Assets are the physical or digital media files that bring scheduled content to life. They represent the connection between abstract program entries in a broadcast schedule and the actual video or image files visbile to the audience.
In order to schedule commercials, assets need to be seperated into multiple segments to place commercials between them.
First of all, the corresponding asset needs to be selected for being divided into segments (segmentation). Since ad cuts are associated with video assets, the asset needs to be of this type.
The first step for users is to navigate to the Stock tab, and then to the Asset side tab in the left-side menu.
By clicking the searchbar (1), the asset type selection appears, allowing to select specific asset types such as video assets (2).
Related topics:
1 How to create and edit ad cuts segments
The next step is to enter the enter the segmentation dialog. There are multiple ways to do that, which will be illustrated in the following.
Once users have accessed the segmenatation dialog, they can determine exactly where the individual segments of a video asset start and end.
This chapter explains step by step how to create new ad cuts, define the number of segments (segmentation) and adjust their time values (TC In and TC Out).
In the following, the different methods to enter the segmentation dialog will be explained:
The first method to access the segmenation dialog is via the context menu by clicking Open in segmentation (1).
The second method to access the segmentation dialog is by hovering the mouse above the asset and clicking the scissors icon (1).
The third method is to open the editing dialog of an asset by clicking Edit (1).
In the asset edit dialog, the assets needs to openened in the segmentation view by clicking Open in segmentation (1).
As a result of all of these three mehtods, this segmentation dialog opens, where new ad cuts can be created by clicking New ad cut (1).
Here, the ad cut can be given a name (1), and the segmenration (2) (number of segments) can be determined.
Then, the individual segments of an ad cut can be added by clicking New cut (1) and specified in terms of time codes.
If the TC In (1) of a segment is after the TC Out (2) of the prior segment ,the amount of offset (3) is displayed in relation to the previous segment.
If there is an offset between the segments, the corresponding TCs will be highlighted in red.
The number of segments created is displayed above (4) along with the number of segments required for the given ad cut. Depending on the segmentation set in the beginning, a different number of segments is required. 1 Break, for example, corresponds to 2 segments.
2 How to manage ad cuts
In this chapter, the available management options are explained, such as setting an ad cut as default, copying it, editing its properties or deleting it.
Management options for ad cuts include (from left to right):
- Set as default: Default ad cuts are presected for the corresponding content scheduled in the broadcasting planning app (Planner), given a matching segmentation of the scheduled content.
- Copy: Duplicates the ad cut with all of its data, including segment number and length, timecodes and offsets.
- Edit: Allows to edit ad cut name, segment number and description.
- Delete: Deletes the ad cut.
2.1 Copy ad cuts
In the following, the Copy feature will be illustrated in detail.
By clicking the copy button (see chapter 2), all the ad cut data is duplicated, including ad cut name (1), segmentation (2) and desciption (3). Those data can, however, be adapted in this dialog if desired.
By clicking Confirm, a new ad cut is created according to the data entered in the dialog.
The newly created ad cut (1) will then appear in the list, as well. In this example, the number of segments has been increased to three segments.
2.2 Edit ad cuts
In the following, the edit feature will be illustrated in detail.
After clicking the edit button (see chapter 2), a follow-up dialog opens to edit ad cut name (1), segmentation (2) and the description (3).
By clicking Confirm, the entered ad cut data is confirmed.