Creating an AI stream

Open AI Streams → New AI stream. You need the Manage streams permission.

The settings

• Name — for you; viewers never see it.
• Channels — tick every channel this stream should publish into. Each gets the same picture and relays it to its own destinations. See Sending an AI stream to several channels.
• Save to Video Library — keep a daily video of what it played. See Saving AI streams to the Video Library.
• Spend limit and Cost per clip at your provider — see Costs and spend limits.
• Provider — the video service that makes the clips. The menu shows whether each has a working key. You can pick one before you have added a key; the form warns you that the stream will not generate until you do.
• Instruction — what the stream should show, in plain words (up to 2,000 characters). For example: Slow aerial shots of a calm harbour at dawn, no people, no text. Every instruction is checked before anything is sent to your provider; a refused one never reaches the provider and never goes on air.
• Model (optional) — leave blank for the provider's default.
• Clip length — every clip plays in 8-second segments, so keep this at 8. The help under the field shows the lengths your chosen provider actually makes; a length it cannot fill is refused when you save.
• Shape — landscape (16:9), portrait (9:16) or square (1:1). Not every provider makes every shape; the form warns you straight away and will not save a shape the provider cannot make, so you are never charged for a clip in the wrong shape.
• Clips ahead — how many clips to keep ready beyond what is playing (1–10). This is the main thing that decides how fast the stream spends. See Costs and spend limits.
• Style — Separate scenes (each clip is new) or One continuing story (each clip carries on from the last). Only providers that can continue a clip do the second; with any other provider the stream quietly makes separate scenes.
• Running order — optional beats that tell a story. See Story beats and the schedule.

Going on air

Saving never starts a stream. Press Start on the stream page: it goes on air within a minute. Start is refused, with the reason, if the stream has no channel, if your workspace cannot broadcast right now (plan or bandwidth), if another switched-on AI stream already uses one of its channels, or if nothing is ready to play yet.

Stop switches it off. Nothing more is generated or spent.