Viz Pilot User Guide
Version 8.1 | Published August 16, 2017 ©
Thumbnail Generator
Thumbnail Generator is a Windows service. As data elements are created or changed, it automatically generates thumbnails of them. The thumbnails are stored in the Viz Pilot database.
The thumbnails generated by Thumbnail Generator are used in the data element lists in Viz Pilot News and Director, as well as the Legacy Playlist, but they are not used in the new Playlist Window. They are not used in the Pilot Data Server either, as that includes thumbnail links pointing to the Preview Server in the data element descriptions it serves out.
For information on installing Thumbnail Generator, see Pilot Data Server Requirements.
Configuration
Only one instance of Thumbnail Generator should be running at any given time. Having two running will not lead to errors, but extra load on the Preview Server and its Viz Engine, as all thumbnails will be generated twice.
The Preview Server must be configured in the Pilot Data Server under Settings > VCP Parameters > preview_server_uri. See the Viz Pilot Release Notes for the recommended versions of Preview Server.
Thumbnail Generator uses the database specified during Pilot Data Server installation. To change the database, run the Pilot Data Server Installation again and select Change, or click Change from the list of installed programs in Windows.
Operation
Thumbnail Generator listens to database change notifications in order to update thumbnails automatically. It maintains a queue of data elements to be processed, which will be ordered so that the data elements most recently updated will be processed first. If there are many simultaneous changes, it may take some time before the thumbnail of a specific element is generated. Also, to avoid overloading the Preview Server or the Viz Engine with thumbnail requests, Thumbnail Generator will wait a number of seconds between consecutive requests.
Thumbnail Generator starts automatically when Windows starts. It handles database connection issues and doesn't require any kind of maintenance.
Logging
Thumbnail Generator places its log file at:
c:\ProgramData\Vizrt\Logs\Viz Pilot Thumbnail Generator\Thumbnail Generator.log
When Thumbnail Generator fails to generate a thumbnail for a data element it will retry with increasing intervals. If it fails a certain number of times, the item will not be retried any more, leaving the data element without a thumbnail.