Discuss nested and overlapping blocked time range support

[defagos]

As an editor I want blocked time ranges not to be reachable, even if nested or overlapping. As a Pillarbox development team we would like to possibly have a common answer to this need.

Acceptance criteria

• Strategies to address overlapping and blocked time ranges have been discussed and documented.
• A common solution has been designed if possible.

Hints

• Having the backend fix the issue and the clients deal with such cases as undefined behavior can be an option.

Tasks

• [x] Discuss within the team and document.
• [x] Discuss with the backend team.
• [x] Create dedicated stories for the next steps.

[defagos]

Discussed within the team.

Current frontend status

• Web: The W3C standard supports a handler just before the time is actually set. This allows the player to fix forbidden times, gracefully handling nesting and overlaps.
• Android: Nothing special is done.
• Apple: Since time changes are only detected after they occurred and to avoid frames being briefly seen in overlapping or nested ranges, the implementation introduced two measures:
  • Segments are flattened to avoid overlapping ranges.
  • If a time is found in several forbidden segments, playback resumes at the max end range time.

Desired frontend status and next steps

We would like to eliminate all too clever code from clients or to avoid introducing clever code by defining overlaps or nested ranges as undefined behavior. Time range overlap or nesting should be addressed once server-side.

To know if this ideal is possible we must first:

1. Before any code change ask BUs if overlapping / nested segments are still a thing and if in such cases being able to briefly see a forbidden frame is a problem.
2. If yes discuss the matter with the backend team so that segments are flattened server-side. Explain that clients otherwise will exhibit undefined behavior. Create a dedicated story if the backend team agree.
3. If the backend team refuse and the feature is essential, keep it in the Apple code.

In all cases no additional work is required for the web and Android. On all platforms examples with disjoint time ranges should available. If (and only if) overlapping and nesting is important from a business perspective should the demos contain dedicated examples, otherwise any existing example must be removed.

[defagos]

The discussion has been started with the backend team but is not finished yet.

[defagos]

@amtins will slightly revisit the ticket linked on Confluence as its title / content might be slightly misleading.

[defagos]

A new issue has been created in the backend backlog.

[defagos]

We have decided to keep the topic for future SAM services, thus avoiding work on the legacy IL services. The associated JIRA issue has been closed.