Our TV
Your movies, in a running order, on your own channel.

Step by step

How to build a show and put it on a channel

Our TV is built from the movies you have already made, so the first step is one you may have done. Every step below is the real one, in your own install.

1. STEP 01

   Make at least one movie

   An episode of a show is a movie, so start in Movie Star: write a story, cast it and render it. If you already have a rendered movie, you can skip straight to building the show.

2. STEP 02

   Open Our TV and create a show

   From your workspace, open Our TV and create a show. Give it a name and a logline — the one line that says what the channel is. Both are yours; nothing is generated for you.

3. STEP 03

   Add episodes to the running order

   Add your finished movies as episodes and arrange them into the order you want them to play. The order is the sequence, not the date, so you can put them in any order you like.

4. STEP 04

   Add an opening title sequence

   Add a title card and it becomes the first item in the running order, made from the show's own name. It plays before the first episode, like a real title sequence.

5. STEP 05

   Give the show a weekly slot

   Choose a weekday and a time for each episode. The channel plays those slots on a repeating weekly schedule, and you can clear or move a slot at any time.

6. STEP 06

   Check what is on now

   The channel shows what is playing now and what is next, worked out from the clock. Confirm the slots read the way you want before you put the show out.

7. STEP 07

   Publish the show to your feed

   Publish the show and its first rendered episode appears on your own feed as a post. It can be watched there and sent to the networks you have connected.

What it does

Everything a movie needs, without a camera

• A show is a running order

  Build a show by arranging your finished movies into an order. The order is data you set, not a date, so you control the sequence — and a reorder rewrites it in one step rather than leaving two episodes briefly in the same place.

• An opening title sequence

  Give the show a title card and it becomes the first item in the running order, made on demand from the show's own name — a member of the order rather than a special case the schedule has to remember.

• A weekly channel

  Give the show a weekday and a time and it plays on a repeating weekly schedule. Each slot is one episode in one time band, so the channel reads like a real listing rather than a single premiere.

• What is on now, from the clock

  The channel answers "what is on now" and "what is next" by comparing the wall clock to the slots you set — no background job, no cron, nothing to fall behind. A schedule that needed a worker to be correct would be wrong whenever the worker was down.

• Episodes reuse your movies

  An episode is one of your movies, so writing, casting, lighting, the aspect and the render are all the movie app's — called unchanged. You write a film once and it serves both the feed and the channel.

• Publish the show to your feed

  Publishing a show puts its first rendered episode on your own feed as a post, in the same content model as everything else, so the channel can reach your audience and, when you connect them, the networks you already use.

• Runs on your own server

  The show, its running order and its schedule live in your own database, and every episode streams from your own disk. Nothing is uploaded to us, and no broadcaster sits between you and your audience.

• No ads, no third party

  Nothing is inserted before, during or after an episode, and no external service is involved in playing it. Your channel is yours end to end.