This section shows how to set up and use Viz Mosart with Avid iNEWS Web Services in order to get stories status updates in the NRCS (Newsroom Computer System). This section covers the following topics:

Introduction

Avid iNEWS Web Service can be configured with Viz Mosart connected to iNEWS through FTP. The main purpose is sending status for stories that contain clips (Online/Offline for clip availability, Cued, Play or Stop and duration, as provided by the video server), but the system can also be configured to send status for all types of events (Cameras, DVEs etc.).

Supported Versions

iNEWS Web Service Installation and Configuration

Avid iNEWS Web Service

To install the Avid iNEWS Web Service

1. From oracle.com (Windows offline (64-bit)), download and install the latest JRE or JDK.

2. Run the executable JRE installation file (for example, jdk-20_windows-x64_bin.exe).

3. Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable and the path to the bin folder in the PATH variable:
   

4. From tomcat.apache.org, download and install the latest stable 32-bit/64-bit Windows service installer of Tomcat (for example, apache-tomcat-9.0.79.exe).

5. Run the executable Tomcat installation file:

   1. Select “Normal” installation type.

   2. Create a Tomcat Administrator login user name and password (Do not name the user tomcat).

   3. Select the JRE installation path if it is not already selected (for example, C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-20).

6. Allow C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 9.0\bin\Tomcat9.exe through the Windows Firewall.

7. After the Tomcat installation is finished and has started, navigate to the Tomcat management page at
   http://<server>:8080/manager/html.

8. Log in from the Tomcat Management page, with username/password you defined at step 5 above.

9. The default connector port (8080) can be modified in Tomcat’s .\conf\server.xml file.

   If port 8080 is used by another applications, edit the Tomcat Installation/config/server.xml file:

   <Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"   connectionTimeout="20000"

    

   redirectPort="8443" />

10. After any port changes, from Services.msc or from Start > All Programs > Apache Tomcat > Monitor Tomcat, restart the Tomcat service.

11. An icon is created in the Windows Taskbar.
    Right-click the icon for a list of actions to Start and Stop Tomcat service.

12. Deploy iNews web service.war

13. After deployment, verify that the iNEWS Web Service is available at
    http://<server>:<port>/inewswebservice/services.

Post installation actions

If you have problems accessing the Web Services page (http://<server>:<port>/inewswebservice/services), try deleting the Tomcat cache:

1. Stop the Tomcat service.

2. Delete folder Tomcat installation\webapps\inewswebservice (only the folder, not the war file).
   You may replace the war file, for example, with a new one when upgrading. (This solution is same as deploying from Tomcat manager).

3. Delete folder Tomcat installation\work\Catalina\localhost\inewswebservice

4. Start the Tomcat service and reattempt accessing the Web Services page.

Timeout recommendations

• We recommend reducing the session timeout in Apache Tomcat to 1 minute, which frees-up the API session 1 minute after Manus Administrator is closed.

• If Manus Admin is closed and opened more than maximum API sessions allowed in 1 minute, it will reconnect automatically to the Web Service after 1 minute, when at least one session has been released.  To change the session timeout follow this procedure:

To change the Apache Tomcat session timeout interval

1. Stop the Tomcat service.

2. Change Tomcat session timeout interval in Tomcat installation/conf/web.xml to 1 minute:
   

   <session-config>

             <session-timeout>1</session-timeout>

   </session-config>

3. Start the Tomcat service.

Determining the Version of iNEWS Web Service

The version number should match the version of Avid iNEWS web service you are running. Follow this procedure to get the version number:

To determine iNEWS Web Service version

1. Navigate to the Apache Tomcat installation folder at /webapps/inewswebservice/META-INF.

2. Open the file Manifest.mf.

3. Check the Implementation-version.

4. Recommended version is 1.6.0.5 or 1.6.3.
   It should look like this:

   Manifest-Version: 1.0

   Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.8.4

   Created-By: 1.7.0_25-b17 (Oracle Corporation)

   Implementation-Build: MSN_INEWS_WEB_SERVICE_1.6.3.1

   Implementation-Title: Avid iNEWS Web Service

   Implementation-Version: 1.6.3.1

   Implementation-Vendor: Avid Technology, Inc.

   Copyright: Copyright (c) 2009-2022 Avid Technology, Inc.

Configuration

1. Open iNEWS client and add the Avid iNEWS Web Service version in first story of rundown SYSTEM.CLIENT.API-VERSIONS.
   The version number should match the version of Avid iNEWS web service you are running (see section Confirming the Version of iNEWS Web Service).
   For example:

   ;web services

    

   1.0.0.182

    

   1.1.1.49

    

   1.1.2.1

    

   1.6.0.5

    

   ; run offline; configure -n; online after doing changes in iNews server console

2. On the iNews server console, execute the following commands one by one:

   1. offline

   2. configure –n

   3. online

      

3. For iNews Web Service version >= 1.6.3 (i.e. Mosart Server version >= 5.4.0), disable the version check on the iNews server
   Execute the following command at the console:
   workdebug nocheck noaddress.

4. Enable Refresh for the rundown used for receiving status updates.

5. Click on the rundown name, choose Properties > User Interface.

   
   Note: From iNEWS Setup and Configuration Guide: Use the Refresh trait only on important queues, like rundown queues that are often modified by multiple users simultaneously.
   To automatically refresh a queue, your system must spend a lot of time monitoring workstations where users are viewing that queue.
   Assigning the refresh trait to too many queues that are often accessed at the same time greatly increases the amount of work your system has to do and may severely degrade its overall performance.

6. Configure the columns to receive status and air-date updates from Viz Mosart.
   By default, Viz Mosart uses the field types “event-status” (STATUS) and “air-date“ (AIR-DATE) for this purpose.

   

7. To enable the feature that allows Viz Mosart to send clip durations, configure a designated column in iNEWS to receive this information.

8. If the column type is set to 'Duration,' then iNEWS will be responsible for controlling the timecode format displayed in that column.

9. Alternatively, if the column type is 'Editbox,' Viz Mosart will send the clip duration in the timecode format specified within its own settings, calculated based on the frame rate configured in Viz Mosart.

   

API Session Limits

Maximum API-session connections to iNEWS Server 

The default license for Avid iNEWS Web Service covers five concurrent API sessions.
These are not the same as the iNEWS workstation licenses.

• Type "/exc/list type=api c" at the iNEWS server to see the number configured.
  Additional concurrent API-session licences are available from Avid.

• Viz Mosart will use a maximum of two API-sessions (in a redundancy setup).

• If you experience issues with no available API-session, please see section Troubleshooting and Known Issues.

Viz Mosart Installation and Configuration

Web Services Connection

To configure web services

You perform all configurations in one place, from the common Viz Mosart Settings menu.

1. From the Manus Admin Console, type settings.

2. From the Settings menu, in the left-hand panel, select iNEWS.

3. In the Web service connection field enter a connection string in the following format param1=value1;param2=value2;... to establish a connection with the Avid iNEWS Web Services.

   

   Leave the field blank if you do not wish to connect to any web service.

Required parameters are: 

• WebServiceServer = host:port, where the host is the machine where the iNews Web Service was installed (see the iNews Web Service Installation section above). The host can only be provided if the default port (8080) is used.

Optional parameters are: 

• iNewsServer Only one iNEWS server can be used by the Web Service. Specify which iNEWS server the Web Service should connect through. This field is optional if only one iNEWS server is set in the iNEWS configuration.

• iNewsUsername Optional as it can be taken from iNEWS Configuration. 

• iNewsPassword Optional as it can be taken from iNEWS Configuration.

• Type Valid values are 'iNEWS' and 'MosiNEWS

Additional configurations can be made in the AvidInewsWebServiceConfig.xml file, located in the Mosart installation folder under Mosart Server/ConfigurationFiles.

Other Manus Administrator Settings affecting NRCS Status Feedback

• Send Clip Status To NRCS (Default: false)
  Set to true to send clip status (Online/Offline) when Media Administrator is running. 

• Send only availability status for clips to NRCS (Default: false)
  When enabled, this setting will restrict the statuses sent to NRCS to only the availability statuses for clips, specifically 'Online' and 'Offline'. Playback statuses such as 'Cue', 'Play', and 'Stop' will not be sent.
  If the rundown is in rehearsal mode, Viz Mosart will only send availability statuses for clips, regardless of how this setting is configured.

• Ignore Send Cue Status to NRCS for Offline Clips (Default: false)
  Select to prevent the NRCS receiving CUED or READY statuses of offline video clips for the first story set as next when the timeline is not running.

• Ignore Updates If No Changes (Default: false)
  If enabled, stories with no relevant changes will not be processed by Viz Mosart. This is to avoid issues with story updates from the Mosart GUI being ignored. Later changes in Viz Mosart iNEWS Web Services API prevented such problems, but for future changes is good to keep in mind this setting together with StoryCompareIgnoreAttributes which is explained below.

• Story Compare Ignore Attributes (Default: empty)
  List of xml attributes to ignore during comparison. Internally, the default list of attributes is set to [date_0, date_1, timestamp] and what is configured in this setting will be added to this list.
  
  When Viz Mosart receives a story in NSML format, it will parse the story and create its own XML format. When irrelevant updates come from NRCS, some attributes in the Viz Mosart XML story are updated. Currently these are date_0, date_1 and timestamp (see the format of a Viz Mosart XML story in any xml file in C:\manus folder). Attribute date_0 was recently added to the default attributes to be ignored due to the problems with updates caused by Viz Mosart iNEWS Web Services.
  In future if other attributes cause such issues, than they can be added to the list of attributes to be ignored.

• Refresh Media On NRCS Update (Default: false)
  If enabled, it forces updating clips when story is changed in NRCS. This is an old setting introduced before Viz Mosart iNEWS Web Services.

• Keep Story Status On NRCS Update (Default: false)
  If enabled, will keep the story status on an NRCS update, thus keeping the on-air status. The content of the story will be updated, but the story will be gray in the Mosart GUI. This is also an old setting introduced before Viz Mosart iNEWS Web Services.

Configurations in AvidInewsWebServiceConfig.xml

Copy the configuration file from in Mosart Installation folder\Mosart Server\ConfigurationFiles to the ChannelTemplates folder on C:\.

• SendUpdateStatusForAllItems (Default: false)
  By default, only status of items containing clips will be sent (Online/Offline/Cued/Play/Stop).
  Not only clips given through Package or Voiceover are taken into consideration, but also Adlibpix or other ways to insert clip into a story. So for example if a story contains  a Camera and an Adlibpix, than the story gets status.

• StatusColId (Default: event-status) The id of the column to display the story item status sent by Viz Mosart.

• AirDateColId (Default: air-date) The id of the column to display the air-date sent by Viz Mosart.

• ClipDurationColId (default: empty) The id of the column to display the clip duration sent by Viz Mosart.

• ClipDurTcFormat This setting determines the timecode format used for displaying clip durations in the column specified by "ClipDurationColId". If the iNEWS column is not of type 'duration', the default format is 'mm:ss'. Other available formats include: 'ff', 'ss', 'hh:mm:ss:ff', 'mm:ss:ff', and 'ss:ff'. When the iNEWS column is of type 'duration', Mosart will transmit the duration in seconds. Conversion from frames to the selected timecode format is carried out based on the frame rate configured in the Manus Administrator settings.

• ClearStatusWhenReload (Default: false)
  If enabled, only status column is cleared on reload of the rundown. This is to avoid inconsistent status if, for example, stories failed to be updated because of a crash of Viz Mosart or iNEWS or Viz Mosart is closed while rundown is playing etc.

• ClearStatusWhenUnload (Default: false) 
  If enabled, the status will be cleared when rundown is unloaded.

• SetStoryAirDate (Default: true)
  Set to false to disable setting the AIR-DATE field and moving the "aired line" (the blue line). Note that the color of the line can be changed from Tools/Options/Colors in the iNEWS client and choose “Aired” from drop-down box. By default this is blue.

• ClearAirDateWhenReload (Default: false)
  If enabled, the air-date field will be cleared during reload of the rundown (empty status). Note that this setting is taken into consideration only if SetStoryAirDate is true.

• ClearAirDateWhenUnload (Default: false)
  If enabled, the air-date field will be cleared during unload of the rundown (empty status). Note that this setting is taken into consideration only if SetStoryAirDate is true.

• Color index attributes
  The following parameters are colour index referring to values defined in SYSTEM.COLORS on the iNEWS system.
  The AIR-DATE field needs to be empty in order to see the correct color for the STATUS field:

  • UrgencyIndex (Default 1)

  • UrgencyIndexONLINE (Default 1) Set color for Online status.

  • UrgencyIndexOFFLINE (Default 4 - purple) Set color for Offline status.

  • UrgencyIndexCUED (Default 2 - green) Set color for Cued status.

  • UrgencyIndexPLAY (Default 3 - yellow)  Set color for Play status.

  • UrgencyIndexSTOP (Default 1) Set color for Stop status.

    

• LockFormSectionOnly (Default: true)
  If true will issue a lock on the FORM section of a story, if false will lock the complete story.

• HeartbeatInterval (Default: 3 seconds)
  Interval to check Avid Web Service heartbeat.

• UpdateStoriesCacheInterval (Default: 1 second)

• RetryStoryUpdateStatusInterval (Default: 5 seconds)

• When a story failed to be updated (either because the story is locked for editing, the WebService is down or the iNEWS server is down), an error message will be displayed in console.
  The retrial to update the story status will continue until the problem is fixed or Manus Admin is closed.

• NoOfStoriesToGet (Default: 50) – number of stories to get from iNEWS for caching

Operation

When the connection to the Avid Web Service is successful, the following message will appear in Manus Admin console:
<iNews Web Services <host:port> connected>.
The connection will be made after loading a rundown in the GUI.

The following statuses will be shown in iNEWS:
Cued, Play, Stop, Online and Offline.

Users can move stories in iNEWS up or down. If rundown is on-air and user has been changed a position of On-Air or Next stories statuses of clips will also be changed according to status. 

Operational Status

The table below shows examples of status behavior for setting SendUpdateStatusForAllItems.

• If SendUpdateStatusForAllItems is false, the entire column “Story without video clips” will be cleared (no status sent for these stories).

• ClearStatusWhenReload should be set to true to clean up old history.

• The last row (Story has been On air) means that after the story has been run but the rundown is still on-air, the clip is no longer monitored.
  If the clip subsequently becomes available or unavailable, this is not reflected in iNEWS.
  Only after the rundown is reloaded, is clip status updated.

• Air-date is also updated to the NRCS if the parameter SetStoryAirDate is set to true in the AvidInewsWebServiceConfig.xml file.
  When the parameter for SendUpdateStatusForAllItems is false, only air-date for stories that do not contain any clips will be updated. 

Below are examples of status behavior:

Above, the rundown is off-air. Stories S2, S3 and S4 were updated with status of the clip it contains.

Above, the rundown is on-air. Story S1 is currently playing, but the status was not sent to the NRCS. Since S2 contains a clip, its status is set to “CUED”.

In the illustration above, Story S2 is playing and S3 is “CUED”. Since the first item in S3 is a camera the “CUED” status is not sent unless SendUpdateStatusForAllItems is set to true.

Above, Story 3 is now playing and Story 5 is “CUED”. Clip thada5 for Story 4 is broken and will be failed during cuing

And finally, Story 5 is playing and clip from Story 4 should be cued. Zebra stripes in the Viz Mosart GUI indicate an issue with availability and Story 4 is marked as OFFLINE in iNEWS

Status for Stories Containing more than One Item

If a story has more than one item, the following statuses are sent when the story is on-air (keeping in mind that if SendUpdateStatusForAllItems is false the status is not sent if the story does not contain clips):

• PLAY for first item, CUED for next item. This means that the story status will be CUED (regardless of SendUpdateStatusForAllItems value)

  

Above illustrates that when the first item (camera) in S3 is playing, no “PLAY” status is sent. The Next item is a Package so “CUED” status is sent. In this case, even if SendUpdateStatusForAllItems is true, the “CUED” status will still be sent for the story.

• When F12 is pressed, STOP is sent for the first item, PLAY for the second item and CUED for the third item. This means that the story ends up with CUED status (regardless of SendUpdateStatusForAllItems value).
  This continues until we reach the last item in the story.

• It is only the last item that will send the status PLAY. At any time, it is possible to check the AIR-DATE to identify the story currently on-air.

Continuing this example (2 screenshots below), the story S3 has only two items, a Camera and a Package. When we play the clip in the Package, the story gets PLAY status.

The Package from S3 is playing, this is the last item in the story so “PLAY” status is set. Story S4 will get “CUED” because it contains a clip.

Example 1

Story S4 containing only a clip, is playing. No “CUED” status has been sent for next story since SendUpdateStatusForAllItems is set to false.

Example 2

Story S5 is playing and since the story does not contain any clips, no status will be seen for this unless SendUpdateStatusForAllItems is set to true.
Only the “AIR-DATE” field shows that this story is on-air.

Example 3

Play status could not be sent for story S4.

When Viz Mosart is performing the updates, it locks the form of the story or the entire story depending on the value for LockFormSectionOnly parameter and unlocks the story after the update is performed.
If the story form is locked by an iNEWS user, a message in the Manus Admin console warns the user that the status could not be sent because the story form is locked. Once the story form is unlocked, the status is updated (see Example 4).

Example 4

Story S4 is now unlocked in iNEWS and “PLAY” status has been sent.

If the timeline is not running and the first story is floated, you may have to reload the rundown in the Mosart GUI in order to set CUED status for the new first story.

Status of an Off-air Story Containing Multiple Clips

The status of an off-air story that contains more than one clip is provided by the first clip in the story. 

Example:

1. A story with VID-ID set and containing two clip items.

2. First clip item has id given by the VID-ID field and it’s an Online clip.

3. Second clip item is given an id, for example, through clip_hirespath attribute (Mosart ActiveX)  and it is an Offline clip.

4. The story will have the status depending on the availability of the first clip, which is OFFLINE.

5. If the position of the clips is changed, then the first clip will get 2 IDs, the one from VID-ID and the one given through Mosart ActiveX.

6. The id given through Mosart ActiveX will give the status of the story, which is OFFLINE.

   

Story S2 gets the status of the first clip.

Clip Duration Feedback to iNEWS Server

• The clip duration sent to iNEWS will be in mm:ss timecode format by default. Other formats are possible to configure. A system-wide frame rate for conversion is assumed and can be configured in Mosart Manus Admin settings.

• iNEWS can only display information at story level and therefore rules have been defined when a story contains more than one clip. However, for optimal usage of this functionality, it is recommended to have stories containing only one clip.

• A column must be configured in iNEWS to show the duration of a clip found in the story. A column id must also be configured in Viz Mosart, in the file AvidInewsWebServiceConfig.xml.
  For status and air date, the default iNEWS columns have been used, but from Mosart 5.1.1, any column can be configured to show the status or the airdate.

• When a rundown is loaded/reloaded in Mosart, Mosart will update all the stories in iNEWS with the duration of the first clip found in each story, in addition to the already existing clip availability status.

• When a clip is offline, the default duration configured in Mosart will be sent.

• When a clip update is received in Mosart, Mosart will send the updated clip duration to iNEWS.

• In general, when a given story item is cued/played/stopped, Mosart will send the clip duration if that item is a clip.

• If the timeline is not running and the item following the current item cued is a clip, the story will be updated with CUED status and the duration of the clip.

• If a clip that is currently being recorded or copied to the MAM system is included in the rundown, its duration is automatically transmitted to iNEWS, assuming that Mosart supports the 'growing clip' functionality for the configured video server.

Rules

• If a story has multiple items, the following rules apply (this is not new, but the current functionality has impact on how the clip duration is displayed):

  • When the story is cued, the status CUED and the duration of the first item in the story, if this a clip, will be sent to iNEWS.

  • When the first item in the story is taken, Mosart sends status STOP for the previous item and the duration if this was a clip.

  • Mosart also sends PLAY for the first item in the story and CUED for the next item in the same story. This means that the story ends up with status CUED and the clip duration of the cued item if this is a clip.

  • The same logic is applied until the last item in the story is taken.

  • When the last item in the story is taken, Mosart sends PLAY status and the clip duration if this is a clip.

Example:

In the following rundown:

Stroy1: Clip1
Story2: Cam1 Cam2 Clip2 Clip3 Cam3
Story3: Cam Clip4
Story4: Cam

The following settings are configured: 

• StatusColId, AirDateColId and ClipDurationColId: Set to the corresponding iNEWS column id.

• SendUpdateStatusForAllItem: true

• SetStoryAirDate: true

• Send Clip Status To NRCS: true

When the rundown is loaded, the following information is sent to iNEWS:

When the rundown is played, the following information displayed in the iNEWS columns:

Troubleshooting and Known Issues 

Not able to Access Web Service page after Installation

If you have problems accessing the Web Services page after installation and deployment  (http://<server>:8080/inewswebservice/services), try to delete the Tomcat cache as follow:

1. Stop the Tomcat service.

2. Delete folder Tomcat installation\webapps\inewswebservice (only the folder, not the war file).
   You may replace the war file, for example, with a new one when upgrading (this solution is same as deploying from Tomcat Manager).

3. Delete folder Tomcat installation\work\Catalina\localhost\inewswebservice

4. Start the Tomcat service and try again to access the Web Services page.

The Connection to iNEWS Server Times-out 

If the connection to the iNEWS server through the iNEWS Web Service times out, check first the iNEWS server logs for more details.

If the iNEWS server logs contain "SSL_access failed", check what version of Java you are using. SSLv3 is disabled in Java 8 by default. 

A default Java 8 installation disables the SSLv3 algorithm, preventing WSAPI from connecting to the Newsroom Management Server.

• To re-enable SSLv3 algorithm, open as administrator the file java.security located in the lib/security or conf\security in your JRE or JDK installation folder

/user/lib/jvm/java-.1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.xxxxx/jre/lib/security 

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-20\conf\security\java.security

and comment out the lines that disables SSLv3. Restarting the Apache Tomcat service once the modifications are done.

"No sessions available on X” – Maximum session

If the above error is shown in Manus Admin’s console or the log (where X is the iNEWS server IP address or hostname), refer to the section API Session Limits.
If this is not the case, then most probably the issue is that the Manus Admin console failed to release the occupied API session to connect to iNEWS server through Avid Web Services, when the API session was closed.

Workaround: There are two solutions for this problem.

1. Either restart Apache Tomcat service or

2. Reduce the session timeout in Tomcat to 1 min, freeing-up the API session 1 min after Manus Administrator was closed.
   If Manus Admin is closed and opened more than maximum API sessions allowed in 1 min, it will reconnect automatically to Web Service after 1 min when at least one session has been released. 
   To change the session timeout interval do the following:

   1. Stop the Tomcat service.

   2. Change Tomcat session timeout interval in Tomcat installation/conf/web.xml to 1 min:
      <session-config>
                <session-timeout>1</session-timeout>
      </session-config>

   3. Start the Tomcat service.

“Cannot write to iNews Webservice, connect before selectQueue”

If you get the error message “cannot write to iNews Webservice, connect before selectQueue” check that the version of Web Service running corresponds with the version set in iNEWS.
See section Checking the Current Version of Tomcat.

Cannot get any status feedback in iNEWS

If after setting up everything as described in the document, no status is written in the Status field,
check the following:

• The Status field has write permissions for the user that connects Viz Mosart to the iNEWS system.

• The type of the Status field is “event-status”.

  

• The queue must not be monitored with the iNEWS Monitor tool.

Verify also the Mosart logs or the iNEWS Web service logs located under C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 9.0\logs\iNEWS_WS for any error related to status feedback to iNEWS.

If in the logs you encounter the error message "The Web Service version is not allowed to connect to…”, see the next section.

The Web Service version is not allowed to connect to iNEWS Server

If you encounter the issue “The Web Service version is not allowed to connect to…” in the logs, disable the version check on the iNEWS server by executing workdebug nocheck noaddress on the iNEWS server.

This issue is common with Mosart version 5.4.0 and above, where the iNEWS Web Service has been upgraded to version 1.6.3. Avid support recommends running this command after every iNEWS server reboot, following the standard connect and startup commands.

Useful Links

• http://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html

• http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp

• iNEWS Mos Gateway Installation and Operations Manual v2.6.0

• iNEWS Mos Gateway v4.0 ReadMe

• iNEWS v4.5 Setup and Configuration Guide

• Introduction to iNEWS Workstation