Using the Media Service Configuration tool

This section covers the following

• Open the Media Service configuration tool

• Configuration fields explained

• Functionality

To edit the Media Service Configuration file

To change the default values open up the Media Service configuration folder (normally _%PROGRAMDATA%\Vizrt\Media Service_) either by directly navigating to it in Windows Explorer or selecting ‘Open Media Service log and config folder’ from the System Tray icon menu. To access the menu right-click on the Media Service tray icon:

Open the folder by selecting “Open Media Service log and config folder”. In this folder there is a file named “config.sample.json” which provides an example of all the settings which can be configured. The example file contains comments with instructions for changing values. To create a new configuration:

1. Copy the file config.sample.json to a new file config.json

2. Edit the file config.json as required and save the file

3. Restart the Media Service process. Depending on your version of Windows the procedure for this can be slightly different. A common way to do this is:

• Press the Windows button and in the search-panel write Services to start the Windows Services component.

• When Services are launched, select the name column and start writing “Vizrt Media Service” to select the correct process.

• Click the “Restart” button to restart the service.

• Alternatively, if you are using Powershell: Start a powershell window and execute the command “Restart-Service MediaService”.
  Some of the common values you can change in config.json are:

To configure X264 encoding

The Media Service Coder component can encode H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (X264), but as H.264 is a licensed product this capability depends on both hardware and license.

• When using a recent NVIDIA video card (generation Kepler or newer) Coder can use the NVIDIA supplied NVenc encoder that is bundled with the video card.

• If you have purchased a software license, you can use X264 software-only encoding.
  As a rule of thumb: X264 is generally expected to give a higher quality result, while NVenc is generally faster. NVenc is the default profile.

See Also

• Using the Media Service Configuration tool

• To edit the Media Service Configuration file

To Configure logging

Media Service will write log statements to log-files in the directory %PROGRAMDATA%\Vizrt\Media Service. %PROGRAMDATA% is a Windows environment variable, in most cases this path will expand to C:\ProgramData\vizrt\Media Service.

The current logfile will be %PROGRAMDATA%\vizrt\Media Service\MediaService.log, the previous log file %PROGRAMDATA%\vizrt\Media Service\MediaService.1.log and so on. The log files have a maximum size restriction and will rotate over time.

If you need to change logging you can do this by editing the file: %PROGRAMDATA%\vizrt\Media Service\NLog.override.config.

There is a comment in the file indicating how the file can be changed. If you need more details please consult the available documentation.

An example addition to the NLog.override.config file:

To make the log file log more verbose, change the ‘minlevel=”Debug”’ to ‘minlevel=”Trace”’.

Media File-Types handled by Media Service

By default the following Video and Audio types are handled by Media Service. Note that list of media types handled are additive, meaning that if you have other media types you want to be served then you must add those new media-types to the configuration file. The default types will always be handled, so you just need to add new types. The Media Service processes needs to be restarted if the media types list is changed.