By Shaun Lim
While more broadcasters are embracing IP, many are doing so on a step-by-step basis as they lack the resources for a full greenfield installation where all legacy systems are replaced.
Monitoring solutions need to be in place to support this transition, according to Simen Frostad, Chairman of Bridge Technologies. He told APB+, “Monitoring solutions need to deliver joined-up, holistic monitoring that work seamlessly across disparate pieces of equipment operating at multiple layers within a broadcaster’s media cycle, from production to signal acquisition, contribution streams, over-the-top (OTT)/streaming media, traditional broadcast distribution with digital terrestrial television (DTT) or satellite, and picture archiving.”
Frostad said that the adoption of IP is also allowing monitoring and analytics to support remote production as an actual creative instrument, instead of just a diagnostic or operational tool.
He added, “IP allows production tools to be ‘squeezed’ into a single box without losing any of the specialist functionality that used to be afforded only in single-function rack units. And with IP, those multi-function boxes — such as our VB440 — don’t even have to be mounted in a rack on site; the information can be delivered to an HTML5 browser on a screen anywhere in the world.”
Steven Bilow, Product Marketing Manager, Telestream, observed that as more media companies transition their operations to IP networking at scale, having quality media throughout the chain requires automated approaches to monitoring the health of broadcast and contribution networks, For example, building a fully redundant ST 2022-7 media network with an independent path requires validating the correct setup and verifying quality throughout the long-term operation.
Bilow highlighted, “As networks continually scale, it becomes impractical to see everything by watching a monitor wall. Engineers should only have to worry about solving problems while automated software oversees the feeds.
“The software can alert high-value engineers to problems only when there is one, and these valuable human resources can do what they do best, which is to diagnose and resolve problems.
“Formats, channel count, and platforms are proliferating and the challenge will be to monitor everything and quickly resolve issues without significantly increasing staff.”
He also cautioned that the move to IP-based and cloud-deployed infrastructure cannot come at the expense of the necessary insights into content and transport quality. Broadcast engineers must know what content is being carried on the network and they must be able to diagnose faults as they occur.
“The use of ST2110 and ST2022-6 IP has introduced new failure modes to the broadcast environment such as Precision Timing Protocol (PTP) setup and accuracy, redundant path testing, packet loss and jitter, and multiple audio and data streams associated with a single video asset.
“Engineers need a new set of tools to understand what is happening in their network.”
As more customers move their delivery networks to public or private cloud, Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) is seeing an increase in the requests for cloud-based monitoring, including demand for dynamic payment models to support pop-up and event-based channels, said Cheong Yew Jin, Director, Broadcast & Media, Asia Pacific, R&S.
He added, “We also see requirements to support monitoring of content delivery through third-party content delivery networks (CDNs) and to established social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
“Many of these channels rely on advertising for funding, so the ability to monitor localised ad-insertion via SCTE triggers is also important.
“Multi-channel, multi-platform monitoring solutions generate a vast number of data metrics, so being able to aggregate these into a central platform for big data analysis, potentially with artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) assistance, is also a growing trend.”
Erik Otto, CEO of Mediaproxy, noted that the shift to monitoring by exception is shaping up to be a major trend in compliance checking and analysis for multi-channel playout in both linear broadcasting and OTT.
He explained, “By a channel only coming up on the main display when a problem is detected, operators can concentrate on other tasks instead of having to constantly look at banks of screens.
“Once the channel in question has been brought up and analysed, any problems can be isolated and fixed with specialised features offered by a system such as Mediaproxy's LogServer.”
Providing the highest quality of service and experience to viewers
The key to building and maintaining monitoring environments is being able to deal effectively with scale, suggests Mediaproxy’s Otto. “As broadcasters and service providers are faced with increasingly more formats, channels and target platforms, they will need tools that can scale easily as extra streams are added and requirements change.”
He also pinpointed how managing incidents quickly and efficiently is crucial in providing a robust service to viewers. The level of automation in both engineering and operational processes, Otto predicted, will additionally play a major role in broadcast and playout centres, particularly as the scale increases in terms of channel numbers and destinations.
Recognising that the cloud is now a major factor in measurement and compliance monitoring, one of Mediaproxy’s key offerings is the LogServer solution, which can run on virtual machines and leading cloud platforms, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
This, said Otto, reduces the amount of hardware at a broadcast centre or in a master control room and allows streams to be monitored remotely on laptops and other mobile devices. “Our toolset continues to grow so it can effectively offer interface-driven tools for exception-based monitoring, as well as programmatic interfaces to automate detection and reporting workflows,” he added.
To ensure that a video source is delivered across the entire media flow to subscribers with the highest possible quality, broadcasters and media operators need visibility at all points within the video delivery chain, from production through processing and distribution, said Ali Hodjat, Product Marketing Manager, Telestream.
He elaborated, “These media companies need tools that enable them to diagnose audio and video quality issues that may arise during content delivery to the end subscriber. They must then be able to identify the root cause of network delivery problems and rapidly troubleshoot them.”
Telestream offers solutions such as the Inspect 2110 Probe, which is an automated ST 2110 and ST 2022-6 media monitoring probe that provides visibility, verification, and alert by exception to operations teams, and ensures that video, audio, and data signals are present and healthy.
While Inspect 2110 monitors the media network at scale, a simple click-to-view interface enables deep analysis of any stream using Telestream’s PRISM waveform monitor/network analyser.
For cloud deployments, Telestream’s iQ technology provides rapid scalability and broad geographic coverage. A flexible, cloud-based video service assurance solution that makes it easy to test a distribution system before providing content to consuming viewers, iQ monitors the quality and availability of active content through modern browser-based dashboards.
Bridge Technologies’ Frostad maintained that away from the technologies that will improve the Quality of Service (QoS) delivered to viewers, a mindset shift is arguably as critical for success.
He emphasised, “QoS isn’t a metric you address as an afterthought, but something that you build right in, from the ground up.
“Monitoring solutions should be more than alarm bells that sound when something has gone drastically wrong. By that point, the viewer has already been impacted and in a competitive environment, that can make the difference between customer retention and loss.
“Instead, monitoring needs to be something agile and predictive.”
Adopting a ‘build it in, don’t bolt it on’ mantra, Bridge Technologies is offering an Integrated Services Monitoring (ISM) approach, which leverages the fact that all the systems offered by Bridge Technologies are harmonised using the same essential coding library and framework.
This, said Frostad, allows for full insight over the media chain, using whatever probe might be suitable or necessary, at any location required.
Bridge Technologies probes monitor the full media chain, including conventional terrestrial and satellite broadcast, as well as hybrid IP and OTT deployment. Where IP is concerned, its probes support monitoring of compressed and uncompressed data according to SMPTE protocols, as well as SDI encapsulated over IP.
Frostad also suggested that the JPEG XS compression standard, which has already been integrated in the VB440 monitoring and analytics tool, can potentially be a game-changer.
He said, “XS is a compression standard of quite incredible power, with lossless compression of between 10 and 15 times the original, but with significantly lower latency.
“In a production space, this allows for responsive, real-time production of broadcasts working at up to 8K resolutions and 120fps, and in terms of distribution, it also has the potential to allow broadcasters to deliver the quality of image audiences demand, with a much lower burden on the underpinning network.”
For R&S, its PRISMON range of monitoring solutions for distribution and delivery are designed to provide key features that enable broadcasters to maintain the highest QoS and experience to viewers.
Its LiveQM Option, for instance, offers referenced-based and cross-format video quality measurements based on industry standards such as PSNR and SSIM. High quality, multi-viewer generation enables side-by-side view of a channel in various formats, including baseband SDI and IP, TS, OTT, and more.
PRISMON also supports various monitoring and control Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), including NMOS, SNMP, REST, and MQTT.
Cheong advised broadcasters to select monitoring systems that provide automated and continuous measurement of QoE and video quality using standardised metrics like PSNR and SSIM. They should also provide the option of additional visual monitoring of premium channels. He explained, “Automated QoE monitoring still doesn’t reflect 100% accurately the perceived quality, so visual monitoring is still recommended for premium channels.”
Open and modern APIs for integration into third-party management systems is also critical. “To ensure the best possible QoS, correlation of different probing points in all the different formats will be necessary,” Cheong added. “Broadcasters will naturally end up in a heterogeneous environment with a mixture of monitoring tools and APIs are the only way to bring all the information together.”
Lastly, flexibility in designing deployments models is necessary to provide the freedom for broadcasters to choose between on-premise, virtualised and cloud implementations, or a combination of both, he concluded.