What's new in version 28?

Pexip's Media Playback Service allows you to play prerecorded video content (such as adverts and informational videos) to consumers. When the media finishes playing, the user can be transferred to another service, such as a VMR conference, or they can be disconnected.

Third-party integrators with sophisticated Pexip Infinity integrations who use external policy servers, event sinks, and the Pexip Infinity management API can extend this base functionality. For example they could play content in response to events within other systems, such as consumers who are being held in a queuing system, before transferring them into a VMR. Alternatively, consumers could be transferred from a VMR conference into a playback service.

Pexip's Cloud Video Interop (CVI) integration with Microsoft Teams has been enhanced:

• Synchronized mute/unmute control and status for VTCs: a VTC can now be administratively muted from the Teams conference, and the VTC can unmute itself by sending a DTMF command (*6) to the conference. Previously, VTC endpoints could not be muted by Teams clients.
• On-screen muted indicator: you can enable a new theme-based graphic that is displayed to an individual participant as a conference overlay when the endpoint has been administratively muted. Note that this feature has to be enabled by configuring a new disable_watermark_mute_icon setting in the themeconfig.json file to false.

• Raised hand indicators: a notification is now shown to any VTC participants if a Teams participant raises their hand (except when using an Adaptive Composition layout).

  

• Spotlighting: if a participant in a Teams meeting is spotlighted by a Teams client, that participant is also spotlighted in the layout presented to any gatewayed VTC system (except when using an Adaptive Composition layout).

Other changes and improvements to the Teams Connector include:

• Adaptive Composition layout is now fully supported for Teams calls (previously this was a technology preview feature).
• When using scheduled scaling, if the same Teams Connector is being used by multiple Teams tenants, then the minimum number of instances running in the scale set is now set to the highest of all of the individual Minimum number of instances settings for each tenant (previously it was the sum of the individual settings).
• Version 28 of the Teams Connector contains updates that necessitate an upgrade to your Pexip platform to ensure compatibility with the latest updates to the Microsoft Teams APIs and to the Teams Connector's latest features.

We strongly recommend that you upgrade your Pexip deployment — both the Pexip Infinity platform and the Pexip Teams Connector — to version 28 as soon as practicable.

The following new elements and controls have been added to the default themeconfig.json file:

• There are 2 new dtmf_conference_control_commands:

  • toggle_self_mute (*6): toggles the mute status of the participant.
  • toggle_multiscreen (*9): toggles multiscreen participant display.

• New disable_watermark_mute_icon setting (defaults to true).

There is also a new watermark_mute_icon.png graphic that is associated with the new disable_watermark_mute_icon setting.

This release contains the following administrative improvements:

• Local and external policy supports a new service_type of "media_playback" (Media Playback Service).

Host participants can use a new Change layout option in the side panel's Control menu. This lets you dynamically change the layout used during a conference to any of the support layout options, and to toggle the display of participant names.

A visual indicator is displayed when a new chat message is received. It is displayed against the Events tab If the side panel is open and showing the participant list, or above the button used to show the side panel if the side panel is closed.

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