OpenTV Video Platform Internal Release Notes (Platform 20.37.1_Draft)

Release summary

New product features

This section provides a high-level overview of new features coming with the 2020-Q2 STD0 product release out of the 2020-Q2 R&D development cycle.

1. Broadpeak CDN tokenisation 

[Product Feature - Starhub]

This feature adds the ability to protect a Broadpeak CDN from load outside of their user-base. This is done by protecting retrieval of the playout manifest via a token – known as the CDN token.

The playback workflow invokes an API on the OPF backend that returns both a CDN token and the playback authorisation token (both via the same API to reduce latency).

This CDN token is then used in the request that the player makes to the  CDN to retrieve the manifest.

2.  Immediate deletion of temporary encoding assets

[Product & Starhub]
With separated encoder and packager integrations (Ateme and Broadpeak), a temporary encoding asset (mezzanine) is created.

This feature deletes the temporary encoding asset once packaging is complete, as opposed to when the asset expires, reducing the storage required for the temporary assets.

3. Redirect logs in S3 for long-term archiving

[Product & Starhub]

This feature enables application logs to be stored in an S3 bucket for long-term archiving. 

4. Trailer support

[Customer Specific Feature] [SHUB]
This feature translates the incoming metadata for trailers from Starhub's BBS system into the OpenTV Platform format.

5. Support redo job

[Product &  Foxtel, Starhub]

The NAGRA CMS workflow that allows a client to play a content asset involves a sequence of jobs that produce content suitable for a client device. This involves taking a raw stream or source file (e.g., mp4) and converting it into other formats that can be handled by the device (e.g., an appropriate DRM format supported by device's player).

After content conversion, the operator may identify editorial or quality issues that require the source content file to be reprocessed, starting with an updated source file or maybe different encoding parameters.

To support this, OPF 3 provides a facility to redo a job, allowing correction and replacement of the produced content asset. Redo can be activated be in OpCon or via CMS APIs, which effect the state change necessary to start reprocessing.

6. Notifications via email

[Product & Starhub]

Currently, OPF allows can email notifications to a pre-configured email address for the following event statuses: start, complete and error.

Notifications can be scheduled for all job types (e.g., ingest).

This feature adds to this the ability to configure which types 'status' of notifications an operator wants to receive

This feature adds to this the ability to configure which event status types notifications are sent for:

• Error notifications

• Complete notifications

• Start notifications

7. Support iPlus STB SDP APIs with OPF+SSP

[Telefonica]

This feature provides a backwards-compatible facade for Telefonica iPlus STBs, allowing them to continue making MediaLive-formatted sign-on and PRM licence retrieval requests to an OPF-SSP platform. The feature includes an external call out to a Telefonica business platform to request authorisation to retrieve a license, and to a NAGRA PRM platform to request the licence itself.

8. VPIFacade BTV integration

[Foxtel]

The VPI Facade is a service that provides support for more complex ingest workflows.  

Support has been added specifically for Foxtel for their reverse-EPG Redbee format and live/EPG TSA formats.

9. Purge PES profile association – XSLT 

[Foxtel]

During the ingest of R-EPG content, the purge profile will be automatically associated with the playable asset via CIM.

10. CMS->SDP delete support

[Foxtel]

For Foxtel, content that is updated to be deleted via the ingest will have the dates expired so that the expiry information can be communicated to SDP. Without this, the content would only be deleted from CPM and not propagated upstream.

11. Default value support – product

[Product & Foxtel]

This feature provides the ability to define and use a default value on ingest, where no value is explicitly provided in the ingest file itself. Default values can be configured within BCM.

12. VOD "All Items" catalogue management

[Product &  Foxtel, HOT]

This enhancement feature improves the behaviour of managing the "All Items" catalogue within Operator Console.

The first enhancement is the simplification of content management. Previously, to appear in Operator Console, a content had to have a full definition of editorial, technical(s), and associated CPW(s), and those CPWs are then added to the "All Items" Node. This is a large initial requirement just to have content in a position where it can be managed (either edited or arranged into other nodes/content groups). With this feature, content now just needs to exist at an editorial level to be visible in Operator Console, paving the way for the additional data (e.g., technicals) and group memberships (to one or more nodes) to be added later. 

The second enhancement is to the consistency of adding the "All Items" catalogue to a product. Fundamentally, the premise was that being able to add "All Items" to a product would make all VOD content under that product available. However, this was problematic in that it did not cater for other root nodes (as used by certain operators) and so didn't include all the content. It also set the platform up to expose all the content under that "All Items" node, even if it was in a draft state or not intended for inclusion. The feature aims to correct this by handing control of the content back to the operator. Operator Console will no longer make incorrect or inconsistent assumptions, and instead, the operator will be able to see the full node structure, and more prescriptively define and add their content into products.

13. Live metadata purge – performance validation

[Internal]

In this release, it has been validated that the performance when purging old, live metadata is as expected for the product.    

14. Continuation of CDS performance test

[Internal]

This feature improves and validates the performance of the content discovery service, with improved caching and scaling within the service. 

15. Product model enhancement – editorial-led retailing and migration

[Internal]

Until now, the NAGRA CMS model supported a model of retailing whereby the technical elements of assets drove how clients viewed metadata and acquired content. Specifically, products were linked first to the technical objects and from there to the editorial objects. Although this works, it reduces the scope for managing product and content relationships and does not allow products to be a single source of retail control for the technical types of the same content.

Building on the changes to the model so that products links to editorial detail first, product has been further enhanced to allow it to describe which technical versions are enabled by a product. This is dynamic, as changes to a product immediately reflect which technical versions of an asset an entitlement authorises.

Content groups are also refined in this release to provide a much more flexible container scheme that can be attached to nodes. Content groupings can be re-used, allowing very flexible catalogue management. Content groups have also been enhanced to provide a preference set of content that will be returned when the content group is read. This replaces the previous display order schemes with a more predictable scheme that reliably returns a certain order of content for presentation.

16. Starhub operational costs improvements

[Internal]

Today's hardware profile deployed for the Starhub production environment is known to be too big (and costly). This feature has defined the smallest profile possible to reach the performance expected by Starhub based on the uses cases provided. 

17. Operator Console refactoring – live screens

[Product]

A new channel management screen with a new UI design replaces the existing Channels section of Operator Console. The new screen is designed to be intuitive to use and uses more advanced componentry to make the process of channel creation simpler for the operator. The existing EPG and event search screens have also been re-engineered and combined into a single view.

18. Search architecture – live & products

[Product, Foxtel, Hot]

Building on the search architecture work carried out for VOD in the previous release, this release targets the BTV/Live and Products screens and, in concert with the refactoring of those screens, delivers a performant UI with accurate, flexible search options.

19. DWH – device reporting (deletion)

[Product, SHUB]

When devices are marked as deleted via API calls or via OpCon, this feature enables OPF to record and report upon the deletion event in near real time.

This gives operators the ability to track when a device was deleted vs disabled. The new data is available via Tableau reporting. 

20. Support to manage the recording of series entities on client devices

[Product, Jackson, Shurz]

The feature enables series entities ingested into the system to be recorded as bulk episodes. A user would be able to initiate/schedule past and currently live episodes. Cancellation is also possible in bulk via the manage recordings options in the media card. A series media card can present a mix of recordings, live (future, present) and VOD assets in a single view.

User activity is recorded against a series in the form of bookmarks. 

21. NPVR core series recording work (inc. feature parity items)

[Product, Jackson, HOT]

This feature establishes parity for NPVR with previous versions of the OPF platform in relation to series recording. For this feature, we have created a series-based API that will allow a client to: 

• When a series is set to record, the correct series linking takes place to allow all future episodes of the series to be recorded automatically. 

• When a series recording is cancelled. all future scheduled recordings are cancelled.

• When series recordings are deleted, assets are flagged for deletion and processed by the purge jobs. 

In addition, when an account's status is changed to deleted or cancelled, any existing scheduled recordings will be automatically cancelled. 

Finally, the APIs for client interactions to allow sorting and filtering of the response when requesting recordings have been extended. See the portal for full details. 

22. Support Emergency Alert System (EAS) notification and client action

[Product, Jackson, Shurz]

This feature integrates NAGRA OPF services with the Emergency Alert System (EAS), a federally-mandated distributor of warning messages to client end-users in the United States. The messages contained detailx about the nature of the alert and how clients should respond to it. EAS can advise at the local or national level, for example, if a national emergency has occurred. Typically a client end-user's device is directed to a specific channel where a broadcast can be made for national or local messages of interest.

Devices are aligned to locations governed by FIPS geographical areas codes, and this determines the range of messages delivered to a client. Supported devices include Android STB and mobile devices, all operating with an ION application layer.

When in receipt of an EAS notification, the ION application switches to a designated channel ready for the EAS alert message playout. NAGRA integrates with Harmonic and other partners to receive, prepare, and redistribute notifications and message content to devices.

23. In-home detection

[Product, Jackson]

OPF is now able to detect if the current user of the platform is "at home" or not, and to enforce the blocking of content and channel playback if the user is not currently deemed to be at home.

Detection of whether the user is "at home" or not uses the network operator's checking service to identify if the user is currently on an IP address assigned to their billing address or by the validation of an account-level IP address against the current IP address via which the client is accessing the system. 

24. CDS calls and caching changes 

[KSA, Product]

The CDS V2 API splits the APIs for discovery and magazine API calls. This improves performance and allows caching of API responses for populating ION's discover screen. The round trip that was required for MDS metadata in CDS v1 is no longer required, as CDS V2 deserialises this part and appends it to the response.

25. Notify STBs when account is re-activated

[VDG]

A notification can now be sent to a client device that integrates with the NAGRA CONNECT Client when the account associated with the device is re-activated.

26. Update Java Virtual Machine to Java 11 – finalisation

[Internal]

The following components are now updated to use the Java 11 runtime rather than the previous, less-supported Java 8: CPM, OpCon Controller, UAM (OpCon user management), CEX (SEAC and NES), and Business Rules. This aligns to previous component updates to ensure we remain current with our use of Java and reduce dependency issues between components.

27. NGINX upgrade

[Internal]

The NGINX reverse proxy that is used at the edge of OpenTV deployments has been upgraded to the latest stable version (1.18) to ensure that the proxy is updated with all known security fixes.

28. Extend DAST (using ZAP) coverage to operator facing APIs

[Internal]

The automated security testing infrastructure in the development pipeline that uses ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy) has been updated to ensure that operator-facing APIs are also included in the scope of security testing. Device-facing APIs are already being tested with this infrastructure. With the current release, the scope was enhanced to cover operator-facing APIs.

29. [GDPR] Subject Access Request – finalisation

[Internal]

To comply with the GDPR legislation, we need to be able to produce a report that details all of the personally identifiable data that we store as a data processor that is related to a Data Subject (a specific customer of the operator).

For this feature, we are standardising this report and making it available to operators via Tableau. 

The Subject Access Report will be created using Tableau. The data is sourced from the Redshift Data Warehouse (DWH), which is populated from the operational data stores. All Personally Identifiable Data is made available in the report.

The operator is responsible for confirming that the data subject's identity is correct.

To access the report, the operator logs into Tableau and selects the SAR from the reports available to them. Authorisation to access the report is managed via Tableau .

The operator can then export, review, and download the report as required and forward it to the data subject as requested.

30. Remove client API toggles for valid/visible content

[Internal]

This feature is an MDS API modification to default the content view to only return valid and visible content if no parameters are passed in. Support is still available for API calls that explicitly request invalid or invisible content to ensure that this is not a breaking change, though support for the parameters will be dropped in time (following sufficient notification), as there is no known usable use case that should be looking at invalid or invisible content. 

31. Extended Ufinity authentication for sign-on by CASN

[SHUB]

Managed devices (STB) are authenticated with the Ufinity service to ensure they belong to the associated user's account.

32. Migration of purge jobs for Broadpeak integration

[ Internal ] 

A script/query was developed to allow the GOS team that supports Starhub to update all existing workflow jobs towards Broadpeak in their production platform to enable the deployment of feature E-26505, which was part of the 2020Q2 release.

33. Logging of user logins and performed actions (OpCon)

[ Product & Starhub ]
OpCon logs all user logins and performed actions using the platform logging mechanism. The logs can be retrieved for reference.

34. DWH – device signon and refresh reporting

[ Product & Starhub ]

The signon and refresh of devices to the platform is now recorded to the data warehouse, allowing usage reports to be created.

Backward compatibility consideration

Compatibility matrix

Not applicable

List of known issues

The following issues are still open (not resolved) in this OPF_20.37_STD0 release.

New issues

The following are new issues found in this OPF_20.37_STD0 release.

Resolved issues

The following issues are fixed and these bug fixes are part of this OPF_20.37_STD0 release.