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Core concepts

CanvasPro is built around a small set of primitives. The hierarchy below is the mental model that holds the rest of the product together.

Frame

A frame is an output region in the graphics engine. A single 4K display is a frame. A 3×3 video wall is a frame. A stadium ribbon at 7680×128 is a frame. Channels are assigned to frames; whatever a channel plays renders inside its frame.

Channel

A channel is a container of queues, assignable to a frame. A channel decides what is on screen for a given output over time.

Queue

A queue is a playlist of scenes, or of other queues. Queues can nest. The queue is the thing that walks through items in order; scenes are the items.

Scene

A scene is an instance of a template with data filled in. Scenes are the cued unit: what an operator presses go on.

Template

A template is a Ventuz scene structure that defines variable slots: regions, text, asset bindings, transitions. The template is the shell; a scene is the template with concrete values in those slots. The same template can drive many scenes.

Preset

A preset is a saved template configuration. Use a preset when you want a recurring shape (for example, a particular lower-third style) that several scenes share.

Asset

An asset is a single piece of content: video, still image, vector, HTML5 page, NDI stream, SDI feed, JSON data, text. Assets are bound into scenes through a template's variable slots.

Condition

A condition is a rule that decides whether a scene or queue is valid right now. Conditions are how scheduling, day-parting and runtime gating work in CanvasPro. There are built-in condition types for time of day, day of week, date range, play count and more. Multiple conditions can be combined with any or all.

A scene with no conditions is always valid. A scene with a Time Range 18:00-22:00 condition is valid only in the evening. A scene with Valid on day = Saturday and Time Range 12:00-17:00 (combined with all) plays only on Saturday afternoons.

How they fit

graph LR
  T[Template] -->|filled with data| S[Scene]
  A[Asset] -->|bound into| S
  A -.embedded in.-> T
  S --> Q[Queue]
  Q --> C[Channel]
  C --> F[Frame]
  Co[Condition] -.gates.-> S
  Co -.gates.-> Q

Operators spend most of their time arranging scenes inside queues, and tuning conditions on them. Templates are usually authored by a separate team and reused, and they can embed assets directly so a template ships with default imagery. Channels and frames are set up once per venue.

Cue and take

CanvasPro supports a cue and take workflow: cue a scene to preview it in a separate window, then take it live. This is how broadcast operators do safe live cueing. See On Air for the surface where this happens.

Next

  • Quickstart for the first hands-on build
  • Channels for the page where queues and scenes are arranged
  • Glossary for field-level definitions