Starting a TV Studio production
What a production is, what the seven stages record, and why no video can be generated in this product yet.
Updated
TV Studio is guided advert production: a brief, a script, a shot list, an arrangement, a compliance review and publishing metadata. Everything it holds is Social Studio's own record of that work.
No video can be generated here. The two engine seats TV Studio names - video generation and an AI presenter - have no engine behind either of them, so a generation request is recorded, refused and never charged. Every other stage is real work that is genuinely performed.
BEFORE YOU START
- A workspace. A production belongs to one, and without one there is no form to fill in.
- The "create" permission to start a production, and "view" to read one.
- Nothing else, and no credits. Starting a production and working through its stages cost nothing.
STEPS
- Open Create and choose "TV Studio", or go to /app/tv-studio.
- Read the banner headed "No video can be generated here yet" and the table under "What TV Studio can do right now". The server reports the standing of every stage, so you know before you start which parts run.
- Under "Start a production", choose the "Workspace" and type a "Working title".
- Choose "Start a production".
- Choose "Open it" on the confirmation, or find the production in the list below.
- Use the "Stage" filter to find productions later. The list also shows whether each has a rendered master and whether its publishing metadata is prepared.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SEE
The production created at the brief stage, and a row in the list showing "No rendered master" and publishing metadata "Not prepared". A production always starts at the brief; it cannot be created part-way down the line, because every later stage's precondition would then be unverified.
WHAT THIS WILL NOT DO
- It does not generate video. Asking for a generation is allowed and is recorded as evidence, and it is refused with "No video generation engine is configured, so this could not be generated. No credits were charged."
- It does not distribute anything. Reaching the publishing stage means the metadata a publication would carry has been recorded and a compliance review has passed - not that an advert was sent anywhere, and not that a film exists.
- It has no mobile screen. The TV section of the phone app is a different feature, reading video projects rather than TV Studio productions.
- It does not draft a script for you. Every script version recorded through the product is recorded as written by a person, and a caller cannot declare one machine-assisted.
IF IT DOES NOT WORK
- "No workspace to create a production in" means create or join a workspace first.
- "That production could not be created." is the general fallback; check the workspace and the title.
- "What this product can do could not be read" means the capability report failed. Nothing on the page should be taken as a statement of what TV Studio can or cannot do until it loads.
- "No production is at the {stage} stage right now." is a filter result, not an error. Choose "Every stage".
- "Production not found." means it belongs to another organisation or workspace you cannot reach.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Is the video compositor used elsewhere in the product the same thing?
No. TV Studio has its own engine registry and its own render lifecycle, and the compositor used by video projects is deliberately not registered in it.
Can I record a generation attempt anyway?
Yes, and it is worth doing if you want the record. The attempt is stored with what was tried, what came back, and the fact that no engine was called and nothing was charged.
RELATED GUIDES
- Working through the TV Studio stages
Brief, script, storyboard, generation, edit, compliance and publishing metadata - what each stage records and what it refuses.
- Planning a video project
A video project is a plan made of scenes, captions and audio. Nothing listed there is a video file.
- Rendering a composition
What submitting a cut version does, why every deployment currently answers "no provider active", and what that costs.