Logging

Reading time ~5 minutes

Configure_engine_instance_logging

  • Debug log level – define the level for the log file; you can choose "Full", "Partial", "Custom" level or "None" for no logging.

  • Debug log folder – define the location of the log file where the sequence of operations is recorded. Press the "Browse…​" button to locate the folder where the debug log file in the text format will be stored or simply enter the file path via the keyboard.

  • Custom debug log levels – manually choose the debug log level by changing values of trace level (0 – 10) and error level (0 – 10).

    Note
    		 This group is available for the custom level logging only.

  • New log file every – define the frequency of a new log file creation.

  • Log engine activity – select the checkbox to enable log files creation for an engine instance activity.

  • Logging folder – define the location of the log file that includes info about the engine activities. Press the "Browse…​" button to locate the folder where the log file in the text format will be stored or simply enter the file path via the keyboard.

    Caution
    		 The activity log must contain precise information about all events executed by the Cinegy Playout engine like item start, item stop, etc. The logging of a playlist item is carried out synchronously with the item’s start to ensure adding a corresponding entry to the log file. If there is a delay in writing the activity log, it may result in a delay in the item start. Therefore, it is highly recommended to record activity logs on the local disk.

  • Log file creation time – define when a new log file will be created for each day.

Note
 Please keep in mind that logging events are tracked in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standard and may not match your local time.

Activity Logging

With the "Log engine activity" option enabled, information about launched commands and other activity is added to the log. The custom instance name is embedded into the log file name as a prefix.

The following is an Activity Log file description. Events are line-delimited, one event per line.

All timestamps (date and time) in the log file are standard and in accordance with ISO 8601. They correctly indicate UTC time zone as they have Z suffix: 2022-11-28T04:00:00.051Z

  • Events to mark that Cinegy Playout has started and stopped (should appear first and last in log in normal operations, unless log has rolled over) are:

    "<date>","<time>","ENGINE","START"
"<date>","<time>","ENGINE","STOP"

  • Events to show specific actions on the VIDEO output are:

    "<date>","<time>","VIDEO","BLACK"
"<date>","<time>","VIDEO","BYPASS"
"<date>","<time>","VIDEO","CLEAN"
"<date>","<time>","VIDEO","NORMAL"

    Where:

    • BLACK means that video black is an output as a result of pressing the "BLACK" button in Cinegy Air.

    • BYPASS means that the configured video input signal is routed to the output as a result of pressing the "BYPASS" button in Cinegy Air.

    • CLEAN means all graphics and audio elements are now off (as a result of pressing the "CG off" button in Cinegy Air).

    • NORMAL means video output has returned to normal (for example following a BLACK or BYPASS event).

  • Events to show the triggering of secondary event operations on the engine (e.g. router control, Cinegy Title layer activation) are:

    "<date>","<time>","<device>","<command>","<op1>","<op2>","<op3>"
    Important
    		 Please see relevant device documentation for details of interpreting command and op codes.

  • Events that show activity on individual parts of the output are:

    "<date>","<time>","<device>","<event>","<unique ID>","<name>","<description>","<Traffic ID>","<Subtitle ID>","<EPG ID>","<Mark In/Out>","<duration>","<error flag>"

    <device> specifies one of the output types, it can have one of the following values:

    • ENGINE means that the event is for Cinegy Playout.

    • VIDEO means that the event is for the primary video output layer.

    • LOGO means that the event is for the basic logo layer.

    • CG_LOGO means that the event is for a Cinegy Title layer on the LOGO (topmost) level.

    • CG_<n> means that the event is for a Cinegy Title layer on the nth level.

    • OVL_<n> means that the event is for the basic overlay layer on the nth level.

    • EVENT means that the event is for a secondary event (Cinegy Event Manager device name is specified) layer.

    <event> specifies the type of action that happened at the specified time. For example, START for the VIDEO device defines the start of playlist item playback and STOP defines the actual stop of the item playback.

    <unique ID> specifies the playlist item ID being played back. This ID can be found in the playlist XML and it uniquely identifies the item being played back.

    <name> / <description> specifies the corresponding playlist item info that is taken from the actual playlist.

    <Traffic ID> specifies the "house number" / "material ID" that is usually assigned by Traffic System. For example, when the same clip is inserted into the playlist more than once, its Unique ID properties will be different, but the Traffic ID will be the same.

    <Subtitle ID> specifies the ID of the subtitle stream that is played back simultaneously with the playlist item. The subtitle stream can be generated by an external device (Cavena, for example) or by Cinegy Subtitling Service.

    <EPG ID> - defines the EPG ID of the program to which this item belongs.

    <Mark In/Out> specifies the item start (START event) or item end (END event) timecode.

    <duration> specifies the planned (START event) or actual (END event) duration of the playback. In case item playback is terminated earlier, the Out/Duration values will specify the actual timings of the item playback.

    <error flag> specifies whether there were any errors during the item playback. The error flags description depends on the position of digits in the error code:

    • 0000 – no errors;

    • 1xxx – if the "1" digit is in the first position, this means that the media is unavailable or corrupt (the color bars are displayed);

    • x1xx – if the "1" digit is in the second position, this means that the quality autodegradation has occurred;

    • xx1x – if the "1" digit is in the third position, this means that the frame freeze has occurred.

    • The fourth position of the error code is reserved for future use.