Movie info channels provide end users with a collection of trailers, publicity shorts, and other short video segments relating to 10 pre-defined movie genres. Interspersed in the mix are paid commercial messages and interstitial ads that brand the channel with the site. To reach the info channels, end users navigate to a genre page. Figure 11.1 shows a mockup of the Action/Adventure genre page.
Figure 11.1: A prototype genre Web page.
End users can browse the page for the latest releases in that genre or they can click the Movie Info Channel link. The link opens Windows Media Player with the URL of a Windows Media metafile, which points to the Action/Adventure channel broadcast publishing point on the Windows Media server.
When the channel starts playing, the end user views a 10-second introductory image, such as the one in Figure 11.2.
Figure 11.2: Branding art for the Action/Adventure channel.
Then the image switches to the channel in progress—the channel has already been running and the end user picks up the broadcast at whatever point is currently playing. From there, the user experience is similar to that of viewing a television broadcast. A channel line-up runs for approximately 20 minutes, then replays continuously. The following list shows a portion of a typical channel line-up:
Title | Source |
---|---|
Movie Trailer #1 | \wmroot\Trailers\Trailer01.wmv |
Movie Trailer #8 | \wmroot\Trailers\Trailer08.wmv |
Bumper #3 | \wmroot\CMO\Bumper03.wmv |
Exclusive Interview #7 | Rtsp://RemoteServer/Int07.wmv |
Behind-the-scenes #2 | Httpd://StudioWebServer/BTS.asp |
Commercial | Wrapper: httpd://AdServer/adRotator.asp |
Movie Trailer #10 | \wmroot\Trailers\Trailer10.wmv |
Notice that, in this example, most of the content comes from the local Windows Media server. However, content can come from a number of sources. For example, Exclusive Interview #7 comes from a file on a remote Windows Media server, the URL of Behind-the-scenes #2 is generated by an ASP page on a Web server, and the commercial comes from a wrapper playlist, which points to an ASP page generating ads dynamically on an ad server. We’ll look more closely at wrappers later in this chapter.
As far as the end user is concerned, the broadcast is continuous. He is not aware that the programming is dynamic and can even be personalized for him.