Volicon, a leading provider of enterprise media intelligence solutions serving the needs of broadcasters, networks, cable operators, and governments, will reveal new applications within the company’s Observer® Media Intelligence Platform (MIP) ™, an enterprise-wide solution which records a station’s media from ingest to playout, as well as multiple on-air broadcasts at the 2014 NAB show in Las Vegas from 7 to 10 April.
The launch of OTT services, which include internet-based video on demand services like YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Lovefilm, BBC iPlayer, Hulu and myTV, can be accessed through a number of portals and devices on which audiences consume content. The vast range of viewing platforms can make it difficult for operations of any size to monitor the quality and value of the viewer’s experience.
Though the industry still faces economic challenges, broadcasters are implementing simple and cost effective ways of monitoring OTT services by extending their existing models to include these mediums. Broadcasters who are equipped to monitor both quality and compliance of their content are able to capitalise on the many benefits of IP-based content delivery.
Linear broadcasts have typically required monitoring of a single output while internet-delivered content requires the evaluation of multiple outputs, which may be distributed in a number of different versions. Attempting to monitor every version of content on all available outputs all of the time is an unrealistic and near impossible process, which has led to broadcasters implementing a selective monitoring process which examines: ingest, encode, packaging, delivery and the signal received by the viewer.
A broadcaster is able to get a good sense of any given file’s integrity by examining bit rates, syntax, reference timestamps and alignment of each of the files. Instead of placing focus on the video, the emphasis is reshifted to the video’s data. Not only is this process able to be automated and accelerated across a large number of files, but the broadcaster can also confirm correct packaging of files for the appropriate content delivery network.
Another way for the broadcaster to assess service quality being experienced by the majority of its customers is by sampling a variety of the most popular outputs.
Visit the Volicon website for more information.
Visit the Volicon stand at the NAB 2014 at Booth SU7121.
