Broadcast Beat Magazine 2017 NAB Show NY/SMPTE Special Edition | Page 51
a flawless experience on every device. There are
also many screen sizes and types to consider. On
one hand, there’s the small mobile screen, but
there’s also 4K content distributed directly to the
connected TVs or to the latest gaming consoles.
Traditionally, broadcasters and content distribu-
tors install quality assurance monitors through-
out their network to ensure that the encodings
are going well, that the video and audio content
is flowing through the network smoothly and
sources of problems can be quickly identified.
This is because there’s a lot going on in a net-
work. For instance, when software upgrades are
being rolled out, there are humans entering and
selecting options, and a wide range of things can
go wrong at any point. The need for similar levels
of monitoring hasn’t gone away with the move
to streaming – in fact, it’s only becoming more
critical.
Cloud monitoring considerations
There are multiple considerations when looking
at how to set up monitoring in the cloud. One
of the most fundamental is network assurance
and making sure all the assets are there and the
network is operating as planned. Next is verifying
the quality of the video itself. It’s important that
anyone doing streaming, especially on live con-
tent, can assess the actual quality of the video,
the audio, and all the content going across, and
isn’t just looking at packets. The final piece is
diagnostics and having proactive tools in place.
It’s not enough to wait for an end player to say,
“This consumer had a bad experience.” Proactive
tools can identify issues quickly and help techni-
cians find resolutions ideally before consumers
even know there was a problem.
Another consideration is having a set of quality
assurance tools that extend across both linear and
OTT networks, whether it’s a physical network, a
public cloud, or even a private cloud. Ideally, the
tools should provide a common look and common
dashboards for monitoring workflows, whether
it’s physical or whether it’s through the cloud.
Where on-premise monitoring tools typically
involve hardware, everything in the cloud is soft-
ware based, which provides a lot of flexibility to
scale and deploy workflows quicker, versus having
to change an entire physical network. It follows
that the tools for monitoring cloud workflows also
must also be software based, so as broadcasters
scale to support more programs, more channels
and more regions their monitoring solution can
also scale along the way.
Moving video and media delivery to the cloud
involves working with cloud providers that pro-
vide high-speed media workflow services includ-
ing video processing and distribution. On top of
that core, you then can layer additional function-
ality such as content or workflow management
software as well as video monitoring solutions.
For everything to work smoothly, it’s important to
work with vendors who have strong relationships
with each other and have thoroughly tested all
the various components you are likely to require.
As shown in Figure 2, once cloud services and
Figure 2. Cloud services integrated with monitoring solutions allow monitoring across an entire streaming
workflow.
Broadcast Beat Magazine • www.broadcastbeat.com • 51