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Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin Release Notes

Version 3.0 | Published January 26, 2021 ©

Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin Release Notes

Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin 3.0.2

Release Date: 2021-01-26

These are the release notes for the Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin version 3.0.2. This document describes the user-visible changes that have been made to the software since release 3.0.1.

Requirements

This plug-in is for use with:

  • Avid MediaCentral® | Command 2020.9.1 or higher.

  • Viz Pilot Data server 8.5.1 or higher.

  • Viz Preview Server 4.4 or higher.

  • Media Sequencer version 5.3.3 or higher.

This plug-in has been tested with the following versions:

  • Avid MediaCentral® | Command 2020.9.1

  • Viz Pilot Data Server 8.5.1.90

  • Viz Preview Server 4.4.0.2674

  • Viz Trio 3.2.4.24895

  • Viz Pilot 8.6.0.24874

  • Media Sequencer 5.3.3

  • Viz Engine/Artist version 3.14.5.102205 and version 4.2

New Features and Bug Fixes

This version of the plug-in has the following new features and bug-fixes compared to the 3.0.1 version:

  • There is a fix for a disconnect issue. The disconnect occurred on a system that had rundowns not unloaded, and where 'old' playlists in MediaCentral® | Command would contain elements deleted from the pilot database. The Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin got thumbnail requests from the Avid side which it did not answer. This again did result in a thread leakage on the Avid side. The fix is now to answer 'null' on the thumbnail requests for the deleted elements. This prevents the thread leakage (MSE-7899 and MSE-7734). Unit tests have been created (MSE-7947).

  • The plug-in now prefers the new preview server API over the old one (the preview server template URL starting with /api/preview/snapshot? is preferred over the preview server template URL starting with /snapshot?). The plug-in reads the preview server atom service document to know the API version (MSE-7946).

  • The plug-in now supports thumbnails for mos type elements when upgrading to Media Sequencer 5.3. Media Sequencer 5.3 sets preview server thumbnail URLs that uses the /api/preview/snapshot template URL of preview server. This API of preview server does currently only support .png images, and not .jpeg (the old /snapshot API supported both). The plug-in is fixed so that it converts from .png to .jpeg. The Avid side of the system only supports .jpeg. Note that quality values are used in the ACCEPT headers sent to preview server. This so that if preview server starts to support .jpeg for the /api/preview/snapshot template, then .jpeg is returned (MSE-7903).

  • The plug-in now makes use of the If-None-Match header and etag when it polls elements for changes. This both towards Viz Pilot Data Server and Media Sequencer. Note that for this to work Media Sequencer 5.3.3 or higher is needed (MSE-7984).

  • When using VCP CG templates and the template contains autogenerated fielddef(s) (indicated by the sub-node <indexingvariable>), this fielddef is skipped (MSE-8055).

Restrictions

When Using Star cg Syntax

  • Using a combo template with external id does only support layers with one state. That is:

    • If the layer has more than one choice that is non-empty, the layer is ignored.

    • If the layer has only one choice which is non-empty, this choice is selected.

Known Issues

When Using Star cg Syntax

  • No default values are present for star cg elements with no input data.

    Example: If the following external template v1003 has two input text fields where default values has been set in Viz Content Pilot, then the syntax *cg v1003 gives a data element with empty values. (MSE-3966, VCP-2320)

  • Continue count is not supported for star cg elements based on Trio templates.

  • Restrictions on template identifiers recognized by the Avid MediaCentral® | Command system (MSE-4900).

    • When the configuration setting Use template name as identifier for Viz Pilot cg elements is on, the identifier for the external template is the “Description” field of the external template given in Pilot Template Manager.

    • The integration with Avid MediaCentral® | Command has restrictions for the characters in the identifiers. This has to be enforced by the user.

    • Characters that do not work: forward slash, backward slash, full stop.

      Note: iNews only accepts template identifiers being one word. Templates not following these rules might not be recognized by the Avid MediaCentral® | Command system.

    • For a template identifier containing the character full stop (“.”) the template will not work, and in addition loading such a template to the inventory causes problems with the inventory. This plug-in therefore filters out templates with such identifiers.

    • For Trio cg templates: Viz Artist disallows the mentioned characters in scene names.

Vizrt Plug-in Settings

  • Plug-in settings does not support Thai, Bengali, Hindi. The problem is related to the environment run by Avid MediaCentral® | Command.

Standalone Playlists and Shotbox

This is not supported.

Other Known Issues

  • The following described issue applies when the config setting Enable initializing of a playlist or item in a playlist is not selected. The issue can be resolved in Avid MediaCentral® | Command (MSE-5670).

    • When the user right clicks on a graphic element in Avid MediaCentral® | Command , the options for initialization are available. These options are also available in the Main Menu (Playlist > Graphics > Initialize Item/ Initialize Playlist).

  • Resource handling of rundowns from Avid iNEWS: If rundowns are not unloaded after use, or they are unloaded when the corresponding playlist is locked in Avid MediaCentral® | Command, the Vizrt graphics used in such rundowns will remain in the playlist held by Media Sequencer. This represents a resouce leakage. A work-around for remove of such dangling elements is to delete the Pilot playlist created by Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin and to restart Media Sequencer and restart the Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin.

  • Sometims the user can experience missing thumbnail-updates in Avid MediaCentral® | Command client. A work-around is to resize the column that shows the thumbnails.

Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin 3.0.1

Release Date: 2017-09-05

These are the release notes for the Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin version 3.0.1. This document describes the user-visible changes that have been made to the software since release 3.0.0.

Requirements

This plug-in is for use with:

  • iNEWS Command 3.7.0.14 or higher.

  • Viz Pilot Data server 7.1 or higher.

  • Viz Preview Server 3.0 or higher.

  • Media Sequencer version 4.0 or higher.

This plug-in has been tested with the following versions:

  • iNews Command 3.7.0.14

  • Viz Pilot Data Server 7.2.0.1370

  • Viz Preview Server 4.0.2.2466

  • Viz Trio 3.1.1.22607

  • Viz Pilot 7.2.0.23822

  • Media Sequencer 4.1.0.16507

  • Viz Engine/Artist version: 3.8.3

Changes

GDS SDK Upgrade Notice

The Graphic Device Service SDK provided by Avid is enhanced between release 3.0.0 and 3.0.1 of Vizrt Avid iNews Command Plug-in. Specifically, a new method getItemID on PlayoutGraphic is added. This requires the GDS installed by Avid Command installer to provide this method. If incompatible versions of Avid Command and the Avid iNews Command Plugin are installed, the plug-in might crash and java.lang.NoSuchMethodError is present in the Avid Diagnostics log.

New Features and Bug Fixes

This version of the plug-in has the following new features and bug-fixes compared to the 3.0 version:

  • The following known issue (denoted as known issue in 3.0 release) is now fixed: The described issue and fix for this issue applies when the config setting Only mark last played graphic as done (per channel) is selected: 

    Given two cg elements in a playlist. Play the first element.
    After play-out of this element, edit it from iNews.
    Play the second element.
    Expected result is that the second element has status Done in Avid Command (status Done is shown by a blue square icon).

    Before Fix: This was not the case. Both the first and second element had status Done.
    Now: Only the second element has status Done in Avid Command. This issue is solved by Avid and Vizrt (MSE-5756).

  • Default channel fix for Trio cg elements (MSE-6448) now fixed: The default channel set up for the iNEWS rundown should take effect even if this channel is not set as program channel in the Media Sequencer profile in use.

  • EJECTING status is now removed on elements after a 'channel specific eject' API call (a handleClear call with parameter PlayoutGraphicID set to null). The behavior is now the following: A 'channel specific eject' API call results in EJECTING status on PAUSED and DONE elements, and then the EJECTING statuses are removed. This prevents elements to have EJECTED status if the playlist is re-locked in Avid Command after a previous unlock (where the unlock caused a channel specific eject API call).The regression was introduced in the 3.0 release of the plug-in. Fixed in jira ticket MSE-6452.

Restrictions

When Using Star CG Syntax

  • Using a combination template with external id only supports layers with one state. If the layer has more than one choice that is non-empty, the layer is ignored. If the layer has only one choice which is non-empty, this choice is selected.

Known Issues

When Using Star CG Syntax

  • No default values are present for star cg elements with no input data (MSE-3966, VCP-2320).

    Example: If the following external template v1003 has two input text fields where default values has been set in Viz Content Pilot, then the syntax *cg v1003 gives a data element with empty values.

  • Continue count is not supported for star cg elements based on Trio templates.

  • Restrictions on template identifiers recognized by the Avid Command system (MSE-4900).

    • When the configuration setting Use template name as identifier for Viz Pilot cg elements is on, the identifier for the external template is the Description field of the external template given in Pilot Template Manager.

    • The integration with Avid Command has restrictions for the characters in the identifiers. This has to be enforced by the user.

    • Characters that do not work: forward slash, backward slash, full stop.

      Note: iNews only accepts template identifiers being one word.

    • Templates not following these rules might not be recognized by the Avid Command system.

    • For a template identifier containing the character full stop (a period), the template does not work, and in addition loading such a template to the inventory causes problems with the inventory. This plug-in filters out templates with such identifiers.

    • For Trio cg templates: Viz Artist disallows the mentioned characters in scene names.

Vizrt Plug-in Settings

  • Plug-in settings do not support Thai, Bengali, Hindi. The problem is related to the environment run by Avid Command (MSE-5676).

Standalone Playlists and Shotbox

This is not supported.

Other Known Issues

  • Media Sequencer 3.1.1 does not listen to ipv6 connection attempts. Media Sequencer 3.1.1 only listens to ipv4 connection attempts.

    Note: The default localhost-localhost communication address on a windows OS might be set to an ipv6 address.

  • Be aware that if the Graphic Device Service and Media Sequencer are running on the same machine, the default ipv6 address has to be disabled. Using ipv6 works, but there is an unnecessary delay in the communication between the GDS and Media Sequencer (ipv4 is tried after the connection attempt on ipv6 times out). To disable ipv6 as the default address, please see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929852.

  • The following described issue applies when the config setting Enable initializing of a playlist or item in a playlist is not selected. The issue can be resolved in Avid Command (MSE-5670).

    • When the user right clicks on a graphic element in Avid Command, the options for initialization are available. These options are also available in the Main Menu (Playlist > Graphics > Initialize Item/ Initialize Playlist).

  • Avid iNews Command system does not run on Windows 10.

Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin 3.0.0

Release Date: 2016-12-01

These are the release notes for the Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin version 3.0.0. This document describes the user-visible changes that have been made to the software since release 2.0.0.

Requirements

This plug-in is for use with:

  • Avid iNEWS Command, 3.4.4.2 version or later. It is not compatible with Avid iNEWS Command 2.x versions.

  • Viz Pilot Data server 6.0.0 or later

  • Viz Preview Server 3.0 or later

  • Viz Trio 3.1 or later

  • Viz Pilot 6.1 or later

  • Media Sequencer version 3.1.1 or later

  • Viz Artist 3.8.2 or later

This plug-in has been tested with the following versions:

  • Avid iNEWS Command, 3.4.4.2

  • Viz Pilot Data Server 7.0.0.1025

  • Viz Preview Server 4.0.0.2426

  • Viz Trio 3.1.1.22607

  • Viz Pilot 7.0.0.23260

  • Media Sequencer 4.1.0.16507

  • Viz Artist 3.8.3.60774

Changes

This version of the plug-in has the following major changes for configuration compared to the 2.0 version:

  • In the 2.0 version of the plug-in, the Viz Pilot database setting ax_remove_objSlug was required to be set to y. In this version this setting is required to be set to n.

New Features

This version of the plug-in has the following new features and bug-fixes compared to the 2.0 version:

  • Trio cg elements are now supported. The user can set a rundown in iNEWS to have the style identifying a Trio show. The graphic templates from the Trio show are then available for use with star cg syntax.

  • Avid iNEWS Command and the Vizrt iNEWS Command plug-in now support initializing a graphic item/playlist on the program channel in the context menu in Avid iNEWS Command.

  • Edit of data values in hand entered elements (cg elements) is now possible from Avid iNEWS Command.

  • Change for status report of graphic elements from TemplateFiller: A status is shown at the right side of the thumbnail. This status is either red (NOT AVAILABLE), orange (AVAILABLE), green (READY). The green indicates that the graphic item is available and loaded (initialized on the playout engine). Regarding this change, the "page" column in Avid iNEWS Command no longer shows the loaded status.

  • Avid iNEWS Command and the Vizrt iNEWS Command plug-in now loads elements to the playlist when the playlist appears in Avid iNEWS Command. Previously this was done on channel lock. Example: elements that were to be fetched from a database were previously fetched on channel lock.

  • Fix for incorrect occurrences of empty text in cg graphic: Two consecutive calls to the plug-in for a cg graphic, first with empty text and then following immediatly with a call with text, could give empty text field as the final result. Avid has also made a fix to avoid the empty call first (MSE-5946).

  • Fix for thumbnails of graphic elements from TemplateFiller: The thumbnail is updated if data is modified (MSE-3927).

  • When Avid iNEWS Command plug-in receives a call for channel specific eject: a clear cut operation is performed. This is a change from 2.0 where a take out was done.

Restrictions

When Using Star CG Syntax

  • Combo templates with several selections per layer is not supported. Only one state per layer can be used.

Known Issues

When Using Elements from the TemplateFiller

  • There is a performance problem with rundowns that contains a large amount of duplicated elements. This is due to an extensive amount of handleLoad(..) calls received by the plug-in. The number of calls exceeds the number of elements. Testing has revealed that the problem is not present with 300 duplicated elements (MSE-6042).

When Using Star CG Syntax

  • No default values are present for star cg elements with no input data (MSE-3966, VCP-2320).

    Example: If the following external template v1003 has two input text fields where default values has been set in Viz Content Pilot, then the syntax *cg v1003 gives a data element with empty values.

  • Continue count is not supported for star cg elements based on Trio templates.

  • Restrictions on template identifiers recognized by the Avid Command system (MSE-4900).

    • When the configuration setting Use template name as identifier for Viz Pilot cg elements is on, the identifier for the external template is the Description field of the external template given in Pilot Template Manager.

    • The integration with Avid Command has restrictions for the characters in the identifiers. This has to be enforced by the user.

    • Characters that do not work: forward slash, backward slash, full stop.

      Note: iNews only accepts template identifiers being one word.

    • Templates not following these rules might not be recognized by the Avid Command system.

    • For a template identifier containing the character full stop (a period), the template does not work, and in addition loading such a template to the inventory causes problems with the inventory. This plug-in filters out templates with such identifiers.

    • For Trio cg templates: Viz Artist disallows the mentioned characters in scene names.

Vizrt Plug-in Settings

  • Plug-in settings do not support Thai, Bengali, Hindi. The problem is related to the environment run by Avid iNEWS Command (MSE-5676).

Standalone Playlists and Shotbox

This is not supported.

Other Known Issues

  • Media Sequencer 3.1.1 does not listen to ipv6 connection attempts. Media Sequencer 3.1.1 only listens to ipv4 connection attempts.

    Note: The default localhost-localhost communication address on a windows OS might be set to an ipv6 address.

  • Be aware that if the Graphic Device Service and Media Sequencer are running on the same machine, the default ipv6 address has to be disabled. Using ipv6 works, but there is an unnecessary delay in the communication between the GDS and Media Sequencer (ipv4 is tried after the connection attempt on ipv6 times out). To disable ipv6 as the default address, please see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929852.

  • When the config setting Only mark last played graphic as done (per channel) is selected (MSE-5756). The issue can probably be solved in the Avid system by Avid.

  • When the config setting Enable initializing of a playlist or item in a playlist is not selected. The issue can be resolved in Avid iNEWS Command (MSE-5670).

    • When the user right clicks on a graphic element in Avid Command, the options for initialization are available. These options are also available in the Main Menu (Playlist > Graphics > Initialize Item/ Initialize Playlist).

  • Avid iNews Command system does not run on Windows 10.

Documentation

Documentation for the Vizrt iNEWS Command Plugin is available at the Vizrt Documentation Center:

Support

Support is available at the Vizrt Support Portal.