Conditional and Reverse Blackout

Programming may be restricted from specific viewers, who will stream alternate content instead of the regularly scheduled program. This capability is known as blackout. You can implement blackout using one of the following options: conditional blackout, reverse blackout, or blackout.

Quick Start

Leverage blackout by performing the following steps:

Identify the programming that should be restricted from specific viewers.
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 see alternate content instead of the regularly scheduled program.

Conditional Blackout

Load Parameter: repl=blackout

The blackout plugin lets you black out certain assets from a channel's timeline. For an asset to be blacked out, it must contain custom metadata blackout_id that matches the value of the playback replacement parameter boid. If the values match, the channel's blackout slate (or, if not defined, the owner's blackout slate) plays. If they do not match, the asset plays normally.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`boid`	string	No	The blackout ID used to determine 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.

📘
This plugin does not currently support specifying the boid in channel metadata.

Example

Using the meta parameter on the slicer's content_start method, set the asset's custom metadata so it contains meta.blackout_id=blackout_01. Then play a channel that contains this asset with the following URL parameters: http://…?repl=blackout&repl.boid=blackout_01

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

Reverse Blackout

Load Parameter: repl=rbo

The rbo (reverse blackout) plugin operates in reverse of the conditional blackout plugin. While conditional blackout defaults to letting all content through and filters those that match the rules, rbo defaults to blocking all content and allows only those that match the given parameters.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`prop,val.<id>`	string	No	The `prop,val.<id>` parameters 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 acceptable, 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

Assume you have multiple assets in a timeline and want to black out all content except those with a desc property of either "Nightly News" or "Good Morning, USA". The assets with a description of "Good Morning, USA" always use that exact string. For "Nightly News", the description might include a suffix such as "Nightly News - 01", meaning you want to match any descriptions that start with "Nightly News". Use the following playback URL parameters:

http://...?repl=rbo&repl.prop,val.nightlynews=desc,Nightly%20News%2A&repl.prop,val.gmusa=desc,Good%20Morning,%20USA

Note that 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.

Alternatively, you can specify the repl-prop,val-<id> parameters (note . has been replaced with - in the key name) in channel custom metadata:

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