Blackouts on Live Video Content Processing

Requirements

• The blackout image must be in .png or .bmp format; otherwise defaults to black image if not given.
• SCTE-35 time_signal markers to schedule and trigger the blackout feature.

Triggering a blackout

The blackout feature is triggered only by SCTE-35 time_signal messages of segmentation type Other.

In the SCTE-35 time_signal segmentation descriptors, there should be two flags:
web_delivery_allowed_flag and no_regional_blackout_flag.

When web_delivery_allowed_flag is false, the content will be blacked out.
When no_regional_blackout_flag is false, the content will be blacked out.
When both flags are present, if either flag is set to false - that flag will take precedence and the content will be blacked out.

Once triggered, the blackout will replace the video content with the image that was specified and remove any audio/caption associated with the stream until the blackout ends.

Sample SCTE-35 Time Signals (Base64)

Here are some sample SCTE-35 time signals for starting and stopping a blackout:

Start Blackout: /DAnAAAAAAAAAP/wBQb+ANDsYAARAg9DVUVJAAAAHn+XAAAAAAAy6bdf
Stop Blackout: /DAnAAAAAAAAAP/wBQb+AP+L7AARAg9DVUVJAAAAFH+/AAAAAACVvDjv

For the above cue points, note that the delivery_not_restricted_flag is used only when web_delivery_allowed_flag and no_regional_blackout_flag are set to false. The segmentation_event_cancel_indicator can also be used to cancel a segmentation event by event ID, but it is not used in the examples above.

Reference this AWS MediaLive article to learn how SCTE-35 events are handled in manifests and sparse tracks.