#Fillers and everything around it

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

trail idol
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I was reading with interest the discussion in general about the future of fillers and indeed it is a branch that may have a big expansion in future versions of tunarr.
Going in order with the most requested ideas and encapsulating them here to make it easier for cbeni I would say:

  1. Obviously the most requested feature (but already known) are prerolls, midrolls and similar

  2. As was evident from the discussion in general it would be useful to create multiple filler lists to use as needed (different ads for different time slots for example) making the filler experience more customizable.

  3. This is one thing I was noticing in the channels where you decide to dedicate a slot only to movies, I'll give an example, let's say from 9pm to 11pm I create a slot dedicated to movies, now what can happen, a movie can last 1h 55m and have only 5 minutes of fillers but it can last also 1h 30m and then we will have 30 minutes of fillers in this case we should be able to choose a kind of backup filler list with inside comedy sketches, short episodes of TV series, news, weather forecast etc. so it could start initially the normal commercials for a total of minutes (for example 5 minutes) then the backup list and then the next program or something like that, the backup list should automatically come into play when the duration of the filler exceeds a total of minutes of your choice (if for example tunarr sees that after a movie there are 30 minutes of filler, that's when the backup list comes into play), this could be an idea but someone might have a better one to implement to better handle the times when there are many minutes of fillers.

if you have other ideas about fillers please add them in this topic 👍

brittle kayak
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I hadnt considered number 3 but ironically I have a program that fits this problem, at times it can run very short and other times very long, so I've just accepted that I wont watch the channel during filler time, but thats a cool idea, longer filler definitely has its place, especially since most tv channels when i was growing up used to have something like this, and I really appreciate short animation films which would be good way to put them in between movies on my movie channel

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the first 2 are something that would literally skyrocket my experience to a thousand, unfortunately as fun as it is to watch right now, it is missing that nostalgic feel that comes with suspenseful commercial breaks, although I think that midrolls are alot harder to implement id be more than satisfied with prerolls, honestly I think more filler customization alone would be pretty nice, like designated filler for certain programs e.g. "we'll back right back with more (current show)" bumpers, and other "coming up next (next program)" type of commercials

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most programs are okay without midrolls like shorter cartoons and half hour sitcoms, but hour long shows and made for tv movies definitley feel a little off pace

tidal nebula
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I've had an idea kicking around for a while for auto-generated "coming up next" bumpers.

You provide a backdrop video (maybe some pre-rendered motion graphics or something) and then the app reads the EPG and uses ffmpeg to overlay the upcoming schedule of shows as text onto the video.

I have thought about writing an external script that reads the EPG and renders out the bumpers, but the watermark feature can already position and overlay graphics on the stream so a similar approach shouldn't be super hard either.

trail idol
# brittle kayak the first 2 are something that would literally skyrocket my experience to a thou...

I agree, at least initially the prerolls should take precedence they would be very useful while the midrolls, which also have a big importance to have a more realistic TV experience, can wait for a situation of more maturity of the project (also because they have to be made in such a way that they can be inserted quite easily in hundreds and hundreds of episodes of TV series) but the possibility to insert bumpers, coming next etc would be great 😀

trail idol
pseudo delta
civic crag
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Was about to make a post, but this one already covered my idea.

I'm very much in favour of being able to set conditions for filler lists such as availability of individual lists between certain hours (eg: a list of red band trailers after 9pm only) and for schedule entries per library type (ie: between episodes you see trailers for other shows and same for movies etc.)

I also think that idea 3 of the OP is a really cool idea for filling up larger gaps in movies; you could use special features like interviews/bts where there are larger gaps to fill in a movie schedule

pseudo delta
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Gonna resurrect this per the chat over in general from earlier. Wondering what sort of improvements I could bring to the filler picker at the channel level. As it stands today, the channel level picker and the slot schedulers have diverged quite a bit in terms of their functionality with respect to filler.

Focusing on the “channel level” for now. What could make the behavior less surprising? Are the current options (weighting and cooldown) enough? Are alternative algorithms something that would be interesting? Or maybe more custom weighting (based on duration, etc)

green venture
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I think the one thing that I personally would find useful, is a good way of implementing a filler list of longer stuff (ie 5 to 60 minutes) that could be utilized when a particularly large gap appears in the schedule. Although I'm not even sure on a user POV how this could be implemented as an option...

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otherwise as long as the cooldowns and stuff work as intended, i quite like the existing system. for themed channels i have about 6 different lists, i' adjust the %age and add a cooldown (ie in a 15 minute max break i don't need more than 1 music video being played) and i'll get a good mix of what i want

wild prawn
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This is more of a "pie in the sky" suggestion that might be better for a later point roadmap. But a visualizer for filler selection might be helpful in helping users understand how filler is picked.

The way I imagine it would be to have something visually similar to the schedule editor. The user could select a period of time to use as an example of filler time (e.g. 30 seconds, 7 minutes, 2 hours). Then the filler picker logic could run to provide a simulation of what may be picked (along with a button to run the simulation again). Showing a timeline of filler with proportionally sized blocks, color-coding each block to show what collection the filler was picked from, and maybe bars showing the status of cooldown timers.

That way there's faster feedback on what the weighting and cooldown settings do, and can help with troubleshooting settings.

wild prawn
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As for more immediate implementation suggestions, I think implementing a setting to control the bias of the filler picker on a per-channel basis might be helpful.

My thoughts on behavior for useful settings;

  • Prefer shortest (i.e. the previous picker's behaviour) - bias selection to pick the shortest available filler
  • Best Fit selection - Bias selection filler that fits the current break as best as possible, usually the longest without going over
  • Prefer variety - Bias selection towarfs the least recently played filler first (if on a per-channel basis, also try to rotate between different filler lists).
  • No bias - Choose any filler (that fits the break) at random

Obviously the first two settings have a greater tendency for repeat items to be played. So there would need to be logic to help make sure that there's a bias towards non-recent filler while trending towards the rules.

Likewise, a UI change that might help with confusion is to change the channel "filler list cooldown" to "Repeat Filler Item Cooldown". That way it's clearer what it does compared to the regular cooldown item.

tame mortar
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Perhaps filler settings should be configured on a "per filler settings profile" basis instead of a "per channel" basis. Under this proposed model, users can create a variety of master profiles that diretly apply to a group of channel. This allows for easier administration with less settings duplication across a suite of channels with the same filler requirements.

pseudo delta
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I like that