I have a few questions about the new bumper feature added in v2024.07.18.0352.
Do the bumpers get inserted randomly or in the order they are in the video group? Are the bumpers supposed to show up in the guide? (Some of mine do, some don't, though I would prefer that they never did!) I had a third question but I just figured it out!
Thanks, I love this idea!
The videos from the group you chose are inserted in between each item that your Virtual Channel creates based on it's rules and content.
Consider them like dividers.
They simply just loop over and over. So if there's only 3 videos in the Video Group you picked, every 4th bumper will be the first video, for example.
Yes, they show in the guide.
So they do just appear in the order they are listed in in the group. I assumed as much but wanted to make sure. (I have a group of about ten bumpers where the first five were kinda similar and the second five were kinda similar. Knowing they are not randomly placed now, I've gone in and manually alternated them in my video group so bumpers before and after a specific show will be different.)
As for the guide, I guess I'll add this as an unofficial feature request! Can we potentially get an option in each virtual channel's individual page to have bumpers not show up in the guide or up next? The bumpers I'm using are all no longer than 15 seconds, so they're not really meant to be selectable in the guide or even seen as being the next show. I completely understand if that's not feasible, and will probably keep using them! But just throwing the idea out there.
As of now there’s no plans to add that as it would take significant technical effort.
I completely understand! Thanks for the update. It's a cool feature as is.
How do you add bumpers? All I get is None when I click on the drop down.
Bumpers use Video Groups. If you don’t have any, the. You’ll have nothing to choose from.
I don't know if you guys remember but this was my number one request to make Channels the greatest thing ever lol. I love having short retro commercials or trailers play after an airing. really simulates that live TV Experience. I figured out janky ways to do it but never quite worked. Going to try this out today! Thanks so much
Is it possible if there would be functionality to select how many bumpers play at a time? That way you could get slightly longer breaks depending on the channel? Right now it seems it defaults at 1 video per end of episode.
There’s no plans to make it more complicated at this time. It is what it is.
no worries. thanks
ive got 5 bumper vids added and theyre playable from my library/videos. however, they arent playing between episodes on my selected virtual channels. the screen is black for a few seconds, then the next episodes loads.
any ideas? do the bumper videos need to be a minimum length? mine are all under 60sec.
Do they play when selected directly from under groups? Sounds like an audio/video issues. Share a screenshot of the View Details screen in the web UI for one of the videos.
thanks for the reply. im not sure what happened over night or after i posted, but things seem to be good now. ive been able to see all 5 bumper videos ive added successfully play between episodes on different channels.
I assume this isn't your issue, but I had something similar happen to me originally. My bumpers were only about five seconds long, and my TV was trying to change the framerate to match the video. That takes a couple of seconds and the screen is black during that time. By the time the TV was ready, the bumper was over!
I wasn't quite sure, but I had a feeling what this bumper feature can be used for, and your comment confirmed it for me. I'll be using it to add retro commercials. 