Tektronix ensures complete end-to-end monitoring in Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) environments

Tektronix Sentry solutions provide QoE (Quality of Experience) and QoS (Quality of Service), along with PVQ (Perceptual Video Quality) information to video service providers.

What is one of the biggest technical challenges facing broadcasters, cable operators and other multi-screen service providers, such as TV Everywhere or Over the Top (OTT)? Without a doubt, guarantee the quality of service (QoS) and the quality of experience (QoE). This challenge is directly related to the wide variety of transmission networks and devices that exist, compared to the more controlled environments of cable, satellite, terrestrial and IPTV.

Ensuring subscriber satisfaction with such a complex architecture requires QoE and QoS monitoring at multiple points in the network to ensure that the content is of the appropriate quality and that the delivery network is actually capable of delivering it to the viewer. In this line, Tektronix revealed at IBC 2016 improvements for end-to-end monitoring in ABR (Adaptive Bit Rate) environments with support for SENTRY.

Tektronix Sentry solutions are widely used to provide QoE (Quality of Experience) and QoS (Quality of Service), along with PVQ (Perceptual Video Quality) information to video service providers. With the addition of decryption and decoding functionality, Sentry ABR offers service providers as broad and deep control as they are accustomed to with linear television-based services as shown in the flowchart below.

After transcoding in a typical ABR workflow, the video stream is divided into fragments of fixed time duration, then the information is encrypted and digital rights management (DRM) is applied. Sentry ABR is now able to view this encrypted content to evaluate the actual viewing experience as well as PVQ determination.

Tektronix Aurora

As the industry moves more towards ABR (Adaptive Bit Rate) for the delivery of all services, the amount of video content to be tested is growing rapidly. Checking a high volume of small files of different bit rates is especially difficult. That's where Tektronix Aurora offers fast, scalable file-based quality assurance and testing specifically designed to capture the most common causes of ABR streaming problems.

When Aurora is used in conjunction with the Hydra frame precision player, you gain the ability to view content and any issues detected within it. Working with both tools you have the possibility of reviewing or adding information for those responsible for the production of ABR content.

Starting with version Aurora 6.2, interesting improvements are incorporated such as PVQ (Perceptual Video Quality) and the possibility of virtualization of the product.

The Sentry platform is used to detect QoS (Quality of Service), network anomalies at the IP and MPEG TS layers, as well as QoE (quality of experience), identifying problems that represent the majority of subscriber calls including video freezes, tiling/macroblocking, audio interruptions or loudness problems. Within an ABR-enabled network, Sentry ABR is used to ensure content availability and provide comprehensive QoE analysis on every stream for every real-time bitrate.