Creating a Failover Group

Owned by Alon Men
19 Nov 2018
2 min read

Zixi features hitless failover for inputs, enabling undisrupted streaming when switching from one source to another. The hitless failover configuration involves grouping two or more inputs in a "Failover Group". If the  inputs are identical (i.e. two or more binary-identical streams with synchronized RTP headers), when one of them is disrupted or interrupted completely, Zixi Broadcaster will seamlessly use the packets of the other input without any disruptions. 

Note

If the streams are not identical, the failover process will not be seamless and may take up to a second.

The following procedure describes how to configure  inputs as a Failover Group in Zixi Broadcaster. 

To create a Failover Group:

  1. On the Input screen of Zixi Broadcaster, select the checkboxes of the relevant identical input streams.
  2. At the top of the inputs list, click the Marked drop-down menu and then click Failover Group.

    The Create a Failover Group window opens:
  3.  In the Stream ID field, type a new name for Failover Group. This name will appear in the list of Inputs.

  4. In the Max Outputs field, type the number of desired concurrent outputs that can use the Failover Group. Default: Unlimited.
  5. In the Search Window field, type the timeframe in which the system can search for the relevant packets in a matching stream. If there is a latency difference between the streams in the group, the Search Window value should be higher than the latency difference between the streams.
  6. In the Max Bitrate field, specify the maximum bitrate of the stream. Default: 8000. This is used for internal memory allocation and will not affect the transmitted bitrate. Recommended: double the bitrate of the highest bitrate stream.
  7. In the Max Latency field, specify the buffer size that Zixi Broadcaster will keep for error correction. For example, 6000 milliseconds would ensure that the stream is protected for six seconds of errors in the network. Default: 6000.
  8. Under Candidates, if you want to configure one or more of the streams as back up, select the checkbox next to the relevant stream. Backup streams will be used only when all the "Primary" streams are down.
  9. Configure additional parameters as required.
  10. Click OK.
    The Hitless Failover Group is added to the list of inputs, listing the sub-streams that are part of the group. The system will automatically detect the offset between the sub-streams and display it in milliseconds under Offset (ms).