Demo edition

The Perfect Streamer demo edition is a free edition for technical evaluation: it lets you check stream processing quality, the transport protocols and the web interface on your own hardware before buying. It is installed as a separate package, pstreamer-demo, works without a protection key, needs no activation and has no time limit. The package includes the ts_analyze utility, a transport stream analyser following ETSI TR 101 290 (TS Analyze Perfect Streamer Toolkit v2.4 — TR 101 290); the node’s own analyser in the demo edition is the basic one.

Warning

The demo edition is for evaluation only. Commercial use and operation in a production environment are prohibited by the demo edition licence agreement (Licence agreement). Production use requires a full licence; the full edition can be tried out on a trial licence (Moving to a trial or full licence).

Comparison of editions

Features that the table does not list as available are absent from the demo edition altogether: they are not part of its build and cannot be enabled. The web interface does not hide such features but shows them inactive, marked “Not available in the demo”; in the lists of input and output types the unavailable types are visible but cannot be selected. Where a limit applies, the interface names it, for example “Demo edition: no more than 5 streams.”.

Feature	Demo edition	Full edition
Streams	up to 5, SPTS only	SPTS and MPTS
Stream inputs and outputs	1 input and 1 output	several, with input redundancy
Input and output protocols	PS1, SRT, UDP, RTP	all, see Planning and data transmission protocols
Peers	up to 5 access logins for OTT, PS1 and SRT, one connection each	unlimited
Multiplexer and demultiplexer	no	yes
Adaptive streams (ABR)	no	yes
Analyser	basic: bitrate, CC errors, PID list	full, including TR 101 290, SCTE-35 and PCR drift
OTT	HLS/DASH delivery without DVR	delivery with DVR, timeshift and archive
Meshwork	up to 3 nodes (2 configured peers), no subdomains	unlimited, with subdomains
DVB reception	no	yes, including descrambling (CI/CAM, BISS)
EPG	no	EIT capture and generation, XMLTV
Transcoding	software only, one profile	software and hardware (NVIDIA, Intel)
PS1/SRT and OTT encryption	no	yes
PCR correction, jitter smoothing, CBR, PID remapping	no, the stream passes through unchanged	yes
Mosaic, test streams, file channels	no	yes
Monitoring export (Zabbix, Prometheus, InfluxDB, Nagios)	no; alerts in the web interface and by e-mail	yes, plus Telegram and scripts
Viewer authorisation via billing, ACME certificates	no	yes
Web interface accounts	up to 3	unlimited
Settings backup and rollback	yes	yes
Protection key and activation	not required	SL or HL key

The demo edition is recognised by the version string with the -demo suffix (for example, 2.0.2.410-demo), the “Demo” flag on the License screen and a panel at the top of the web interface that cannot be closed: “Demo edition — for evaluation only, commercial use is prohibited.” with a “Buy a licence” link.

A request that exceeds the limits of the demo edition is rejected by the node as a whole, and nothing is changed; the web interface shows the reason as is, and it begins with demo edition:. For example:

• demo edition: this list holds at most 5 item(s) — adding a sixth stream or login, or a second input or output of a stream;

• demo edition: key "drm-mode" can only be 0 (not in the demo) — an attempt to enable a feature that the demo edition does not have;

• demo edition: a Meshwork of at most 3 nodes (2 peers) — an attempt to configure a third Meshwork peer.

No alert is raised in this case.

Installation

The demo edition is supplied as pstreamer-demo packages for the RHEL family (x86_64, RPM) and the Debian family (amd64, DEB). The package is installed from a file: apart from system libraries, it has no dependencies.

RHEL family:

$ sudo yum -y install ./pstreamer-demo-<version>.x86_64.rpm

Debian family:

$ sudo apt-get install ./pstreamer-demo_<version>_amd64.deb

The pstreamer-demo and pstreamer packages are mutually exclusive: only one of them can be installed on a server. The demo edition does not need the aksusbd protection service.

No activation is required: the pss service starts right after installation. From there, proceed as in Initial settings: the web interface is on port 8808, the login and password are admin; change them straight away.

Moving to a trial or full licence

The features of the full edition are tried out on a trial licence: it is free, lasts one month and lifts all the limits of the demo edition. Request it, or a commercial offer, in the Help Center: https://support.pstreamer.tv/crm/.

1. Remove the pstreamer-demo package: the packages are mutually exclusive, and the package manager does not replace the demo edition by itself. The settings file /opt/pss/config/pss.json stays in place when the package is removed.

2. Install the pstreamer package (Installation on RHEL-family systems or Installation on Debian-family systems).

3. Perform the activation — Temporary activation and startup.

The full edition picks up the settings made in the demo edition.

Moving back, from the full edition to the demo edition, does not trim the settings. A settings file that the demo edition cannot run as is (more streams, inputs, outputs or logins than its limits allow, or features enabled that it does not have — MPTS, DVR, DRM, CBR) is not loaded: the file is moved unchanged to /opt/pss/config/bad/, and the node starts on the last good configuration, as with any loading error (Behavior at startup and on configuration errors). The web interface shows a loading-error alert with the reason and the place where the file was saved. Sections that the demo edition lacks altogether (EPG, DVR storages, DVB adapters) are skipped with a warning in the log. To work in the demo edition, configure it within its limits.

Licence agreement

The demo edition is distributed under a separate licence agreement (Enterprise Demo License Agreement); after installation its text is in the file /opt/pss/COPYRIGHT. The main terms are:

• technical evaluation, laboratory testing and compatibility checks only; use in a production environment is prohibited;

• commercial use is prohibited, including broadcasting, OTT and IPTV services, content delivery and cloud services;

• circumventing the limits of the demo edition, modifying it and distributing it are prohibited;

• the period of use is not limited: the demo edition is free and works without a time limit, but for evaluation only.

The licensor is Perfect Soft. The agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales.