Nebula Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of setting up Nebula 6 on your machine, step by step. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully functional Nebula instance up and running.

Note

This tutorial is designed for Debian-based Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, and has been tested on Ubuntu. If you're using a different distribution, the steps may be slightly different. But don't worry, the basic idea remains the same.

What's included

At the end of this tutorial, your instance will:

• Scan watchfolders for new files
• Create assets in Nebula for each file
• Exctract metadata from the files
• Create low-res proxies for each video file
• Spin up a Conti playout server for linear playout in HLS format

Install Docker

Install the required dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y curl git

Download and run the Docker installation script using curl:

curl -fsSL get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sh get-docker.sh

Add your user to the Docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Log out and log back in to apply the group change. Verify that Docker is installed and running:

docker info

Clone this repository

Clone a Git repository:

git clone https://github.com/nebulabroadcast/nebula-tutorial

Test run

Now you can dry-test the setup by running the following command:

docker compose up

This will download all the required Docker images, setup the database and start the Nebula services. You can now open your browser and go to http://localhost:4455 to see the Nebula web interface.

Default login credentials are:

• Username: admin
• Password: nebula

If you see the Nebula web interface, you're good to go!

Tip

Now it is a good time to stop the services by pressing Ctrl+C in the terminal window and setup your configuraiton properly. But it is okay to continue with the default settings for now.

To learn more about configuration, scroll down to the "Configuration" section.

Managing the server

You can use command line to perform various tasks on the server. All scripts are bundled into a single Makefile, so you can run them like this:

make <command>

Following commands are available:

• make dbshell - open a shell to the PostgreSQL database
• make setup - apply settings from the settings directory.
• make reload - reload the Nebula server (not the worker)
• make restart - restart the Nebula server and worker
• make update - Update the Nebula server and worker to the latest version
• make user - Create a new user
• make password - Change the password of an existing user

Default workflow

Ingest

By default, assets are created using watchfolders. There is a watchfolder for each type of asset, which we call "Folders" in Nebula.

Folders contain assets with similar characteristics, sharing the same metadata fields. For instance, there are folders for "Movies," "Episodes," "Songs," "Commercials," etc.

When you add a file to its corresponding watchfolder, Nebula automatically creates an asset for it. The process can be monitored in the console output.

Nebula waits for a while before turning the asset into a "ONLINE" state to ensure that the file is fully written to disk. Meanwhile it extracts metadata from the file.

Proxies

As soon as the asset is created, Nebula starts creating low-res proxies for it. The process can be monitored in the jobs page of the web interface.

When a proxy is created you can preview it in the web interface in preview page.

Browsing assets

In Editor and Preview pages, left part of the screen shows the list of assets. Basic filtering is done by selecting View from the top menu.

Views by default vaguely resemble the folder structure, but they can be defined with more specific criteria. For example Main view contains movies and serie episodes, which are not trashed nor archived, Fill contains trailer, jingles and graphics, etc.

Additionally fulltext search is available in the search box in the top right corner of the browser.

Metadata

In the Editor page, you can edit the metadata of the selected asset or create a new one (if enabled).

Scheduling and playout

Linear playout scheduling and control is available only using Firefly application. See Nebula 5 documentation for more information.

Note

Conti is not intended for production use. It is a simple playout server for testing and learning purposes. It is not suitable for 24/7 operation and its features are limited.

Configuration

• CasparCG integration