DekTec DTC-720 Xpect - Manual (Page 5)

DTC-720 Xpect ® – 24/7 Transport Stream Monitoring
USER MANUAL
5
1.2 Licensing
As is true for most other DekTec software applications, Xpect requires the presence of a valid licence
before it can be used. The Xpect software uses a licence point mechanism. The basic idea behind this
points-based license mechanism is that you need a certain amount of licence points per monitored
transport stream (see table below).
TS type Points Description / Remarks
SPTS Radio ¼ A single-program transport stream carrying a radio service.
SPTS TV ½ A single-program transport stream carrying a TV service.
MPTS 4 A multi-program transport stream i.e. stream carrying multiple services
Given the above, you can compute the number of licence points needed to run Xpect on the basis of
the number of multi- and/or single-program transport streams you want to monitor. For an example
of how to compute the number of points required please refer to §2.5 Number of licence points.
NOTE: you can only buy whole points, therefore the number of total number points required must be
rounded upwards to the nearest whole number (e.g. if your setup requires 7.75 points you must round
this up to 8 points).
1.2.1 How long is a licence valid?
There are two types of licence available for Xpect, the first being a time limited evaluation licence and
the second a permanent licence.
The evaluation licence is intended for evaluation purposes and will always be time-limited (i.e. after a
certain amount of time the licence will expire and Xpect will no longer be able to run).
A permanent licence will never expire; however, it does have a time-limited maintenance period
associated with it (by default: 1 year). This means that you will be able to freely upgrade to the latest
Xpect version as long as it was released prior to the end date of the maintenance period. If you
upgrade to a version which was released after the maintenance end date, the licence will not be
accepted and you will need to renew the maintenance period to be able to use the latest version.
NOTE: your licence will still be valid for any Xpect version released prior to the maintenance end date
(i.e. you can still use the older version).
1.2.2 Where is the licence located?
Although you may have received a file with the licence for Xpect, the licence itself will be stored on a
DekTec card after you have activated the licence. This means that the file is no longer needed after
activation and that the DekTec card is effectively a dongle for Xpect (i.e. the licence moves with the
DekTec hardware). It is possible to have multiple DekTec cards with Xpect licences on more than one
of them.
When Xpect starts it will check all cards which are part of its configuration (i.e. cards which are
specified in the
XpectGeneralConfig.xgen
configuration file) to see if they have a valid licence. The points
of all valid licences will be accumulated and if there are enough points available to run the
configuration, Xpect will start. For example if the configuration contains two cards ‘A’ and ‘B’ with
respectively a licence for four and two points on them, Xpect will start successfully as long the number
of licence points needed does not exceed six points.
NOTE: if your system contains the cards ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’, and a valid Xpect licence is stored on each
of them, but card ‘C’ is not used in the configuration of Xpect (i.e. no transport stream received via