Brando includes a special debug build of Brando Player you can use to to test channel graphics on your Creation Station.
Access Player Player Debug
To access the Brando Player Debug tool, run the executable file, BrandoPlayerDebug.exe, located in the Brando Player installation directory.
Instead of connecting to your timecode generator, the Creation Station can use the Microsoft® Windows® system time for timecode instead. Modifying the timecode source can be done in XPression by selecting Edit > Hardware Setup.
This debug version of the Player application contains a Debug menu that makes it easy to trigger events without GPI input. The Debug menu provides the following options:
Start Commercial | Simulates a commercial which forces the ticker and bugs to be hidden |
Stop Commercial | Simulates the beginning of a new program segment starting the timer to trigger the scheduled Snipe |
Trigger Next | Triggers a scheduled Next Up event |
Trigger Bumper | Triggers a scheduled Bumper event |
Test Environment Workflow
Create a test environment on the Creation Station with the following steps:
- Add a test channel to the database in Flow
- Name your test XPression project, and save it on the file system at D:\brando\[channel name]\[channel name].xpf, where [channel name] is the exact name you named the channel in Flow.
- Run Gears to update the Brando resources.
- Schedule the resources and schedule the programming for your test channel in Flow.
- Run the Brando Player Debug tool (BrandoPlayerDebug.exe) from the Brando Player directory.
- Run the Switcher application to display Switcher resources.
- To test whether your GPI triggers are coming into the Player, turn on Verbose logging and then open the resulting logs in the Logs directory in the Brando Player directory.
In this section: