Scheduled Live Streaming for Prerecorded Videos, Without an Operator

A weekly service, a daily class, a recurring briefing: the content is already finished, but the moment still matters. A schedule binds videos you already host to one of your live streams and starts that broadcast at the time you set, in the timezone you set, with nobody present to press start.

One dated broadcast, or a repeating pattern with an optional end date
The schedule carries its own timezone, so occurrences are not computed in UTC
The videos you select, the timing and the playlist controls are checked when you save

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The problem you clicked on

The video is finished. Somebody still has to start it.

Manual starts are the part of repeating programming that breaks, and the failure is visible to everyone who turned up on time.

Programming that repeats does not fail because the content is late. It fails because the start is a human step. Somebody has to be awake at the right hour, in the right timezone, in front of the right machine, to begin a broadcast of material that was signed off weeks ago — every week, every day, every occurrence.

A missed start is public. The audience is already there when nothing happens.
Cover is fragile. Leave, travel or a public holiday and the rota has a hole in it.
Across timezones the maths goes wrong before the operator does — especially either side of a daylight-saving change.
The work is not skilled work. It is pressing start at an inconvenient hour.

A schedule removes the person from that step without moving the content anywhere new. The videos stay in your library, the broadcast goes out on your existing live stream, and viewers arrive at the same player they would have arrived at anyway.

Step one

Choose the stream, the videos and the project

Each video you add is resolved against your own account when you save, so an unusable choice is refused then rather than at broadcast time.

The live streamWhere it goes out: A schedule broadcasts to one of your existing live streams on the current live system, so viewers arrive at your player under the live-stream access rules configured for that stream.
Your own published videosAccount-owned, one or many: Select published videos that belong to your account, in the order you want them played. A draft, a still-processing upload or an item from another account is refused when you save, and the message names the video.
A playable rendition your plan includesHLS or MP4: Each selected video needs an HLS or MP4 rendition your plan entitles. If neither is available for an item, the schedule is not accepted rather than silently skipping it during the broadcast.
The recording projectOpt-in, plan-gated: Enable recording for an eligible stream when you want the occurrence kept as on-demand video, then choose the video project where the result should be stored.

Getting started

What the first hour looks like

One-time and recurring schedules are the same form: either a single dated start time, or a repeating pattern with a start date and an optional end date.

01
Pick the stream and the videos
One of your existing live streams, and the published videos you want played, in order. Both are checked against your account and plan as you save.
02
Set the timezone
The schedule carries its own timezone from the standard IANA list rather than inheriting whichever machine happened to save it, so the broadcast belongs to a place and not to a laptop.
03
Choose once, or choose repeating
A one-time schedule takes a single dated start time and no repeating pattern. A recurring schedule takes a repeating pattern with a start date and an optional end date. Supplying both shapes is rejected, which keeps a one-off from quietly becoming a series.
04
Save, and leave it enabled
Saving validates the videos you selected, the timing and the playlist controls. It does not check that you added any, so a schedule left with an empty playlist saves and then has nothing to broadcast. An enabled schedule with media in it runs at each occurrence with nobody present; disabling it stops future runs without deleting the definition, and it can be re-enabled later.
05
Hand out the usual embed
There is no separate link created by the schedule. Viewers arrive at the scheduled time through the player, embed or page already configured for that live stream.

Controls and limits

Timezone, repeat, shuffle and loop

The controls apply to either schedule type: stable shuffle can be combined with finite whole-playlist repeats, or with continuous looping.

TimezoneRequired, IANA: Occurrences are computed in the schedule's own timezone rather than in UTC or in the browser that created it. In a spring daylight-saving gap a requested wall-clock time that does not exist advances to the next valid local instant; in the autumn overlap an ambiguous time runs once rather than twice.
Repeating patternStandard five-field cron: Hourly, daily, weekdays, weekends, a chosen weekday or a chosen day of the month, plus a custom expression for anything else. Shorthand aliases and six-field expressions that include seconds are rejected on save rather than quietly reinterpreted.
Order or shufflePer schedule: By default the playlist plays in the order you built it, which is what a session with a deliberate running order needs. Shuffle plays the same selection in a stable scheduler ordering worked out from the schedule and the videos themselves, independent of the order you authored — for some selections the two coincide. It is not re-rolled per broadcast: the same schedule and the same videos give the same order at every occurrence.
Repeat and loopWhole playlist, then continuous: A repeat count adds extra passes over the whole playlist rather than repeating each video in place, so two videos at a repeat count of one run A, B, A, B and not A, A, B, B. Looping runs those passes without end instead, which is how a continuous channel is built from a finite library.

Before you start

Scheduled streaming questions

Most of what follows is settled when you save the schedule rather than when the broadcast is due.

Can a prerecorded video stream live?

Yes. That is what a schedule is for: it binds videos already hosted in your library to one of your live streams and broadcasts them at a time you set. The video has to belong to your account, be published, and have an HLS or MP4 rendition your plan entitles.

Can schedules repeat?

Yes. A recurring schedule uses a standard five-field cron pattern — hourly, daily, weekdays, weekends, a chosen weekday, a chosen day of the month, or a custom expression — with a start date and an optional end date. The end date is exclusive, so an occurrence landing exactly on it does not run. A schedule can also be disabled and re-enabled without deleting it.

How are time zones handled?

Each schedule carries its own timezone from the standard IANA list, and occurrences are computed in that timezone rather than in UTC or in the browser that saved it. In a spring daylight-saving gap, a requested wall-clock time that does not exist advances to the next valid local instant. In the autumn overlap, an ambiguous time runs once rather than twice.

Which videos can I add to a schedule?

Add published videos from your own DynTube library. Upload or import the source first, confirm that it has an HLS or MP4 rendition included with your plan, and then select the hosted video in the schedule.

Is a scheduled broadcast recorded?

Enable recording for the stream when it is included in your plan, then choose the video project where the recording should be stored.

Publish to a time, not by hand

One dated broadcast or a repeating pattern, from the library you already have.

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