MPBN Adds Triveni Digital StreamScope

The Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) is using a Triveni Digital DTV transport stream solution to improve video quality for its television services.

Through a combination of Triveni Digital’s StreamScope RM-40 transport stream monitor and StreamScope Portal ultra-portable MPEG analysis and troubleshooting tool, MPBN can quickly detect and resolve video stream impairments that affect viewer quality of experience, while ensuring compliance with a wide range of industry standards, increasing the network’s operational efficiency and quality of service to viewers. 

“Prior to using Triveni Digital’s StreamScope solutions, we did not have an efficient method for identifying transport stream issues,” said Gil Maxwell, VP and chief technology officer at MPBN. “Triveni Digital’s StreamScope solutions eliminate all the guesswork, enabling us to quickly pinpoint any problems and ensure the veracity of our video streams. The ability to look back via post-mortem reports, receive instant notifications about errors via email, and automatically trigger a recording for further analysis, has proven to be invaluable in elevating the quality of our service.”

MPBN’s television viewing audience includes the state of Maine, adjoining parts of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. In addition, MPBN Television is offered on cable television throughout most of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. Using Triveni Digital’s StreamScope solutions from its control center, the broadcast network simultaneously monitors ASI signals for multiple PBS stations (WMEA Biddeford, WCBB Augusta, WMEB Bangor, WMEM Presque Isle and WMED Calais) as well as feeds for its cable television services. 

Triveni Digital’s StreamScope RM-40 solution continuously logs and filters transport stream data, providing engineers with real-time and historical reports to streamline post-mortem analyses. After detecting a problem with the transport stream, the system notifies key personnel via text message or email, allowing them to quickly analyze the information and resolve future issues.

Additionally, leveraging the powerful transport stream monitoring solution, MPBN can ensure compliance with all industry broadcast standards and requirements. 

By providing MPBN with complete MPEG analysis, StreamScope Portal reduces the time to detect, isolate and repair video impairments, such as video tiling, lip sync errors, intermittent tuning, inconsistent loudness levels, and missing components.

Through StreamScope Portal’s personal, touch-based, portable form factor, engineers can rapidly perform file-based or real-time MPEG-2/MPEG-4 analysis and monitoring of DTV transport streams with 8VSB (RF), ASI, and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.

MPBN said it has found StreamScope Portal’s ability to probe various points in the transport stream to be particularly useful in determining the specific location of errors. 

“Our StreamScope solutions are the industry’s most cost-effective, comprehensive, and flexible solutions for monitoring broadcast networks,” said Ralph Bachofen, VP of sales and marketing at Triveni Digital. “Through a color-coded Web-based user interface that displays detailed charts and graphs about the status of video transport streams in real time, the StreamScope RM-40 and StreamScope Portal dramatically simplify analysis, making them the perfect solution for a major broadcast network such as MPBN.”

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