nimble Streamer
Nimble Streamer is our Streaming Service of choice. It is cost-efficient, easy to setup and maintain, but still has the depth of complexity for advanced use cases:
Install the 14-day Trial Version of Nimble to the same machine that PLAYDECK is running. This is not a necessity, but makes things simpler, as you don’t have to put up with a network setup. You will also be asked by Nimble to create an account with WMSPanel, which is a web based setup tool for Nimble, as the Nimble Streamer itself installs without User Interface.
INFO: For this SCTE Sample to work, you DONT need to have “Nimble Live Transcoder” or “Nimble Advertizer” PlugIns, if you test this on a Live Installation. They are disabled in the Trial Installation by Default.
Once you got Nimble running, there is one more configuration you need to do manually. Open the Nimble Server Configuration file here: c:\Program Files\Nimble Streamer\conf\nimble.conf
At the bottom of this file, add the following Lines and save the file.
Important: You need to restart Nimble now by either restarting your PC or restarting the Windows Service “Nimble Streamer” manually.
Here are the lines again, but with comments for you (dont use these):
scte35_processing_enabled = true // Enabled the SCTE module in general. Needed for all other Options
scte35_forwarding_enabled = true // Allows passing through the SCTE-35 markers via Live Transcoder
hls_ad_scte35_forwarding_enabled = true // Enables forwarding of SCTE-35 markers into HLS streams
hls_ad_marker_format = cue // Sets Nimble to use CUE-OUT and CUE-IN markers
hls_ad_splice_out_cont_marker_enabled = true // Enables automatic insertion of EXT-X-CUE-OUT-CONT
Now let’s set up your Streams in WMSPanel: First we are going to define our incoming Stream. Goto “Nimble Streamer” in the Menu and select “MPEGTS In” and click the “Add UDP stream” Button, then add the incoming stream like this. You can use any other Port, should 5001 be in use already.
Next we are going to setup the outgoing stream format. We want to use HLS here to demonstrate the conversion of SCTE Marker from UDP to HLS. On the same page, goto “MPEGTS Out” and click the “Add outgoing stream” Button, then add like this. Make sure you select you input streeam as video and audio source.
Next we continue our setup in PLAYDECK. Got to the Stream Output Settings and change the Stream URL to “udp://127.0.0.1:5001”.
INFO: You can pick any preferred Video Codec. SCTE will always be send. In this case I picked H.264 to let my Nvidia GPU do the encoding, which will lower my CPU usage.
INFO: Please note, that PLAYDECK is not capable to directly stream HLS. Tho you “could” select “Apple HTTP Live Streaming” as Streaming Format and write to File e.g. “c:\Users\Public\Documents\stream.m3u8”. Then use that File to stream using any Streaming Server. But PLAYDECK is not able to write HLS SCTE Tags into the HLS Manifest file (the *.3u8 file).
Next we want PLAYDECK to automatically send SCTE, not just via a Button, but Clip related. So we insert any Clip and click the COMMANDS Icon in the Toolbar, then add a new Command, select PLAY TIME 0, then insert the SCTE-35 Sample:
INFO: You can also add SCTE Marker to Blocks, Overlays and Action Buttons.
Now let’s get things rolling: CUE and PLAY the Clip and start the Stream in the PLAYDECK Settings. Hop over to the WMSPanel and open from the Menu “Nimble Streamer” the option “Live Streams”. You will now see 1 running Live stream. Click on it and pick the question mark on the far right like this.
Once you posted that URL into CHROME, you will see your PLAYDECK stream playing immediatly. Now let me show you how to monitor your SCTE Marker. In Chrome press F12 to open the Developer Tools. Ontop click the “Network” Tab. You will now see several “chunks.m3u8”, which are part of you stream. Click on one of the Chunk files (also called HLS Manifest) and select “Preview” next to it. You will now see the HLS SCTE Tag. If it isnt there, click on another chunk, as we send the SCTE only on Clip Start.
That’s it! We reached our Test Goals. Upcoming are more information which might be relevant to dig into.
Additional Information
Logging in PLAYDECK
We log Incoming and Outgoing SCTE Tags separately. This gives you also the opportunity to test your outgoing SCTE by simply Looping your Output to an Input (SDI as well as Streams), and let PLAYDECK detect your SCTE. You can open the Log Files via the Main Menu:
Logging in Nimble Streamer
If anything goes wrong or doesnt happen as expected, a good start is to review the Nimble Log Files. The Log can be found here on Windows: c:\Program Files\Nimble Streamer\log
Logging is enabled by default in the Nimble Trial addition, but in case you need to activate it, here are the flags for the “nimble.conf”.
log_access = file
logging = debug
Now open the log file and scan for “SCTE”. You might see something like this, which indicates you have a typo in your SCTE Marker in PLAYDECK:
[SCTE35] unsupported splice command type=6 for [mynewapp/mynewstream]
If your SCTE Marker parsed succesful in Nimble, it will look like this:
This is a collection of tools and plugins with a large library to manipulate MPEG transport streams. With this you would be able to insert SCTE Marker outside of PLAYDECK based on an algorithm or other complex logic.
This tool can also convert SCTE-35 Marker in UDP Streams or MPEG-TS Files into HLS SCTE Tags. This allows you to install a streaming server, which does not have automatic SCTE-35 to HLS conversion.
With ASIO you can transmit up to 64 Audio Channel across all PLAYDECK output channel. It is the recommended method to use DVS with PLAYDECK.
With WDM you can transmit up 16 Audio Channel with one Stero Pair per PLAYDECK output channel.
DVS via ASIO
Start the ASIO Device by opening DVS, selecting ASIO and click START:
You can select the ASIO Device in PLAYDECK now:
PLAYDECK will now start to send all Audio Channel you have selected for that Output Channel, which can be up to 32 Audio Channel:
To use the ASIO Device for more than one Output Channel, you need to activate ASIO Device Splitting:
You will now receive multiple ASIO Devices, so you can assign one Device per PLAYDECK Output Channel:
The Splitting will be done by the Audio Channel you selected per Output Channel. So in the above example, we have set PLAYDECK Output Channel 1 and 2 to 8 Audio Channel and all other Output Channel to 2 Audio Channel.
DVS via WDM
Start the WDM Driver by opening DVS, selecting WDM and clicking on START:
Once you installed DVS on the PLAYDECK machine, select WDM as Audio Interface and START:
You can now assign on DVS Audio Device (Stereo Pair) per PLAYDECK Output Channel:
Only the first to Audio Channel of that Output Channel are send, so make sure to have set your Audio Channel to 2:
Troubleshooting
Stuttering Video
If you assigned DANTE to the Channel in PLAYDECK and your Playback does not start or stutters very slow: You need DANTE CLOCK in your Network.
The Playout in PLAYDECK will not continue, unless the DANTE CLOCK is triggering the Playout. This behaviour CAN NOT be avoided.
Most Audio Mixer, which support DVS, will have a Clock integrated. Maybe it needs to be activated. Please also watch this Official Video from Dante for Dante clocking.
You can also create an artificial DANTE CLOCK by installing DANTE VIA on a SECOND PC in the Network (cant be installed on the same System as PLAYDECK). Once installed, it will automatically designate itself as the Leader Clock and connect to the DVS by itself without further user intervention.
hat everything is working as expected. It is simply a controlling and reporting tool:
If everything is setup correctly, you will see a GREEN LIGHT in the bottom right corner, indicating that your DVS is Clock-enabled and ready to use in PLAYDECK.
Once you see this GREEN LIGHT, PLAYDECK will now play all Clips correctly.
Bad Audio Quality
This most likely happens with the WDM Driver and different Audio Settings. Make sure to adjust the PLAYDECK Channel Audio Setting and DVS Audio Device Setting to the same Format. This avoids transcoding auf Audio and will result in a higher overall Audio Quality.
Audio Channel Mixing and Routing
If you work with Multichannel Audio, you might have to mix down your Audio Channel. See this article for how to work with multichannel audio.
In the Studio Edition, PLAYDECK allows you to record an incoming video signal and create clips from this signal while the recording is still in progress (edit-while-ingest). Alternatively, the recorded video signal can be played back with any time delay to prevent unwanted material from being broadcast. In the form of time-shifting, this can ensure that a show can be aired in the desired broadcast area at prime time.
“Closed captions” refers to the insertion of text information into a video image to provide viewers with a transcripton of dialogues or sound effects, for example. The subtitles are synchronised with the video image. In contrast to “open captions”, closed captions can be switched on or off as desired. PLAYDECK supports the two standards EIA-608 and CEA-708 and the output via Blackmagic playout cards as well as AJA, Deltacast and NDI.
Download PDF with information on 608 and 708 Closed Captioning:
PLAYDECK offers three different ways to handle closed captions: These can either be embedded in the output only (variant 1), displayed on the previews in addition to being embedded (variant 2) or permanently displayed on all outputs (variant 3). You can set the desired behaviour in this drop-down field.
Please note, that (unlike SRT subtitles) the CC previews are displayed in accordance to the modes “Roll Up”, “Paint on” and “Pop Up”. These are set during the encoding process of your Clips or Live Input. Here is a 3rd party YouTube Video with information on the display modes:
PLAYDECK will detect any embedded CC and ASS tracks, which you can select:
External CC Files
You can use external CC files with these extensions: – VideoName.scc – VideoName.mcc – VideoName.anc
These must have the same base name as the Video “VideoName.mp4” and will be loaded automatically.
Device Support
Closed Captions will be transported by: – Input and Output Devices (Blackmagic Design, Deltacast, AJA) – Streams, encoded into MPEG-2, H265 and MPEG4 – NDI Input/Output, as Internal Format – Recordings, captured as seperate SCC (608) or ANC (708) file
Please note, that Closed Captions for NDI have no industry standard, thus we use our own transport protocol. You can use this for PLAYDECK only (System to System), not with other Apps.
SRT Subtitles
Subtitles are simple Pop Up Texts, which are loaded from external SRT Files. Subtitles are always rendered on the image and therefore also the output.
It is possible to have more than one SRT Files for one Video. All Files will be scanned, so you can select them:
The SRT Files can have any Name like “VideoName*.srt” and can be located in the Videos Folder or in one of the Subfolders “Subs” or “Subtitles”. For example if your Videos File is “VideoName.mp4”, then your SRT Files can be: – VideoName.srt – VideoName.en.srt – Subs\VideoName Italian.srt – Subtitles\VideoName French.srt
In addition to the output of the two playlist channels, PLAYDECK provides a very convenient view for the director or other crew members: A preview of a single or both playlist channels including the various countdown timers is available for output via a playout card, via an output of the local graphics card or for playback via NDI. In connection with a remote connection to a connected Blackmagic ATEM video mixer, a vMix system or NDI, the tally state (Preview/Program) is also displayed in the preview window.
Director View: Two-Channel view with clock, clip and block timers and tally lights activatedDirector View: One-Channel view with clock, clip and block timers and tally light activatedDirector View: One-Channel full-screen view with clip and block timers and tally light activated
Settings for Production Window / Producer View
Use the radio buttons to set whether you want to use the two-channel view or the one-channel view with time, or whether you prefer the full-screen variant. Use the radio buttons in the bottom line to set the audio output of the Director View.
The settings for Device Output, Desktop Output and NDI Output correspond to those for Channel 1 and Channel 2.
