Events, feeds and stable slots

What appears and when

Events come from provider catalogues and cached snapshots. Providers can publish playable feed IDs later than a public sports schedule. An upcoming fixture is not proof that every home/away/national feed can already be played. Disabled services are excluded from normal active event views. Filter by service and account before diagnosing missing events.

Automatic start has several gates

• Server Auto-Start must be enabled on Events.
• The event needs an explicit armed rule or the applicable “Arm upcoming events” default.
• The event must meet timing, availability, routing and source requirements.
• When stable slots are enabled, automatic start must respect slot assignment rather than start every live item in the catalogue.
• A per-event override can differ from the service default. Check the event’s armed state and scheduler diagnostics, not just the service switch.

When stable slots help

A slot is a permanent channel identity for a changing event. It is useful for M3U players, downstream panels and preconfigured channel lists. The native player can expose entitled events directly, so it does not require a slot for every event.

1. Open the service Outputs modal and enable stable event slots.
2. Choose the relevant source account or pin specific rules to accounts when required.
3. Set the number of slots based on simultaneous events and desired feeds—not the total number of scheduled games.
4. Use automatic or supported team/competition/category/keyword rules. Keep overlapping rules deliberate.
5. Inspect assignments before broadcasting. A strict account pin should not silently pick another account when unavailable.

Home, away and national broadcasts

Choose a feed-assignment mode appropriate to the service. Primary TV broadcasts is intended to map normal home, away and national options automatically when the provider supplies/discovers them. All available TV feeds can include special presentations that are not the ordinary team feeds. Explicit home/away rules are useful when you want deterministic separate outputs, not mandatory for every automatic configuration.

Example: eight simultaneous games

Eight games with one selected feed need eight available slots. If all eight need both home and away feeds, allow sixteen relevant assignments; national alternatives need additional capacity only where you actually want them. The scheduler may discover more alternatives later. Check capacity and discovery diagnostics instead of multiplying slots blindly.

Dates, EPG and recording

Use event title/date formatting and time zone options in the service output configuration. Keep server time synchronized. XMLTV event entries can let compatible downstream clients plan recordings, but incomplete provider schedules and later feed discovery limit what can be published in advance. xOTT Recordings and subscriber-side recording are different workflows.

For direct native events, grant explicit native-event rules in a collection and ensure the package allows events. For permanent event channels, grant the intended slots. Neither grant should unintentionally expose all accounts or unrelated sports.

Restarting an event

Use xOTT’s stable output or slot URL rather than a captured upstream URL. After restart, verify the slot still points at the intended account/feed and that fresh media is published. Active state is reconciled automatically; a log and current runtime can explain a failed start even if the card has not yet received its next update.