Introduction

The channel Channel v4 APIs allow allows clients to get list of channels with paginations by operator if operator config is enabled. Besides, client can get channel by ID to look at information of specific channel. They are cacheable and do not requite authentication. 

information about TV channels that are available in the service. The API reports metadata about the channels as well as configuration details. The API is public requiring no authentication. If configured, the API supports multi-tenancy through Operator Channels.

Entities

Endpoints overview

The APIs accept request parameter language to return channel's name and description by language. The request parameter "show_hidden" in the index of  channels API indicate whether hidden channels should be displayed or not.

Explanation of services

Table of services that are available to users

Trickplay Service Config

From Wikipedia

Trick mode, sometimes called trick play, is a feature of digital video systems including Digital Video Recorders and Video on Demand systems that mimics the visual feedback given during fast-forward and rewind operations that were provided by analogue systems such as VCRs. Trick play manipulates the video stream to include only a subset of frames.

The AminoTV platform allows trickplay to be enabled on three services.  The following table outlines what enabling trickplay on each service enables the user to do.

Explanation of features

Hidden channels

Channels are mainly hidden from the channels' list. They are not disabled. We can still get the channel's info if we know the channel_id. Besides, recordings, epgs, streams and related things are still available for hidden channels. The purpose of hidden channels are for being prepared before official release or they are in maintenance.

Services

The Channel entity contains a list of enabled services. The entries in that list defines what services are available for the given channel, as well as service-specific attributes specifying how the service can be used. Note that certain service-specific attributes are not enforced by the backend in any way, they are only made available in the API to let the client know about certain restrictions that are expected to be imposed by the client. How these restrictions are implemented is entirely up to the client.

Available Services for channels

Live

This service enables a user to watch the channel as a live stream.

nPVR

This service enables a user to create recordings of programs aired on the channel, allowing them to be streamed on-demand after the program has aired.

Catchup

This service enables the user to watch programs that have aired on the channel on-demand for a limited time after they have aired, without having created a recording for the channel.

Use cases

Get list of visible channels

Client can make a call to GetIndexChannels to list all visible channels and their necessary information. The response will look like this

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "42",
      "type": "Channel",
      "attributes": {
        "name": "Yle",
        "description": "Lozente",
        "images": [
          {
            "image_type": "Thumbnail",
            "alternate_access_description": "Bruce Willis shooting a big gun at some bad guys, pew pew pew",
            "width_pixels": 320,
            "height_pixels": 200,
            "iso_639-2_lang": "fin",
            "url": "https://www.demo.com/assets/img/thumbnails/movies/diehard.png"
          }
        ],
        "channel_number": {
          "default": 1
        },
        "media_type": "video|audio",
        "enabled_services": [
          {
            "type": "Live",
            "startover": false,
            "pause": false,
            "trickplay": false
          },
          {
            "type": "nPVR",
            "watch_ongoing": true,
            "trickplay": true
          },
          {
            "type": "CatchUp",
            "trickplay": false
          }
        ],
        "channel_domains": [
          "foo",
          "bar"
        ],
        "dvb_info": [
          {
            "type": "C|T|T2",
            "onid": 123,
            "tsid": 123,
            "sid": 4324,
            "quality": "SD|HD|UHD"
          }
        ],
        "metadata_provider_information": [
          {
            "provider": "ERICSSON",
            "external_id": "724693092"
          }
        ]
      },
      "relationships": {
        "stream": {
          "data": {
            "id": "24",
            "type": "LiveStream"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

The request accepts parameter language to describe channel name and description by the corresponding language. The other param is page[number] so client can get list of channels by page.

Get list of channels including hidden channels

Client can make a call to GetIndexChannels to list all channels and their necessary information. The hidden channel are responded if client requests with parameter "show_hidden=true" . If the param is not requested or "show_hidden=false", the endpoint returns all visible channels.

The request accepts a language parameter to get the channel name and description in the given language if the channel has values defined in that language.

The response is paginated with 500 items per page. In order to get the full list of channels, multiple requests must be made using the pagination query parameter.

Get information of channel by id

Client can make a call to GetChannelById to get information for a specific channel 's information. The information of hidden channel is also returned if client knows the channel id. The response looks like this:

{
  "data": {
    "id": "42",
    "type": "Channel",
    "attributes": {
      "name": "Yle",
      "description": "Lozente",
      "images": [
        {
          "image_type": "Thumbnail",
          "alternate_access_description": "Bruce Willis shooting a big gun at some bad guys, pew pew pew",
          "width_pixels": 320,
          "height_pixels": 200,
          "iso_639-2_lang": "fin",
          "url": "https://www.demo.com/assets/img/thumbnails/movies/diehard.png"
        }
      ],
      "channel_number": {
        "default": 1
      },
      "media_type": "video|audio",
      "enabled_services": [
        {
          "type": "Live",
          "startover": false,
          "pause": false,
          "trickplay": false
        },
        {
          "type": "nPVR",
          "watch_ongoing": true,
          "trickplay": true
        },
        {
          "type": "CatchUp",
          "trickplay": false
        }
      ],
      "channel_domains": [
        "foo",
        "bar"
      ],
      "dvb_info": [
        {
          "type": "C|T|T2",
          "onid": 123,
          "tsid": 123,
          "sid": 4324,
          "quality": "SD|HD|UHD"
        }
      ],
      "metadata_provider_information": [
        {
          "provider": "ERICSSON",
          "external_id": "724693092"
        }
      ]
    },
    "relationships": {
      "stream": {
        "data": {
          "id": "24",
          "type": "LiveStream"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

by its ID.

The endpoint accepts parameter language to return channel name and description by language.

Streaming a channel

Use PlayableStream related to Channel (live) endpoint to get the live stream for the channel.

Migration guide

The legacy endpoint /api/user/<email>/channel is replaced by GetIndexChannels to list all channels

The legacy endpoint /api/user/<email>/channel/<channel_id> is replaced by GetChannelById to list the specific channel.

Postman collection