Conditional and Reverse Blackout

Programming may be restricted from some viewers. These viewers will stream alternate content instead of the regularly scheduled program. This capability is known as blackout. Blackout may be implemented using one of the following options:

• Conditional Blackout
• Reverse Blackout
• Blackout

Quick Start

Leverage blackout by performing the following steps:

1. Identify the programming that should be restricted from specific viewers.
2. Include the repl parameter within the playback URL and set it to the desired flavor of blackout (i.e., blackout, rbo, or aboi).

Blacked out viewers will view alternate content instead of the regularly scheduled program.

Conditional Blackout

Load parameter: repl=blackout

The blackout plugin enables content providers to blackout certain assets from their channel's timeline. In order for an asset to be blacked out, it must contain custom metadata blackout_id that matches the value associated with the playback replacement parameter boid. If they match, the channel's blackout slate (or if not defined, the owner's blackout slate) will be played. If they don't match, the asset will play.

Parameters:

Name	Type	Required	Description
boid	string	No	The blackout ID to use when determining whether an asset in a timeline should be blacked out. If the value provided with this parameter matches the blackout_id custom metadata on the asset, the channel or owner blackout slate will play. If there is no match, the asset will play.

Note that this plugin does not currently support specifying the boid in channel metadata.

Example:

Using the meta parameter on the slicer's content_start method to set the asset's custom metadata, I now have an asset that contains meta.blackout_id=blackout_01. If I then play a channel that contains this asset with the following URL params:

Because the repl.boid value and the meta.blackout_id match, when the timeline reaches this asset the viewer will see blackout slate instead of the asset.

Reverse Blackout

Load parameter: repl=rbo

The rbo, or “reverse blackout”, plugin works in reverse of the blackout plugin described above. If the blackout plugin defaults to letting all content through and filters those that match the rules, the rbo plugin defaults to letting no content through and allows only those that match the given parameters.

Parameters:

Name	Type	Required	Description
prop,val.<id>	string	No	The prop,val.<id> parameters are the method by which the caller can specify what asset property to use for filtering. <id> must be replaced by a unique identifier for each property/value pair. A meaningful string identifier is fine, or an incrementing integer value would work, as well. Filename-type wildcards can also be used in the value, where '*' matches multiple characters, and '?' matches one character. Note that the match is case-insensitive.

Example:

Let's say I have multiple assets in a timeline and I wish to black out all content except those with a desc property of either “Nightly News” or "Good Morning, USA". Let's also say that the assets with a description of "Good Morning, USA" are always that exact string. Further, let's say that in the "Nightly News" case the description could also include a suffix, such as "Nightly News - 01", which means I will want to match any descriptions that start with "Nightly News". I would use the following playback URL parameters to accomplish this:

Note that the spaces and the '*' are URL-encoded (%20 and %2A, respectively), but unencoded characters can also be passed as long as the client sends them properly.

As an alternative to using the URL parameters, I could specify the repl-prop,val-<id> parameters (note '.' has been replaced with '-' in the key name) in channel custom metadata by specifying the following custom metadata on the channel.

Key	Value
repl-prop,val-nightlynews	desc,Nightly News*
repl-prop,val-gmusa	desc,Good Morning, USA