Collections

A collection is a crafted playlist that contains a related group of non-episodic or episodic media such as short-form content like music, documentaries, short videos, etc., or long-form content such as movies, e-books, etc. 

Collection types

The collection can be curated in the following two formats per your requirement and can be further used to create programs.

• Automatic curation collection (curated via automation)

• Editorial curation collection (curated manually)

Automatic curation collection

Automatic curation is a collection type that helps avoid the hassle of manually selecting individual/multiple assets to create a collection. Instead, you can define automatic rules to the system, which will populate a list of media for you. Currently, it has been partially implemented and hence, you have to select media manually from the content manager and then define rules for ordering and pinning of assets. 

Once the automatic curation collection is created, it is stored as an automatic curation collection in the content manager. You can then use this collection to schedule multiple dissimilar programs such as series (with seasons), open series (without seasons), and non-episodic in a specific or random sequence.     

Editorial curation collection

Editorial curation is a collection type where media needs to be manually selected to create a playlist in a specific sequence. It further allows you to insert ad breaks and add specific ad media into the breaks. Ad breaks can be added before or after an entire asset and not between asset segments.

Currently, you can create only non-episodic collection, but in the next phase of PLANNER, you can even create a customized series out of it.

The collections created using editorial curation are stored as individual non-episodic collections in the content manager. Once the collection is created, it can be used to schedule programs multiple times in blocks of fixed or flexible duration just like any other non-episodic content. All you need to do is choose the program duration type (fixed or flexible) and schedule the program.

Automatic curation Vs. Editorial curation

Limitations

The current version of PLANNER has the following limitations:

• You cannot drag an existing collection (both automatic and editorial curation collection) into another collection.

• Automatic curation is only partially implemented, and hence, you have to select media manually and then define rules to order and pin assets. Enhancements will be done in the upcoming phase, where you will be able to define rules for media curation.

• Using editorial curation collection, you can now schedule only non-episodic programs, but in the next phase of PLANNER, you can even schedule a customized series out of it.