Interplay Production Web Services Frequently Asked Questions

Q:  What is the Interplay Common Playback Service?

A:  ICPS is an application that provides playback of video assets and is currently used in Interplay Central, Interplay Sphere, and Interplay MAM. For Interplay Central, ICPS provides playback of video assets managed by Interplay Production and residing on an ISIS storage system. For Interplay MAM, ICPS provides playback of video assets managed as a browse proxies by Interplay MAM and residing on a standard storage device. For Interplay Sphere, ICPS allows for the access and playback of remote video assets within a local Media Composer editing session. ICPS operates in a standard browser and can also be embedded into any application that requires media playout and/or control.  ICPS can be configured as a media player only, can leverage existing web controls, or run using its own built-in player controls.

Q:  What is the Interplay Common Playback Services API?

A:  The ICPS API is a collection of JavaScript functions and events that let you embed the ICPS Player into the UI of a web-enabled application of your own design, and control all aspects of its use from your hosting application. You load and play media by Interplay media object ID (mobID) or file system path name.

Q:  What type of machine can the Interplay Common Playback Services run on?

A:  ICPS operates on a standard Linux server and is qualified with RHEL 6.2

Q:  Can Interplay Common Playback Services run independent of any other Avid application?

A:  The ICPS API is designed to run in a fully configured Avid Interplay environment and relies on various back end process for proper operation. However, in a development environment not all services are required.

Q:  Can Interplay Common Playback Services run on another machine with other applications?

A:  For testing and development, ICPS can run on any Linux server, but this is strongly discouraged for production environments due to the need for specific CPU and memory resources. ICPS should be deployed on a separate physical machine with the appropriate specification to ensure high performance video playback.

Q:  What is the current version of the ICPS API?

A:  The most recent version is 1.5.0 which was released on July 2013.

Q:  What versions of Interplay Production are compatible with ICPS?

A:  ICPS 1.5 is compatible with Interplay Production 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, and 3.0  

Q:  How can I develop against and test the ICPS API?

A:  Avid can provide a temporary development sandbox that will provide you with access to a fully operational ICPS configuration. The ICPS service also comes with an embedded player demo page that allows you to test API functionality.

Q:  How can I configure the server to send the minimal amount of data during playback?

A:  To achieve the lowest possible data rate from the player service, set the following configuration parameters to these values:

deck.playback_frames.video.quality : 20

deck.playback_frames.video.proxy_width: 320

deck.playback_frames.video.dynamic_proxy_width: false

deck.playback_frames.video.maximum_width:320

deck.playback_frames.audio.rate: 11025

deck.playback_frames.audio.bits : 8