NCast PR-720-D Reference Manual Download Page 3

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NCast Presentation Recorder Reference Manual

4.5. Channel Settings – Image Overlays

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4.6. Channel Settings – Text Overlays

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4.7. Channel Settings – Upload

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4.8. Channel Settings – Notifications

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5. Archives Page

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5.1. Archive Settings

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6. Sources Page

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6.1. Sources Settings

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7. Information Pages Reference

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7.1. Session Page

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7.2. Viewers Page

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7.3. View Page

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7.4. VLC Media Player

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7.5. Media Players

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7.6. Closed-Caption Support

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8. Custom Layouts

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8.1. Frame Layouts and Presets

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9. Presentation Recorder Interfaces

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9.1. Serial Interface

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9.2. Telnet Interface

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9.3. HTTP Interface – Archive Download

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9.4. HTTP Interface – Image and Thumbnail Capture

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9.5. HTTP Interface – Graphics Overlay Upload

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10. Techniques for Presentation Capture

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10.1. Webcasting, Podcasting and Archiving

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10.2. Capturing Graphics, Video and Audio

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10.3. Conference Day Problems and Issues

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10.4. Video Post-Production

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11. References

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102

11.1. MPEG Compression

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102

11.2. Packet Transmission

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102

11.3. Multicast

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102

12. Revision History

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103

NCast Corporation

Revision 1.1

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Summary of Contents for PR-720-D

Page 1: ...Recorder Reference Manual NCast Product Specification Presentation Recorder Reference Manual Revision 1 1 May 5th 2011 PR 720 Software Release 6 1 7 Copyright NCast Corporation 2011 NCast Corporation...

Page 2: ...mpression 15 2 4 Transmission 15 2 5 Decompression 15 2 6 Display Function 15 2 7 Audio Subsystem 15 2 8 Archive Flash Disk 15 3 Configuration Settings and Parameters Reference 16 3 1 Unit Options Set...

Page 3: ...rt 77 8 Custom Layouts 80 8 1 Frame Layouts and Presets 80 9 Presentation Recorder Interfaces 85 9 1 Serial Interface 85 9 2 Telnet Interface 85 9 3 HTTP Interface Archive Download 86 9 4 HTTP Interfa...

Page 4: ...E INFORMATION FOR THE USER This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide rea...

Page 5: ...ce with the instruction manual may cause harmful interference to radio communications Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause harmful interference in which case the user w...

Page 6: ...which provides for connection to LCD panels and displays H 264 A compression format that delivers very high quality video at low bit rates MPEG 4 Part 10 utilizes the H 264 codec for transmission IETF...

Page 7: ...lay surface with a resolution of 1600x1200 pixels VGA Describes an image or display surface with a resolution of 640x480 pixels WUXGA Describes an image or display surface with a resolution of 1920x12...

Page 8: ...e screen delivery One encoder transmits a 720p hi def camera stream and the second transmits a wide screen presentation Telepresence at a budget price Synchronized Encoders Two 1280x720 wide screens s...

Page 9: ...der and all of the other units are designated as Receivers The media streams originate from the Sender and are decoded by one or more Receivers or desktop client media players The transmission is stri...

Page 10: ...for live streaming playback The unit is able to stream and record simultaneously Record Only The Presentation Recorder only records the file to storage Once the Session has ended the file may be autom...

Page 11: ...phics and video on the local display screen Check your audio levels on the meter 5 On the Channels page modify a Channel for the transmission rates and multicast or unicast addresses you wish to use U...

Page 12: ...r VGA or Component Input from the presenter s PC or a component hi def camera VGA Loopback VGA output usually to the room projector Component Out Y Pb Pr output to the local display VGA Y Pb Pr breako...

Page 13: ...NCast Presentation Recorder Reference Manual 1 8 INSTALLATION The diagram below shows a typical room installation NCast Corporation Revision 1 1 Page 13...

Page 14: ...interface serial interface and telnet interface and to prepare data for display on the attached monitor A highly secure open source operating system underlies and supports all of this functionality DS...

Page 15: ...subsequent transmission on the attached IP network 2 5 DECOMPRESSION The received packet stream is decompressed and the resulting image is placed into a video frame buffer At that instant it will bec...

Page 16: ...ntiates it from its peers Examples PR720 West Campus PR720 Engineering The Unit ID is written to the XML meta data file which accompanies each recording and may be used to index the recorded file base...

Page 17: ...ose CA 3 1 6 Contact web page The Contact web page can be the URL of the Contact name s personal web page department service group help page or course material outline 3 1 7 Date Time Time zone The Ti...

Page 18: ...re six buttons which may be used to configure restart or reset the unit Shutdown Powers down the unit and is recommended as the proper means to turn off a Presentation Recorder if it will be idle for...

Page 19: ...enter a password to see the media stream There is provision for four different viewer names and passwords 3 2 4 HTTP API password The HTTP API password allows access to archived files This password pe...

Page 20: ...d If there is not a valid private RSA key available then Apache will not start This is used to disable third parties launching HTTPS with stolen certificates More information on this topic is at http...

Page 21: ...Output Only At this time the Presentation Recorders only support Component output Y Pr Pb and this will usually require use of a VGA to Component breakout cable A VGA to VGA cable will not function co...

Page 22: ...e Channel Table see Section 4 4 and settings on the Sources page see Section 6 1 so it is necessary to understand Channel Layout options and Source selections first to fully appreciate the custom defi...

Page 23: ...be in the range 128 720 3 5 2 Custom Aspect Ratios The aspect ratio defines the visual geometry of the Frame capture surface If the frame width in pixels divided by the frame height in pixels is the s...

Page 24: ...the media stream being created These images would typically be corporate or organizational logos trademarks or watermarks copyright statements media content or date annotation or descriptive informati...

Page 25: ...heduling tools and scripts to automatically change the presentation graphics and layouts at prescribed times e g to conform to speaker times and track changes at a conference Dynamic upload is not sup...

Page 26: ...d report parameters related to the IP address of the unit and its behavior on an Internet network The network parameters are normally set using this page but alternatively they may be entered through...

Page 27: ...segment e g 255 255 255 0 3 6 4 Gateway The numeric IP address of the gateway host on this LAN segment e g www xxx yyy 1 3 6 5 Primary DNS The numeric IP address of the primary Domain Name Server DNS...

Page 28: ...nce the unit has booted the USB memory may be removed and is not required again The network settings from the file will be reflected as permanent entries shown on the Network Configuration page The fi...

Page 29: ...e that for security reasons the default Telnet port is not utilized 3 7 1 Telnet Access Disable access if the serial command interface is not in use 3 7 2 Password Choose a password which has random c...

Page 30: ...the Scheduler web page Complete documentation for the serial command set is in the Presentation Recorder Serial Interface Specification Please refer to this manual for a more complete description of c...

Page 31: ...n of the actions executed at scheduled start time So to get started and administrator must establish a Google Calendar account different from a Google mail account and provide a password for this acco...

Page 32: ...n Recorder may be listed This allows one calendar to control many different units The Calendar field must be the primary or default calendar for this account The Description field is a series of seria...

Page 33: ...l occur in the order scheduled 3 8 7 iCalendar Overview There are many different calendar applications in use both PC based and Web based NCast provides a facility to utilize these other calendar appl...

Page 34: ...on field must contain the IP address of the Presentation Recorder Description field contains serial commands to be sent to a Presentation Recorder 3 8 10 Importing iCalendar Files An alternate way of...

Page 35: ...alendar entries View iCalendar Check on activities scheduled by iCalendar entries 3 8 14 Activating the Serial Interface The IP serial interface on a Presentation Recorder must be enabled to receive t...

Page 36: ...ategorized by their severity level Info Warning Error and Critical and by their specific action or type e g Session start Recording start etc Events can be system wide e mails are sent to the system a...

Page 37: ...er Normally port 25 the port number might be non standard due to firewall rules ISP restrictions or other requirements 3 9 6 SMTP Authentication Check this box if your SMTP server requires authenticat...

Page 38: ...the severity level desired for reporting Typically this would be Critical and Error unless there is an interest in the more frequent and less interesting Warning and Info messages Next select particul...

Page 39: ...are also used with the Scheduler interface This screen allows inspection of recent activity for the Serial link 3 10 3 Download Logs Log reporting is an important tool which NCast uses to diagnose any...

Page 40: ...and software updates are not available There may also be a problem with the settings for the DNS servers as well Once the Update button is pressed the Presentation Recorder downloads a list of require...

Page 41: ...will not be changed by ordinary users of the Presentation Recorder The user is instructed to Use Channel 2 and no further detailed instructions are required When a Channel is started the Presentation...

Page 42: ...be exported to a zip file This provides for off line backup Use of the Import button allows restoration of the channel or copying of the parameters from one channel to another 4 2 CHANNEL SETTINGS GEN...

Page 43: ...ceiving a transmission from some other source on this address Automatic Unicast The unit will utilize the services of a streaming server for rebroadcast reflection of the incoming stream Through use o...

Page 44: ...addresses to minimize traffic loading on the network the multicast routers distribute all traffic to all points subscribed on a particular multicast address independent of the port number The default...

Page 45: ...the material being presented using the network at hand 4 2 7 Video Frame rate The video frame rate represents the number of frame visual image grabs per second the system will attempt to achieve The r...

Page 46: ...nt bit rates and an optional stereo setting provide for a wide selection of audio formats to be associated with the graphics media stream Sample Rate Channels Bit Rate Quality 11 kHz Mono 16 kbps Phon...

Page 47: ...ffic flows 4 2 14 Automatic Unicast This Channel Type enables automatic transfer of a Presentation Recorder s SDP file to a streaming server e g a QTSS DSS server The transfer is accomplished by RTSP...

Page 48: ...is rebooted or restarted after a power failure 4 2 17 Show Thumbnail If this box is checked a thumbnail image of the current capture will appear on the View page Thumbnails are only available in Strea...

Page 49: ...io and video is synchronized during playback to maintain lip sync this is the default setting If disabled audio and video is not synchronized during playback In typical configuration audio will be pla...

Page 50: ...ekday name b abbreviated month name c 4 digit counter C 6 digit counter d day of the month 01 to 31 H 24 hour clock 00 to 23 I 12 hour clock 01 to 12 m month 01 to 12 M minute 00 to 59 n channel numbe...

Page 51: ...remote clients An additional track called a hint track contains this information If the file is to be used with a streaming server this option must be checked If streaming is not required uncheck to...

Page 52: ...The PR 720 Series user has the option of determining if the PIP window obscures any portion of the Main window It can be placed on top of or outside of the Main image Finally the Overlay Graphics or...

Page 53: ...ize are automatically scaled to the Window dimen sions specified by the Main and PIP settings Frame size n The media streams and archive files are sent kept in a custom resolution Custom resolutions a...

Page 54: ...ight Bottom left Bottom right would be chosen The custom window selections Window 1 Window 2 allow for placement of the primary and secondary images in arrangements not covered by the standard selecti...

Page 55: ...most common selection would be one of the corner settings Top left Top right Bottom left Bottom right The custom window selections Window 1 Window 2 allow for placement of the PIP window in arrangemen...

Page 56: ...r in fact may be included if required The Channel Table Image Overlays are transferred to the operating Session parameters at Session startup and thus initialize the image overlays used during the Ses...

Page 57: ...hanges to the Text Overlay in use during a Session may be made from the Sources page see Section 6 1 or from the Configuration menu see Section 3 5 4 6 1 State The enable disable setting will cause th...

Page 58: ...re Values must be in the range 0 255 For transparency 0 is fully transparent and 255 is opaque 4 6 9 Text The text to be displayed in the window This text may include format strings e g H M S for hour...

Page 59: ...o 100 N Channel name p AM PM P am pm R Archive presenter S Second 00 to 60 T Recording duration for example 01 45 12 x Date for example 12 31 08 X Time for example 23 13 48 Y Year for example 2009 z N...

Page 60: ...wn on Archives tab Secure FTP SFTP is supported with password and private key authorization It will first try to use private key and if it fails password authorization is used Only SSH 2 protocol is s...

Page 61: ...pecified on a Channel basis Since each Channel has its own unique S FTP information different S FTP sites may be accessed by starting or using different Channels For example if the Session starting at...

Page 62: ...server See Section 3 9 for detailed information on the entries required for this page 4 8 2 Channel N Settings Notification Events A subset of all system wide events is available for Channel specific...

Page 63: ...because the actual bit rate generated during operation varies with the material being encoded and the calculation above should represent worst case conditions Archive files are named with time stamp...

Page 64: ...xml file This information is available in XML format for use by other applications xml version 1 0 encoding UTF 8 archive version 1 0 filename 20101119 143215 001 mp4 filename filesize 250598733 files...

Page 65: ...ds to be uploaded to Dept A s server and the Session starting at 10 00 am needs to be uploaded to Dept B s server this is easily accomplished by specifying different S FTP sites in the Channel Table O...

Page 66: ...format for example where differential frame interpolation is no longer required Quicktime Pro an inexpensive add on to Quicktime player for both MACs and Windows is suitable for taking the original f...

Page 67: ...he following graphics video sources for capture as the primary image Graphics Video Input VGA RGB analog signals from the 15 pin VGA connector DVI D Digital RGB signals from the DVI connector DVI A An...

Page 68: ...Yes implies that the PIP arrangement is normal and would be used during a capture session Duplicate implies that the Main image and the PIP image are identical and this arrangement could be used but w...

Page 69: ...alues from the Channel Table 6 1 10 PIP Window The placement of the PIP window may be altered after Session start with this menu selection Custom Windows 1 10 are defined on the Custom page under the...

Page 70: ...10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 6 1 15 Video Adjustments Brightness Contrast Saturation Hue Sharpness These values allow fine tuning of image brightness contrast saturation hue and sharpness The follow...

Page 71: ...the composite image currently being encoded and compressed Provides an excellent confidence check of the video and graphics capture in progress without the need for an attached local output display C...

Page 72: ...nnel entry to verify if the entry had been made correctly The Session Page also shows if the Session is currently active and the state of archiving Buttons on the page allow the operator to stop and s...

Page 73: ...e and active in this Session This information is derived from RTCP Real time Control Protocol reports The descriptive information comes from entries made in each unit s Unit Options page Desktop strea...

Page 74: ...how to achieve this is beyond the scope of this manual The various links on this page are used to launch client applications on the desktop In each case the link causes a small control file to be down...

Page 75: ...application currently associated with the SDP extension This application must be the client media player 5 The browser passes the file information to the application by giving the application the fil...

Page 76: ...esktop or externally are blocking access to the required RTSP or UDP ports The network being used is not multicast enabled and multicast connectivity is being requested The network path between the cl...

Page 77: ...upport in the open source community and works with several players The format is an srt text file type which is described here http en wikipedia org wiki SubRip New serial commands have been added to...

Page 78: ...ime slider true head meta name title content NCast PR 720 Series Commercial meta name author content VP Sales meta name copyright content NCast Corporation 2007 layout root layout height 285 width 330...

Page 79: ...alism wisc edu worldcaption World Caption is a program for adding captions to a QuickTime compatible video using a transcript of that video While World Caption cannot be used to generate a transcript...

Page 80: ...f the presentation a 240x180 video shot of the instructor and a University logo with a copyright statement The proposed composite image should look like this To create this composite the following ste...

Page 81: ...On the Sources page make these selections and press Update a Main input VGA or possibly DVI b PIP input Composite or possibly S Video The Presentation Recorder is now ready to transmit the composite...

Page 82: ...eaker shot as a side by side layout is to position the window in the wrong spatial relationship to the screen being discussed by the presenter If the podium is to the right of the projection screen as...

Page 83: ...side or left side speaker placements the speakers naturally look at the projected graphics while presenting Here is an example of a mismatched left right alignment 8 1 4 Customer Layout Examples NCast...

Page 84: ...Recorder Reference Manual HASTAC Conference courtesy of Duke University TeraGrid Conference courtesy of UCSD Virtual Teams Conference courtesy of Media X HP Historical Presentation NCast Corporation R...

Page 85: ...alled the Presentation Recorder Management System and there is a version written in Java and Python See the Download area of the NCast web site An example of the interface implemented by TMS is shown...

Page 86: ...file xml The time stamped xml file associated with an archive file Note that archive operations are username password protected and this information must be supplied to utilize these special URLs The...

Page 87: ...ckup http passwd passwd http PR720ip backup download mp4 if status 0 then echo PR720files Error in accessing media file mp4 exit 1 endif Get the associated xml description file set xml mp4 r xml echo...

Page 88: ...all files from a single host ncfiles py r Presentation Recorder ncast com Download all files and then remove them ncfiles py 192 168 0 5 192 168 0 6 Download from multiple hosts ncfiles py p adam Pre...

Page 89: ...b2 import socket def Download host user pswd realm remove Create an OpenerDirector with support for Basic HTTP Authentication auth_handler urllib2 HTTPBasicAuthHandler auth_handler add_password realm...

Page 90: ...urn False fileout open mp4 wb while True try bytes filein read 1024000 fileout write bytes except IOError errno strerror print ncfiles I O error s s errno strerror sys exit 2 if bytes break filein clo...

Page 91: ...Program hostlist debug False inputfile None user backup pswd ncast realm NCast PR720 remove False def Usage print Usage ncfiles py d f hostfile h p password r v debug file hostfile help pswd password...

Page 92: ...ot result print ncfiles Download error on host host print ncfiles Download complete 9 4 HTTP INTERFACE IMAGE AND THUMBNAIL CAPTURE The HTTP Interface may be used to capture single images from the enco...

Page 93: ...s to be changed on an hourly basis for example A single command line using a widely available utility is enough to upload a single graphic curl u api ncast F overlay_1_file test png http w x y z api c...

Page 94: ...ptname 1 if not os path exists optvalue raise Exception Invalid image file optvalue images imgnum optvalue else raise Exception BUG should have caught s but didn t optname if not images print sys stde...

Page 95: ...t ncgo Socket error s for host s s errno host strerror sys exit 1 print ncgo finished def encode_multipart_formdata fields boundary mimetools choose_boundary lines for key in fields if isinstance fiel...

Page 96: ...observed viewers will see various artifacts pixelation stuttering loss of lip sync that lead to a negative experience The principal causes of these artifacts are packet loss due to overloading of the...

Page 97: ...o output does not have time date stamps battery icons or other clutter on the signal being captured There are usually menu options to turn these information icons off Arrange with the conference staff...

Page 98: ...10 2 5 Graphics and Video Swap Usually during conferences there are periods when no active or meaningful graphics are being displayed e g during Q A sessions panel commentaries introductions Be prepa...

Page 99: ...ront of the projection screen Talking in front of the projection screen leads to video backlighting problems and should be avoided Start of Talk Ideally the presenter s discussion should start once th...

Page 100: ...of your new clip and select the In point where the new clip should start Align the In point to the nearest key frame This is required to eliminate pixelation and picture breakup at the start of the ne...

Page 101: ...he new clip and select an Out point where the new clip ends Save the file as a new mp4 file You should override the mov suggested suffix with mp4 If this file will be used on a streaming server the hi...

Page 102: ...ort of MPEG 4 Elementary Streams J van der Meer et al November 2003 IETF RFC 2326 Real Time Streaming Protocol RTSP H Schulzrinne et al April 1998 IETF RFC 2327 SDP Session Description Protocol M Hand...

Page 103: ...onfiguration screen Also a new option to set the Max Recording Time on the Channel Settings Recording tab Transcode functions have been dropped from the product due to excessively long processing time...

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