Configuration using Over Air Control

Director provides a list of Over Air Control (OAC) commands that can target an individual RX1, a group of RX1s or the entire population of decoders registered in the Director Headend database. This feature is often referred to as “Over Air In-Band” control. The OAC commands can be used to configure the MK.IO Beam Distribution settings remotely such as satellite tuning parameters and service selection.

Before you start, the unit MUST be tuned to the Director headend transport stream and MUST have Over Air Control enabled to respond to the commands.

The following general commands are supported by MK.IO Beam Distribution:

The following special commands are supported by the MK.IO Beam Distribution:

• Power Up Carrier:
  The Power Up Carrier (PUC) is a feature of Director’s over air control. The PUC can only be configured by a Director headend as it is not possible to do so locally or through any of the unit’s other control interfaces.
  When the PUC has been configured correctly, the next time the IRD is powered up or rebooted and the Over Air Control setting is enabled, the unit will ignore any previous input settings and immediately apply the input settings saved in the PUC.
  If the Over Air Control setting was disabled, then there will be no change to the preserved input settings during boot up and the PUC is ignored.
  It may be useful to configure the PUC so that every time the unit running MK.IO Beam Distribution is powered up, it automatically tunes to the Director headend so that it can maintain over air control of the unit.

• Emergency Home Carrier:
  The Emergency Home Carrier (EHC) is similar to the Power Up Carrier described above. The EHC can only be configured by a Director headend as it is not possible to do so locally or through any of the unit’s other control interfaces.
  Once the EHC has been configured correctly and the Over Air Control setting is enabled, the IRD will continuously monitor its input status. If the unit running MK.IO Beam Distribution loses transport stream lock on its input or the current Service being decoded is no longer present, after a pre-defined timeout (EHC Timeout), the unit will immediately apply the input settings saved for the EHC.
  If the Over Air Control setting was disabled, then there will be no change to the input settings if transport stream lock or the selected Service is lost.
  If a mistake is made when configuring a new carrier for the IRD resulting in a loss of lock, then there would be no access to over air control commands from the incoming transport stream and the headend would lose control. The EHC is a safe guard that allows the headend to regain over air control of the MK.IO Beam Distribution.

The status of the Power Up Carrier and Emergency Home Carrier is available from the Status page of any of the running services.

Enable Over Air Control (OAC)

At least one Receiver service is configured.

1. From the Home page, select the RECEIVER item from the required feed then click to edit

2. From the Parameters section, select the Decrypt tab.

3. Tick the Over air control enable check box. Units added to the Director headend database and tuned to the Director headend transport stream will now respond to over the air commands.

   

Over Air Software Download (OASD) and configuration bundles

When MK.IO Beam Distribution is part of a Director-controlled system, the headend can upgrade the software, or the configuration of the unit ‘over air’ via a downloadable bundle which will be ‘played out’ as part of the Director service.

Before you start, ensure the unit MUST be tuned to the Director headend transport stream and MUST have Over Air Control enabled.

MK.IO Beam Distribution can store multiple of these bundles and any can be switched to at the operators convenience using an over air ‘switch to’ command.

The version to be switched to will be matched against the stored versions.

• When a switch command is actioned on a new software bundle the unit will reboot and the new software will be ‘switched to’.
• When a switch command is actioned on a configuration bundle, the current configuration will normally be removed, and the new configuration applied.

When a Director start download command is sent to an RX1, it checks if the requested software bundle version is already present.

• If the bundle is present, the bundle is actioned immediately.
• If the bundle is not present, the unit looks for the requested download version in the incoming stream and starts downloading when found.

Download Status Table

The download status table is a part of the Director status contained within the service status page. It indicates any current or previous downloads.
It has ordered entries showing the most recent current downloads at the top of the list. As new downloads are requested, they are added to the download status list.

The status list shows the last 10 downloads, removing any older downloads from the reported download status.

Example of download status table showing one complete and in progress downloads

Each download status table row contains the following information: