TV channel

About

Kaltura's TV Channel feature is designed to turn entries in a channel's session tab into a schedule-driven channel, resembling the flow of a traditional TV channel. Sessions can be live, pre-recorded, or scheduled, and progress from one to the next, with participants receiving pop-up notifications to alert them when sessions are starting or ending. 

Users can access the channel's agenda through a side panel, featuring vertical navigation for effortless browsing of all scheduled sessions.

Prerequisite

Before you start, make sure the Channeltv module is enabled.

Activation

To enable the TV Channel:

1. Go to the channel's Edit page.
2. Check the box next to Force scheduled media in this channel to be played in the context of the channel. 

The TV channel will only work for entries that are within that channel's context. 

3. Check the box next to Enable the channel TV for sessions on this channel.
4. Click Save.

Activating this feature also introduces an agenda tab which displays the list of sessions in the channel. 

During a session

Agenda

When you click the Agenda tab in the C&C panel, it will display a list of all the sessions in that channel, organized by start time, with earlier sessions appearing higher.

Agenda features

• LIVE indicator - A red indicator displays when a session is currently live.
• Session details - Each session displays its time, title, and speakers. Clicking on a session takes you to its respective entry page. Non-live sessions link to their VOD versions. 
• Session progress indicators-
  • a gray line along the side of the entire section indicates a session hasn't started
  • a blue line along the side of the entire section indicates a session has ended
  • both blue and gray lines along the side of the section indicates a session is in progress

Notifications

Whether you're browsing through sessions or currently in a live session, you'll receive pop-up notifications to alert you about other sessions that are starting. There are three types of notifications:

• "Next session is starting in 5..." - You'll receive this notification when a new session is starting or the current one is ending. You will be automatically taken to that next session unless you click Stay here.

  

• "See what's coming up" - You'll receive this notification when a few sessions are coming up that are starting at the same time. You can click Browse next sessions and the agenda will open up to allow for browsing.

  

• "Next session is in (x) minutes" - You'll receive this notification when your current session ends, but there isn't another session starting right away. You can stay on the page if you want to, for example, to continue watching, chat or read materials, or you can click Go to session and wait there for the session to start.

  

Handling of time gaps 

The agenda displays a date at the top which reflects the user's time zone (derived from their browser), and marks the start time of the first session. Breaks and gaps ranging from 15 minutes to 12 hours are visible on the agenda. Gaps shorter than 15 minutes won't be displayed, while those longer than 12 hours trigger a date change.

Below is an example where sessions span multiple days, and you can see how the date changes on the agenda. If both a time gap and a date gap occur simultaneously, the time gap is shown first.