ZEN MASTER July 2020 RELEASE NOTES

The following updates were pushed to ZEN Master on July 8, 2020.

In April 2020 Zixi introduced a new UI for ZEN Master. In the June 3rd release the new UI was set to be the default with a button allowing the user to switch to the old UI. In this release that button is removed but the old UI is still available, for emergency purposes, by specifying its URL in the browser. In the early August release of ZEN Master, the old UI will be retired completely and no longer available.

ZEN Master now enables you to monitor, in real-time, the SCTE-35 markers (including metadata) for live video content in Zixi Broadcasters; it is available in both v13.1.39560+ and in v14. ZEN Master shows recent SCTE-35 markers in both event list and graphical form, flags issues in the ad marker sequences that may require attention, and saves the logs for historical analysis. This enables the user to remediate problems that occur in real-time and also to provide their customers with proof that the SCTE-35 markers triggering insertion of advertisements were transmitted successfully to their destination. A Zixi Broadcaster receiving contribution feeds can provide SCTE-35 analysis on that segment of the workflow while a Broadcaster located at the receiving location and ingesting distribution feeds can provide SCTE- 35 analysis on the whole workflow. ZEN Master monitors SCTE-35 markers on any inputs that natively use transport stream including Zixi TS, TS over RTP/UDP, RIST, SRT, and HLS with TS segments. The SCTE-35 markers are captured on ZEN Master Sources and analyzed on the Sources page in the UI. SCTE-35 event logs are stored in ZEN Master for one month. SCTE-35 events can also be sent to a Kafka server for further processing and long term storage. SCTE-35 events that escalate to warning or error will also be captured in the standard event log as alerts.

Because SCTE-35 logging can be resource intensive, the default behavior is not to log SCTE-35 markers. If you would like to log SCTE-35 markers for a particular Source you need to activate SCTE-35 logging in the Source configuration and also in the Broadcaster Cluster configuration of the Ingest Cluster that is being used. First select the Log SCTE-35 checkbox in the Broadcaster Cluster configuration to enable SCTE- 35 on the Ingest Cluster and the Broadcasters in that Cluster.

Next select the Log SCTE-35 checkbox in the Source configuration to enable SCTE-35 logging on that particular Source. Once you have enabled SCTE-35 logging, you have the option to also select Enable SCTE-35 alerts. Selecting this checkbox enables ZEN Master to flag issues in the ad marker sequences that may require attention.

All SCTE-35 messages for all Sources (with SCTE-35 alerts activated) are shown on the Logs > SCTE-35 screen. A record is shown for each SCTE-35 event with general info about the message. In addition, you can click on the Details button to view a JSON containing the raw message and a parsing of the message content. The results on this screen can be filtered by one or more of the following filters: Message text, Date Range, Access Tags (multi-select), and Sources (multi-select).

You can send all SCTE-35 logs to a Kafka server by selecting SCTE-35 in the Kafka configuration.

For Sources on which SCTE-35 alerts are enabled, alerts are generated whenever ZEN Master identifies a problematic sequence of ad markers. These alerts are shown on the Logs > Events screen together with other alerts generated in ZEN Master. SCTE-35 alerts are generated for problematic sequences, such as: • When an End marker occurs with no related Start marker. • When no End marker is detected within the expected timeframe following a Start marker.

When you select a Source on the Sources screen, detailed info about the Source, divided into sections is shown on the right side of the screen. For a Source that has SCTE-35 logging and alerts activated, the following info is shown: • The Details section shows the status for Log SCTE-35 and SCTE-35 Alerts as Enabled. • The SCTE-35 section shows the SCTE-35 Alerts that were logged for this Source. • The History section shows a graph with the distribution of SCTE-35 messages of various types over time. Hovering over a data point shows details about the message content. You can select from the legend which PIDs to display.

The following minor improvements and bug fixes were implemented: • TTL is now configurable for UDP/RTP Targets • Added SRT Targets to Automation • Fixed issue where disabling a Channel was deleting UDP Sources • Fixed issue where SRT Targets were not deleted when disabling/deleting a Channel • Fixed monitoring S3/MediaStore Targets with custom playlist names • Fixed issue with Broadcaster events log being spammed with "output updated" on Azure and GCP Targets • Fixed issue with SRT targets displayed with incorrect status/color in Grids • Fixed issue with being unable to configure active/active Targets in the new UI • Fixed backend error when creating/enabling a pass-through Channel with 2 Sources and SRT targets