This section describes essential post-installation configurations, usually performed by a system administrator.

Setting up the NRCS Plugin

There is a standard setup that must first be followed. Please refer to the configuration procedure in section NRCS Plugin.

Optional Server Setups

Support for Main/Backup Connection

  • If you have a backup server for redundancy, you will need define the environment in the menu Server Configuration.

Support for HTTPS

  • If you are using HTTPS, you will need define the environment in the menu Server Configuration.

Info: Make sure to execute all instructions, including the one-time edits to the Mosart Remote Dispatcher Service. These are only required when you supply your own certificate. If you use the built-in certificate authority, the bundled web proxy handles HTTPS itself and there is nothing to edit. See Certificates.

Verifying the Mosart Installation

  1. After following the mandatory App Configuration and Server Configuration procedures, the Windows services that serve the web apps are running. These are Mosart Web Applications, which hosts the NRCS Plugin and the REST API it uses, and Mosart Web Proxy, which publishes them to browsers. On the Viz Mosart server itself, the Mosart Remote Control Service provides the connection to Viz Mosart.

  2. You can check that the NRCS Plugin is accessible by either clicking Home > NRCS Plugin in the Configuration Tool, or following the Preview URL next to the Copy button on the NRCS Plugin page of App Configuration.

Info: The plugin URL is built from the address of your Mosart Web Apps host, the NRCS type and, where the newsroom system uses one, the Mos ID:
http://machine-name:55142/plugin?nrcs={type}&mosid={mosid}

  • 55142 is the default port of the Mosart Web Proxy, and 55143 is the default over HTTPS. Your administrator can change both, so always take the URL from the Configuration Tool rather than assembling it by hand.

  • mosid is omitted for iNEWS, which does not use it.

  • nrcs is omitted when the NRCS type is set to Other. The operator then chooses the newsroom system in the plugin's own Settings.

  1. To complete the integration, configure the NRCS side, according to the appropriate NRCS as described in section Integrating with an NRCS below (where you will use the copied URL).

Template Type Filter Order

The plugin's Template Types list is admin-controlled: you decide which template types appear as filters and in what order, once, for everyone using the plugin. Put the types your journalists reach for most at the top and leave out the ones your production never uses.

This is set on the NRCS Plugin page of App Configuration. For the procedure, see Template type filter buttons.

Info: The ALL filter is always first and cannot be moved or removed. Any supported type you do not place explicitly keeps its original position, after the ones you did place. Where your newsroom defines its own alias names for template types, the rows are shown with those names, so the list reads the same as the plugin does.

Clip Search

Templates that carry a video clip offer a clip picker that searches your media server by clip name. For it to return results:

  • Media Administrator must be running on the Viz Mosart server. It is the service that performs the search. If it is stopped or still starting, the plugin reports that it could not reach Media Admin.

  • The Mosart Remote Control Service must be reachable from the Mosart Web Apps host, as for every other Viz Mosart connection.

Authorization key

Current Viz Mosart servers answer clip searches over the Mosart server's own real-time connection, which needs no separate key. Older Viz Mosart versions do not offer that, and the plugin falls back to the REST media search, which does require the Authorization Key to be configured. If clip search fails only on an older Mosart server, this is the first thing to check. See Mosart API Access.

Multi-studio sites

On a site with several studios, the plugin searches the media of the studio it was launched for, so an operator working on studio B does not get studio A's clips. Launch the plugin from the studio's entry so that it carries the studio with it. See Studios.

Clip thumbnails

Where your media server supplies them, clip results carry thumbnails and a preview. TriCaster thumbnails are fetched by the Mosart web server on the browser's behalf, using the TriCaster credentials from Server Configuration, so operators do not need network access to the TriCaster and the thumbnails work over HTTPS. If clip thumbnails are blank for a TriCaster source, check the TriCaster address, username and password. See TriCaster Live Previews.

Hide Effects from Users

In some production situations, there may be an effect recalled from specific templates, that should only be run under specific circumstances (for example, on an ME row).
Unintentionally selecting such an effect from the NRCS plugin (or the Viz Mosart GUI) can give unplanned on-air consequences.

To hide an effect from the user

Info: This feature requires Mosart Web Apps version 2.5 or later.

  1. On the Mosart server open AV Automation.

  2. Navigate to A/V Setup > Effects.

  3. Check Hide From User to prevent the effect displaying in the NRCS Plugin (and the Viz Mosart GUI Transition panel).

  4. Save.

  5. Refresh the NRCS Plugin.

Info: Hide From User is applied the same way to switcher sources and to whole template sets, not only to effects, so you can keep any of them out of the operator's reach. The one deliberate exception is the Template Editor: when the plugin is embedded there, hidden items are shown, because that is the tool used to build the templates that reference them.

Integrating with an NRCS

  • The server-based plugin configuration described below avoids having to configure each individual newsroom control system (NRCS) client.

  • This section assumes the Mosart NRCS Plugin has been successfully installed and set up, as described in section Configuration Tool.

The NRCS Plugin supports connections to

It can also be hosted in Viz Pilot Edge, and inside the Mosart web apps Template Editor and Smart Panel.

You connect each client NRCS machine to the Viz Mosart server (which hosts the Mosart REST API.)

ENPS

  1. In the Configuration Tool select App Configuration > NRCS Plugin and copy the value of Preview URL.

  2. On the ENPS machine, navigate to System Maintenance > MOS Configuration.

  3. Paste the NRCS Plugin's copied URL.

Info: The URL comprises the Plugin's URL plus Viz Mosart's MosId value, in the form:
http://machine-name:55142/plugin?nrcs=ENPS&mosid=xxxx

  • If you need to derive current MosId value, see the item To find your Mos ID.

iNEWS

There are two possible setup routes, depending on whether your iNEWS version supports HTML5 plugins. Please consult the documentation of your iNEWS system to determine whether this is the case.

iNEWS Clients with HTML5 Support

  1. In the iNEWS client, from the directory navigation tree, open the file SYSTEM.MOS-MAP and verify that between TABLE-START DeviceTable and TABLE-END there is a line
    mosart ...
    If not, add the mosart reference,
    For example: mosart MosartNRCSPlugin

  2. For this step and the next, please refer to Avid's MediaCentral Newsroom Management Setup and Configuration Guide, section Configuring Newsroom Management for HTML5 (chapter HTML5 Plugins) .
    If you have at least one HTML5 plugin already defined, you can skip this step.
    From Avid's Configuring Newsroom Management for HTML5, follow their setup steps 1 to 6. Please note that at:

    • Step 3: (name of the new queue): Use the name HTML-PLUGINS, as recommended by Avid.

  3. Continue with steps 7 to 10, observing these clarifications:

    • Step 7: In case you skipped the previous step, the queue refers to SYSTEM.HTML-PLUGINS

    • Step 9: (slug): Enter something like Viz Mosart NRCS Plugin. (This is the string that will be shown in the Plugins sub-menu of the Tools menu.)

    • Step 10: (parameters): In the Story panel, enter 'URL = ', and at that exact spot paste the URL copied from the Configuration Tool (App Configuration > NRCS Plugin, the value of Preview URL). Then append
      mosItemBrowserProgID = Mosart.ActiveX
      mosItemEditorProgID = Mosart.ActiveX

      Example:
      URL = http://machine-name:55142/plugin?nrcs=iNews
      mosItemBrowserProgID = Mosart.ActiveX
      mosItemEditorProgID = Mosart.ActiveX

Info:

  • The parameter mosItemPlayerProgID mentioned in the Avid document is not mandatory in this context.

  • The URL element mosid is not required for iNEWS.

Note: If the old Mosart ActiveX opens instead of the Mosart NRCS Plugin when trying to modify/edit a Mosart item (by double clicking on the item), you must uninstall the Mosart ActiveX.

iNEWS Clients without HTML5 Support

Installing the iNEWS Client Addon

For older versions of iNews without HTML5 support, you need to install a small wrapper utility, the Mosart NRCS Plugin - iNEWS Client Addon on each iNEWS client machine.

  1. From the Vizrt FTP /products/VizMosart/Latest Version/WebApplications/
    download and run the iNEWS Client Addon utility, MosartNRCSPlugin-iNEWSClientAddon-<version>.exe

  2. From the Configuration Tool select App Configuration > NRCS Plugin and copy the value of Preview URL.

  3. In Mosart NRCS Plugin - iNEWS Client Addon, paste-in the URL of the Plugin.

Note: If the old Mosart ActiveX opens instead of the Mosart NRCS Plugin when modifying a Mosart item (by double clicking on it), you must first uninstall the Mosart ActiveX, and then reinstall the MosartNRCSPlugin-iNEWSClientAddon.

Info: To change the configured URL after the installer was closed, simply open a command prompt and execute:
"%programfiles(x86)%\Vizrt\Mosart NRCS Plugin - iNEWS\MosartNCSPlugin.exe" url "https://machine-name:55142/plugin/?nrcs=iNews"

Note: If you use authentication, iNEWS only works through this iNEWS Client Addon. Hosting the plugin as a plain HTML plugin does not support authentication. See Provider-specific Newsroom Authentication.

Octopus

  1. From the Configuration Tool select App Configuration > NRCS Plugin and copy the value of Preview URL.

  2. Log-in to Octopus with Admin privileges.

  3. From the sidebar, navigate to MOS Devices > Devices, select mosart and click Edit.

  4. Select the Plugins tab.

  5. Fill in the plugin entry, providing a unique name, a version, and the URL to the Viz Mosart NRCS Plugin (copied in step 1).

  6. Setup is complete.
    When editing a selected rundown, the user right-clicks for New > Create using <given name of the Plugin>

For more details, see theViz Mosart Administrator Guide, section Manus Administrator > Settings Editor MOS > NRCS Configuration.

Note: Plugin authentication is not currently supported with Octopus.

OpenMedia

Connections to OpenMedia must be setup as a project with OpenMedia.
Please contact OpenMedia for further details.

Info: Both OpenMedia hosting modes are supported. OpenMedia 5.5 and later embeds the plugin in a WebView2 control and exchanges MOS messages through it; earlier versions host it as a plain HTML plugin. The plugin detects which of the two it is running in, so there is nothing to configure for this.

Showmaker

See section Setup and Administration of Showmaker in this guide.

Info: No separate NRCS setup is needed for Showmaker. It embeds the plugin itself, as one of the integrations in its Assets panel, and again on its Show Assets page.

Troubleshooting

See section Troubleshooting.