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Viz Multichannel

Version 4.0 | Published January 23, 2019 ©

Integrations Hub

The Integrations Hub provides a “REST” interface for services and components that integrates with Multichannel. In particular, the Integrations Hub provides a standard, easy to use interface for Direct Integration modules to read playlists and schedule data from automation systems and integrate this information with Multichannel.

Initially the Integrations Hub will be used by Direct Integration modules provided by Vizrt, but the REST interface will enable customers and 3rd party system vendors and integrators to easily create services using this interface.

The Direct Integration (DI) and Direct Integration modules are software tools that directly integrate with automation systems. The integration module will handle all the “dirty details” of interfacing the automation systems and will thereafter deliver the data in a standard http-format to Multichannel using the REST interface.

Representational state transfer (REST) is a way to create, read, update or delete information on a server using simple HTTP calls. It is beyond the scope of this manual to fully explain REST-based architecture, for general information the Wikipedia introduction article REST (external link) can be a nice starting point.

This section presents:

For REST documentation, see section REST Interface for Integrations Hub

Installation, Requirements and Configuration Check

The Integrations Hub service requires .NET Framework 4.5.1 or higher. If the server is behind a corporate firewall in a secure environment, is it recommended to change User Account Control (UAC ) Settings to off and also turn off Windows Firewall.

To Install the Integrations Hub

  1. Locate the current Integrations Hub installer from your Vizrt representative or download.vizrt.com - VizMultichannel_IntegrationsHub_VERSION.msi where VERSION will be numbers indicating the version of the software.

  2. Run the installer software, selecting the default installation directory.

    Important!

    The Integrations Hub run as a Windows Service process. It is recommended that the Integrations Hub service process is enabled to start automatically and that the Integrations Hub is run as an Administrator service level process.

    The service is open at 9990 port.

  3. Check the Integrations Hub installation:
    Browse to http://localhost:9990/restapi
    Expected response: HTTP-answer listing all channels, see: GET All Channels

No further configuration of the Integrations Hub is required for normal operation unless the Integrations Hub should connect to different Media Sequencer host than localhost.

Note: Status message from Integrations Hub will be stored in 'infoIntegrationsHub' attribute of an event.

Selecting the Integrations Hub Media Sequencer

By default, the Integrations Hub service connects to the local Media Sequencer, i.e. the Media Sequencer running at localhost = 127.0.0.1. If required, follow the following steps to direct the Integrations Hub to connect to a Media Sequencer at another host:

  1. Open Windows File Explorer and browse to the programdata directory for Integrations Hub. The environment variable %PROGRAMDATA% will point to the actual location of the Program Data directory, normally the full path expanded will be 'c:\Programdata\Vizrt\Viz Multichannel\Tools\Integrations Hub'

    \ProgramData is normally a hidden Windows directory so you have to explicitly enter the path \ProgramData in Windows File Explorer

  2. In the programdata directory, open the IntegrationsHub.config file with a text editor, for example Notepad.

  3. Find node appsettings.

    Change the attributes as needed. Example file:

    <appSettings>
    <add key="MseHost" value="localhost" />
    <add key="ContentFillingWaitTime" value="2" />
    <add key="ChannelCacheTime" value="30"/>
    </appSettings>


    MseHost:     IP address or hostname of server the Media Sequencer (MSE) is running on.

    ContentFillingWaitTime: Time in seconds the application will wait before performing fill content.
    This is a method to improve performance of the application due to the burst notifications from integration systems.

    ChannelCacheTime: Time in seconds cache data will be used.
    Value is dependent on usage, but values between 15-30 secs should be reasonable. When this cache-time is elapsed, the application will fetch new data.
    It is important to be aware that ChannelCacheTime will affect settings, rules and pages. If ChannelCacheTime is set to, say, 60 seconds, options set in the Multichannel UI could be up to 60 seconds delayed before acted upon.
    Use of cache can improve throughput in an application, but could have hard to catch side effects due to delay, so always consider your options carefully.

  4. Save the file.

  5. Restart the windows service

See Also