VBrick WM Appliance Scheduler

The WM Appliance scheduler automatically causes any number of classroom or conference room sessions equipped with a VBrick WM Appliance with internal hard drive to record video at a scheduled date/time.  

Requirements

• VBrick WM Appliance with hard drive, with one or two channels (slots) populated with VBrick WM encoder.

Typical Uses

• Recording classroom sessions
• Recording meetings
• Recording television broadcasts

Setup and Operation

• If your VBrick does not already have a folder on the hard drive called "public", select "Setup" to create it (on the VBrick entered in the "Add Item" field).
• Enter date, start time, duration, select the VBrick channel (slot 1 or 2), set a recording file name, enter the VBrick address, username and password.
• The recording file name should start with "/public/" if you wish to use the Video on Demand features.  Otherwise, you may just enter your file name.
• Select "Autoname" to automatically append the entered file name with "_MM_DD_YY_HHMMSS". This causes each file name to be unique and avoids having to enter new file names.
• Select "Add Item To Schedule" to add one item, or enter the number of days and select "Add Multiple Days To Schedule" to schedule multiple sessions. For example, to record at 9AM every day for five days.
• Select "Edit", then click on any line item to change it.  
• You may save your schedule, and retrieve saved schedules.
• Select "Load On Startup" to automatically load your last saved schedule upon startup.
• Select "Run On Startup" to automatically start the schedule upon startup (you may put a shortcut in the Windows startup directory)
• Press "Start Schedule" to run.
• Monitor any live video by selecting "Monitor".  Click on the listed source (which is your "Location" name).
• View recorded video by selecting "Video On Demand" and click on a location.  Double-click on a video file to view it.  This feature is intended for rapid and easy verification by the schedule operator, not for general viewer Video On Demand use.
• You can instantly record any item by double-clicking on it.

Notes

• There schedule software must be running for schedules to occur. Run it on a Windows computer in minimized mode if desired. There is very little processing power required and even the cheapest computer will work.
• Although some conflict verification is conducted, you should avoid schedule conflicts.
• If you have a dual WM encoder VBrick appliance, the scheduler can schedule each channel independently. The VBrick is capable of recording two simultaneous videos, and if each channel is scheduled to start at the same time, you may record two videos.  The two videos will play back with reasonably good synchronization (using viewers found elsewhere on this site).
• The scheduler shows status, including "Pending", the inability to reach a VBrick (is the address correct? Is the VBrick plugged in?), "Recording Started", and "Done".  Note that once the recording is initiated, the scheduler does not communicate with the target VBrick again unless or until it starts a new recording (i.e. there is no real time health check of your VBrick).
• If live streaming is not conducted, then there is no concern about bandwidth use and you are more free to use higher encoder rates and higher resolution video. Of course, this will increase the file size.
• You may configure your VBrick to "automatically FTP after record".  In this case, each scheduled recording will be automatically transferred to up to eight servers. For example, you might transfer the files to a web server or streaming server.
• The system is highly scaleable, and may be used with or without the VBrick Media Control Server and EtherneTV system. 

The scheduling software is free.  Limited (email) support is available from info@videoalive.com