Interra Systems

Armed with automation facility, AI and a move to the cloud, compliance monitoring has moved far beyond baseline capabilities and into content repurposing and ad monitoring, among other features. Next up is more audience data via ATSC 3.0 and readying to meet forthcoming OTT compliance needs. Pictured: Nexstar uses the Clip Factory feature of its Actus QA/Compliance system to clip original content back to broadcast.

Quality of service (QOS) and quality of experience (QOE) monitoring has been bedeviled by the proliferation of streaming channels, including FAST, and ATSC 3.0, but vendors say they continue to improve an arsenal of tools to help overwhelmed broadcasters keep track. Above, Telestream’s centralized QOE and QOS monitoring management enables automated surveillance of each video transition as well as data aggregation and deep dive analytics, enabling identification of quality issues and their root causes.

AI-driven automated captioning for broadcasters continues its upward trajectory of accuracy and speed, while more recently the service is evolving toward hybrid on-prem and cloud models and multi-language translation capabilities. Above, Lexi is the cloud-hosted automatic captioning service from Ai-Media.

Vendors are enriching their quality of service and quality of experience offerings to appeal to broadcasters, for whom sub-par viewing experiences are not an option. Above: Anupama Anantharaman, vice president of product management at Interra Systems, at the 2022 NAB Show with the Orion real-time monitor dashboard for QOS (Photo by Jennifer Pallanich).

Anupama Anantharaman, VP of product management at Interra Systems and one of this year’s winners of TVNewsCheck’s Women in Technology Futurist Award, is working on the cutting edge of streaming monitoring solutions. Above: Anantharaman with a 2019 Best of Show award for Interra System’s Orion product at the NAB Show.

In a post-Volicon era, monitoring and compliance tools have gone beyond just making sure content meets regulatory requirements, moving into new broadcast environments and rolling out features designed to ease workflows. Above: Vela’s Encompass product showing both channel and transport stream analysis to help ensure quality of service.

Viewers can be unforgiving when it comes to the quality of their video viewing experience, whether it’s OTA or OTT, though the latter presents more complicated challenges for monitoring vendors. They’re responding with an array of technologies to keep viewers from clicking away. Above: The Weather Channel was an early adopter of OTT and OTT monitoring, pictured here using an Actus OTT quality assurance solution.

In its post-Volicon period, compliance monitoring companies vying to fill the void are expanding their offerings; tapping artificial intelligence for automation and cloud-based methods; and building more versatile tools. Above, TAG Video recently received certification to monitor Dolby Atmos.

In a post-Volicon landscape, broadcasters are scrambling to replace their compliance and monitoring services. They face vastly different regulatory requirements for OTT in doing so, but also an upside of new features including AI, on-prem, cloud or hybrid options and built-in tools for analysis and sales. Above, Mediaproxy’s LogPlayer is a cross-platform HTML5 user interface that facilitates seamless access to media and metadata across a network of global deployed LogServers.

Broadcasters must deal with a host of complexities in delivering consistent video quality to their OTT viewers. Vendors are trying to help — and cut monitoring costs — with a range of technologies including monitoring by exception, real-time distribution alerts and using machine learning.