Comfortable operations, truthful state, synchronized output.

Use this release guide for daily playout, automated market reconciliation, Site Studio preview, settings, reports, geolocation, Dolby indicators, and deployment.

Start-of-day flow

Open Dashboard and follow the four numbered steps: Build the day, Start automation, Verify output, Share results.
In Schedule / Rundown, publish the EPG only after editorial review and approve the day for air only after every Program block has a ready/QC-passed master.
Open Daily Playout and choose Play scheduled programs for the day.
Open Master Control. Select National, then each local market. The status must identify the actual source: scheduled master, manual master, inherited National, live encoder, or standby.
Keep a local confidence monitor open for New York and Miami during the first rehearsal after deployment.

What “on air” means now

Signal	Command status	Expected viewer behavior
Approved scheduled file	Scheduled master	All inherited markets use the same server-clock anchor.
Manual uploaded master	Manual master	Selected market plays the file immediately.
OBS/encoder	Live / OBS feed	HLS live source is active.
Inherited local market	Inherited from National	Program, graphics, breaks, and clock follow National except explicit local overrides.
No valid program	Standby / unavailable	Player shows the configured standby/loop instead of claiming a program is live.

Station Bug and Screen Bug TAKE are allowed whenever a legitimate scheduled, manual, inherited, or encoder program bus is active. They are not tied only to the encoder flag.

Automation

The broadcast watchdog runs every minute when enabled in Settings → Automation.
It clears expired station IDs, commercial breaks, and expired safety alerts from their authoritative durations. Manually taken screen bugs latch until CLEAR.
It starts approved local breakaway blocks and returns local markets to inherited National after the local hard-out.
It records every automatic correction in the audit log and sends a realtime reconciliation event.
Emergency kill, safety alert approval, destructive deletion, and production deployment remain deliberate human actions.

Do not deploy the safety worker without both cron entries: */5 * * * * for NWS and * * * * * for broadcast reconciliation.

Settings that affect viewers

Setting	Effect after Save
Primary / backup feed	Changes the live HLS source returned by the HVN control API.
Control reconciliation interval	Changes the fallback polling interval when realtime delivery is unavailable.
Default viewer volume	Sets the initial volume only when that viewer has no saved preference.
Market location lifetime	Changes the expiry window for visit-scoped market routing.
Preload next scheduled master	Enables or disables viewer prewarming of the next ready file.
Drift threshold	Changes when file playout seeks back to the shared network timeline.

Settings tabs stay inside Settings. If a tab opens another Command module, stop and verify that the v35.7 assets were deployed without an old cache.

Site Studio preview

Select Iridesceux or HVN in Site Studio.
Use Desktop or Mobile preview; Reload refreshes the real current site without publishing.
Edit a safe override and review the draft summary.
Use Preview draft, then publish only after visual and link checks.

The corporate-site response allows framing only from the Command origin and approved Pages previews.

Live playback, audio, and premium formats

The premium trailer prewarms but does not replace the main program video. At its end, the enhanced route starts immediately and falls back to the canonical master if necessary.
Program completion asks Command for the current authoritative bus, allowing the same program source to reattach when required.
Volume, mute, and Atmos on/off remain on the viewer's device across program transitions and reloads.
Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos are reported separately as Active, Available, Not supported, or Off. A browser capability result is not a guarantee of the physical display, receiver, speakers, or passthrough chain.

Market scan and profile synchronization

Market scan collects repeated high-accuracy browser samples, calculates a consensus, and compares the nearest two markets. A coarse Cloudflare network hint can confirm or question the device result but never silently routes a nearby market by itself. Ambiguous scans require a viewer choice. Exact device coordinates are excluded from Command's advertiser and creator PDFs.

Profile changes are refreshed from the account API and propagated by same-tab events, BroadcastChannel, storage events, page resume, network return, and a 30-second visible-page reconciliation.

Downloadable reports

Open Audience Intelligence.
Optionally enter the exact advertiser, campaign, or program title.
Download Network PDF, Advertiser PDF, or Creator PDF.
Confirm the scope line and generated timestamp before sending.

Advertiser reports define impressions, completions, reach, market delivery, and proof of play. Creator reports define viewers, sessions, watch hours, buffering, and playback errors. Both state that missing telemetry is not inferred.

Release and media-packager update

# Safe local verification only
bash scripts/hvn-release.sh --check

# Deploy only the media packager
bash scripts/hvn-release.sh --deploy --component media-packager

# Deploy the verified complete stack
bash scripts/hvn-release.sh --deploy --component all

The deploy modes require explicit Pages project names and Worker configuration paths. The script stops on failed tests, syntax checks, or missing values.

Acceptance checklist

National scheduled file starts after the premium trailer with picture and audio.
New York and Miami show the same title, source, and program time as National while inheriting.
A local block breaks away and rejoins without operator cleanup.
Station Bug and Screen Bug TAKE/CLEAR work during scheduled file playback.
Settings tabs stay in place and saved values return after reload.
Site Studio preview switches between Iridesceux/HVN and desktop/mobile.
Live avatar changes without a hard refresh.
Dolby Vision and Atmos badges distinguish supported, active, unavailable, and off.
Advertiser and creator PDFs render, extract text, and match the chosen scope.

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