In Broadcast - April 2013 - 88


I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 18 - APRIL 2013

N E W S

InTEST

Gaining Complete Oversight Via
Content Monitoring & Logging
The better a media enterprise knows its broadcast product, the better equipped the company is to meet
the demands of its audience, build viewership, and increase revenues…
Content Window

By Russell Wise
VP of Global Sales
Volicon
ith an understanding of the
broadcast product in its
entirety, from metadata in the
transport stream to boardroom
review, the media company can
cost-effectively address an array of
critical tasks including compliance
and quality of experience to media
analysis and content repurposing.
Indeed, the ready access to aired
content and frame-accurate media
intelligence provided by today’s realtime digital video monitoring and
logging technology enable broadcast
enterprises, both large and small,
to capture and leverage their
broadcasts in an even more diverse
and growing range of applications.
These include ad veriﬁcation, quality
assurance, competitive analysis,
programme analysis and talent
coaching, loudness monitoring,
NAVE monitoring, and executive
review and oversight.

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Executive Insight
Traditionally, executives and senior
management seeking insight into
the broadcast product have relied
upon verbal and written reports
from engineering, sales, and other
departments. They have worked with
subjective descriptions of issues
and waded through a sea of data
trying to gain a better perspective.
A picture is worth a thousand
words, for engineers, ad sales staff,
news producers, and executives
alike. A visual representation of the

broadcast lets key decision-makers
make better-informed choices about
how content is produced and
delivered. When accompanying
tools allow users to drill down into
detail about the transport stream
and to delve into measurements
of key data, executives and
others have the power to gain a
comprehensive understanding of
the real-time or recorded broadcast,
whether it be their transmission or
a competitors. Thus, in addition to
conﬁrming that their broadcasts
meet requirements for compliance,
closed captioning, loudness, and ad
insertion, executives can compare
their broadcasts, side-by-side and
from the same exact time period,
against those of other companies.
Enhancements to monitoring and
logging solutions such as Volicon’s
Observer system – which unites a
multichannel video streaming engine
with interactive search, content
analytics, service monitoring, and
alarm capabilities – are providing
executives with a convenient
window through which to examine all
elements of the broadcast product.
Dramatically improving the visibility
of audio, video, and metadata for
executives, whether they are in
the board room, at the desktop, or
working remotely on a mobile device,
today’s monitoring and logging
technology brings the broadcast
product into much better focus.

Observer multichannel video streaming with interactive search and analytics

Video monitoring and logging
technology can serve as a valuable
source of media intelligence,
offered cost-effectively by a single
solution and interface. A growing
range of solution features and
enhancements puts this intelligence
at executives’ ﬁngertips, whenever
and wherever needed.
One such feature is the clientless
GUI, which enables operation of
the video monitoring and logging
system without requiring the
installation of a local player. For
the many broadcasters and other
media facilities that leverage realtime and recorded broadcast content
throughout their operations, a
clientless GUI enables widespread
use with minimal maintenance and
support requirements. Because
upgrades and updates to the
monitoring system interface are
reﬂected automatically in the GUI,
users throughout the enterprise
enjoy the immediate beneﬁt of new
features and functionality without
any intervention from IT staff.
Multiviewer capabilities extend
media and metadata access from
the desktop onto the monitor wall.
Allowing monitoring and logging
system users to drive standard
displays as multiviewers, this
capability greatly simpliﬁes network
monitoring and troubleshooting
operations because it enables
users to watch multiple streams on
a network wall and, in the event of
an issue, instantly grab the suspect
stream via the desktop interface
and immediately begin work to
resolve the issue. In executive
offices and board rooms, the
integration of the streaming media
player into a multiviewer monitoring
model enables a host of valuable
monitoring and review opportunities
– again for both real-time and
recorded broadcasts.
A multicast or unicast of the live
stream, either the high-quality original
or a lower-resolution proxy version,
can both enable use of standard
displays as multiviewers and drive
dedicated multiviewer systems. In
either case, this feature supports
not only conﬁdence monitoring, but
also supplied content for enterprisewide IPTV systems. In the former
use case, it provides remote visibility
into the network operations centre
(NOC) environment, and in the latter
case it pairs with set-top boxes to

Volicon’s mobile UI for the Observer
monitoring and logging system

enable the scaling of Observer
systems across the enterprise WAN
and provision of content to a large
number of users.
For executives on the go, a
mobile interface for the monitoring
and logging system gives users
access to content anywhere,
anytime. Making streamed media
available through an iPad or iPhone,
such an interface provides greater
ﬂexibility, unsurpassed portability,
and the added convenience of
accessing live streaming along
with back-navigation of previously
recorded content from both local
and remote locations.
Using a smart device to
play, pause, search, and create
logged content, broadcasters
maintain instant access to the
final broadcast product, which
ensures quality, compliance, and
communication within the media
enterprise. The value of this mobile
access is enhanced by support for
multichannel viewing and multiple
audio tracks, which allow executives
to review and analyse broadcasts
in greater depth. Flexible bit rate
settings aid in ensuring that video
is streamed optimally for a given
device and network connection.

Competitive Edge
Through continual development
and refinement, the industry’s
most advanced video monitoring
and logging solutions have evolved
into multipurpose tools that
offer valuable utility across the
broadcast enterprise.
By pairing audio and video with a
growing range of measurements
a n d by p r ov i d i n g s i m p l e ,
straightforward access to both,
such solutions are emerging as a
source of media intelligence that
helps staff from engineering to
executives to enhance the quality
and competitiveness of the onair product.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/?first=Phillip&last=Izzard&search=Go https://twitter.com/inbroadcast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpzEatLsHdE&feature=youtube_gdata_player https://www.facebook.com/InBroadcast http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/inbroadcast/id468652679?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.branded.inbroadcast&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5icmFuZGVkLmluYnJvYWRjYXN0Il0 http://WWW.INBROADCAST.COM http://www.volicon.com/solutions/overview http://www.volicon.com/solutions/by-product/modules/observer-mobile
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