Author Topic: How about another...  (Read 2200 times)

jodybingo

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How about another...
« on: August 24, 2012, 11:12:50 AM »
I would like to create several screens for pre-tourney that each have a video embedded into it (a different one for each). If this is a minor and easy thing for you, can TD have an option that would select at random one of these screens like the events?
Thank You again

Corey Cooper

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Re: How about another...
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2012, 11:48:12 AM »
That one's a little harder.  I wonder if we can make this happen with the <expression> token already in version 3.  How are you embedding the videos?  Can you give me the HTML of some of them?

jodybingo

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Re: How about another...
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2012, 11:58:37 AM »
<object classid="clsid:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95" width="1440" height="900" codebase="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/">
<param name="Filename" value="C:\Users\Jody\Documents\The Tournament Director 2\Data\templates\regular\intro.wmv">
<param name="AutoStart" value="true">
<param name="ShowControls" value="false">
<param name="BufferingTime" value="2">
<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false">
<param name="InvokeURLs" value="false">
</object>

jodybingo

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Re: How about another...
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2012, 05:07:58 PM »
replace the URL with <home>

Corey Cooper

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Re: How about another...
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2012, 02:39:52 PM »
Been giving this one some thought, and unfortunately the <expression> token is unlikely to help.  Since the screen is updated every second, the <expression> token will be re-evaluated (it won't be cached because its value will most likely change), which would cause the cell in which you place it to be re-rendered, causing any video to restart.  So even if we could come up with a way to have the <expression> token provide a random way to specify a video, it wouldn't allow the video to play because it would be continually restarting.

Are the videos of different lengths?  Would just one of them be picked and remain on that screen until the tournament starts?  Or would you want it to [randomly] cycle through the pre-start screens (each with a different video) until the tournament starts?

jodybingo

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Re: How about another...
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2012, 07:07:54 PM »
My hopes were to embed one cell in a pre-tournament screen with the HTML to play a video (intro.wav in this case) and have TD select at random one screen when the conditions are met (time<120 seconds as an example). Again, this isn't too much of an issue. I could simply create several layouts containing all the same information with the exception of my pre-tourney screen which the cell containing the HTML for the video would point to a different video. My staff would simply select a different layout before registering players and therefore produce a different intro video.

Corey Cooper

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Re: How about another...
« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2012, 08:17:00 PM »
Been thinking about it, and it's not hard to set up a separate screen for each video and put them into a Screen Set.  That would have them playing in a specified order every time.

Making the order random is proving more difficult than I expected.  While there is a random() function in formulas & conditions that can be used, it wouldn't work because the conditions are evaluated every second, and a different random number would be generated.

The only way I can think to do this successfully is to add the ability to have a Screen Set display its screens in random order.  This would have to be a future enhancement...