Configuration & Preferences

You need to configure the Elector Player for your Election Day broadcast.

Election Results Dates

Candidate, riding, and party data is directly tied to an election date in the system. Elector is designed to preserve legacy candidate, riding, and party election data, and support is provided for both full elections as well as bi-elections. Previous election data can be displayed in various scene data and graphs. The Elector Player can support and access existing legacy election results data available in the database.

You can configure the player to discover election dates directly from the database.

Select File > Election Dates.
Select the Discover Dates From Database option.
Manually enter Previous Election Dates, if known.
Click OK.

Click here to see an example of the screen.

Tab Setup

The Elector Player is customizable and you can determine what tabs and groups are visible in the interface as well as customize tab and group names.

Select File > Tabs Setup.
On the Tab Controls Setup dialog, you can:
- configure and show up to four (4) playlists. See Multiple Playlist Tabs below for further details.
- show or hide the Fullscreen Scenes Tab and the Show Boxes Group on that tab
- show or hide the Name Keys Tab
- show or hide the Utility Scenes Tab
- show or hide the Show Tickers Tab, define which groups appear on that tab, specify each group's name, and specify their position on the screen
- show or hide keyboard shortcut sequences for Take and Clear options
Configure the tabs as needed and click OK to save your changes. Configuration changes are applied immediately.

Click here to see an example of the screen.

Player Preferences

On the Preferences dialog, you can configure the following global output settings.

Enable or disable the player to group non-main parties as OTHER
Enable the player to fade or animate on hiding output
Enable the player or fade or animate off
Specify the minimum number of crawl items, including Breaking News and Tickers, for crawls

Configure preferences settings as needed and press OK to save your changes.

Click here to see an example of the screen.

Multiple Playlist Tabs

You can configure the Elector Player with up to four (4) playlist tabs.

Click here to see an example of the screen.

Multiple playlist tabs allow you to set up a number of ready-to-use playlists and individual scenes for broadcast. For example, you may want one playlist tab to include only overview graphs, one for a specific region's playlist of ridings, and one playlist tab for a specific riding, where the forth playlist tab could be a catch-all where the operator will choose a playlist on the fly during broadcast.

In addition to being able to custom-name your playlist tabs, you can switch between those playlist tabs quickly using the mouse or keyboard. Each tab is assigned a shortcut key for easy access. Hover over each tab to see its assigned shortcut key.

On each playlist tab, you can configure the following independent options:

Option	Details
Auto-refresh Playlists every x seconds	Specifies how often the playlist automatically refreshes, in seconds.
Hide Thumbnail/Info Tabs	Select this option to hide the Thumbnail and Info tabs. Clear this option to display the Thumbnail and Info tabs. Click here to see an example of the screen.
Play every x seconds	Specifies how often the playlist displays each scene in seconds.
Loop to first item at end	Select this option to configure the player to loop the output the scenes in the playlist. Clear this option to configure the player to stop output when it reaches the last scene in the playlist.

Hardware Setup

The Elector Player offers a wide variety of hardware, output, and XPression configuration settings for graphics package output.

Click here to learn more about hardware configuration terminology.

Term	Definition
Framebuffers	The configured video output device used to preview video configured in XPression. Typically, a separate framebuffer is specified for program and preview outputs, and framebuffer identification starts with zero (0).
Layers	Layers render a group of objects together but separately from other objects or layers. Typically, a separate layer is specified for foreground, background, and main background objects where each layer's animation effects can be managed independently. Layers can be used to mask specific objects without masking other objects in a scene.
Fullframe	A scene whose layout, design, and graphics use all available title-safe screen real estate available.
Lower Third	A scene whose layout, design, and graphics use only a portion or all of the lower third of the available title-safe real estate available. Lower third layouts can include text and or graphics (which may or may not be animated) overlaid over video as well as news tickers, timers or clocks, or crawls.
Name Keys	A variation of a lower third consisting of simple name keys that animate on and off.
Playlists	A collection of sequenced content defined in Flow that is queued up for broadcast.

Select File > Hardware Setup.
Configure hardware settings as needed for your environment as detailed in the following table.
Click OK.

All available options are shown in the Hardware Setup dialog regardless of what tab configuration is set for the Election Player. For example, if the player is currently not displaying the Name Keys Tab, Name Keys hardware configuration options will continue to be available.

Configuration Option	Details
Fullframe Scenes Framebuffers & Layers	For fullframe scenes: specify the framebuffer to use for program and preview outputs. enable or disable previews. specify the layers used to render foreground, background, and main background graphics.
Lower Third Framebuffers & Layers	For lower third scenes: specify the framebuffer to use for program and preview outputs. enable or disable previews. specify the layers used to render foreground, background, and main background graphics.
Name Keys	For name key scenes: specify the layers used to render the foreground and background graphics. specify the framebuffer type as fullframe or lower third to set which framebuffer to use.
Playlist Framebuffers & Layers	For each playlist: specify the layer used to render the graphics specify the framebuffer type as fullframe or lower third to set which framebuffer to use.

Click here to see an example of the screen.

Headshots Caching

The Elector Player can cache headshot images to improve output efficiency and performance. From the Headshots menu, configure the player to handle headshots as follows:

Cache Headshots - caches headshots on demand
Cache All Headshots Now - caches all headshots at one time; this can take some time to complete
Flush Headshots Cache - deletes the local cache of existing headshots from the system

In this section:

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