As 360 North Programmer, you will get TV offers from multiple sources. Most prominently from NETA. When you get an offer that looks interesting that you’re interested in scheduling an automated record for that feed, follow these steps outlined below.
Get Important Information from the Offer
The most important bits of information are NOLA code, and feed dates, times and channels, all of which can be used to search ProTrack for the feed. NOTE: I generally don’t schedule the feed the minute I get them. For two reasons, a. workflow-wise I usually store them up and do them about once a week and b. often times the ProTrack feeds aren’t updated on the same schedule that the offers come out. You generally get offers months in advance so batching it works well. Occasionally you’ll get an offer only a few days to a week before the feed in which case you’ll need to schedule it manually in Harmonic and schedule the feed in ProTrack and re-export your record list (depending upon how often you export those).
Search ProTrack Feed Schedule
To search ProTrack’s Feed schedule click the “Feed Schedule” button from the main ProTrack dialogue (or select “Programs | View PBS Feed Schedule” from the main menu).
Enter the pertinent offer information into the PBS Feed Schedule Search dialogue (Dates / Feed Source / Title or Program Code (NOLA) using wildcards as necessary (like in Program Code) then click OK.
When you get the list of feed dates in the PBS Feed Schedule Listing dialogue, mark the desired shows for which you’d like to schedule (either click on them (you’ll see the asterisk), or press the space bar then select Tools | Schedule Feed (F5) from the PBS Feed Schedule Listing dialogue.
You’ll be presented with the PBS Feed – Schedule Feed Dates dialogue. Double check that Schedule Record/Transfer is set to Y, and OK.
You will get a confirmation dialogue indicating that n numbers of feeds were inserted successfully (which you can Exit) if it says feeds inserted successfully.
Add & Attach Media to the Feeds
Next you must assign media to the scheduled feeds in order for them to be successfully exported to automation. From the PBS FEED SCHEDULE dialogue highlight the first feed in the list and press Tools | Assign Media (F12).
From the Media Information dialogue, press, Edit | Insert (F1)
Once in the Add Media Attachment dialogue, select the following:
- Start by: Record Date
- End by: Rights
- Link Type: Server
- OK
Verify that the Media ID is correct (I typically remove the H on the end of it because these are down-converted and recorded as SD 16×9 full frame, but it isn’t critical).
If you would like the feed to start 15 seconds earlier (to get the slate) and extend a minute later so that you can get any promos on the end of the records, Select “360N15-60Pad” from the Archive Group.
If all is correct, select OK then CTRL+F4 to close the Media Information dialogue. (Repeat these Add & Attach Media steps above moving the selection down to the next feed for each individual Feed (yes, incredibly repetitive and tedious).