In Broadcast - November 2019 - 52

52

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 9 - Issue 10 | November 2019

InMedia

Making Complexity
Simple and Visual

Together these techniques result in a
graphical user interface that is packed
with essential information, yet intuitive
and easy to read.
As IP networks have proliferated,
however, management of them has
become
increasingly
distributed.
That gives rise to the requirement to

By Simen K Frostad, Chairman,
Bridge Technologies

I

f you're of a mathematical or
statistical turn of mind, you'll
probably be intimately familiar with
scatter plots, histograms, probability
plots, spaghetti plots, residual plots,
box plots, block plots and biplots. And if
you're not? Well, you'll certainly know a
bar chart or pie chart when you see it.
The purpose of these arcane - and
less arcane - ways of representing
numbers is that they use graphical
techniques to represent figures in
pictorial form. They allow us to almost
instantaneously interpret what would
otherwise take time and effort. In other
words: they make complexity simple.
But: if interpreting what figures
and numbers really mean can
be challenging - how much more
challenging is it likely to be when
they are only ones and zeroes - and
they're flowing through the network at
rates of anything up to 100,000,000
every second? Big data doesn't come
much bigger. And yet: in a network,
monitoring and understanding exactly
what those binary digits mean is
fundamental to understanding network
behaviour in order to maximise uptime,
reliability and consumer quality of
experience.
The answer, of course, is to create
graphical representations of those
digits - and that's what we at Bridge
Technologies have been doing for
over 15 years. While our business

is
nominally
about
monitoring
media
streams, service and
networks of all types,
we think of ourselves
more as a visualisation
company.
New Levels
of Understanding
Take, for example, our VB440 IP
Network Probe. It's an incredibly
powerful appliance - harnessed by the
VB440's Instrument View visualisation
option, which brings new levels of
understanding, quality and productivity
to the uncompressed media production
process. Because it provides a visual
representation of what's going on
in the production environment,
Instrument View is intuitive and easy
to use even for non-experts, delivering
meaningful, actionable information in
real time. Instrument View, by using
leading edge visualisation technology,
delivers remarkable insights into
network behaviour to its users.
Instrument View is only one of
several visualisation options provided
for Bridge Technologies' platforms.
Take MediaWindow, for example. As its
name suggests, it provides a window
into the activity of data on the media
distribution network. It too provides
output in a graphical form that can be
quickly understood.

Bridge technologies'
Remote Data Wall

Bridge Technologies aim is to 'make complexity simple'

But: why would you need that
window? Simply: to identify problems
and anomalies that may mean that
the quality of the received content
is not at the level of the quality of
the sent content. Further: patterns
in data behaviour may indicate an
impending network failure. In any of
those circumstances, the requirement
is invariably for prompt action to be
taken - and representing the problems,
anomalies and patterns visually means
they can be more intuitively and
rapidly recognised and, if necessary,
addressed.

have access to information about its
performance from wherever is most
convenient - which may not be in the
data centre itself. In response, Bridge
technologies developed Remote Data
Wall (RDW).
RDW allows those responsible for
network monitoring and management
to quickly and easily create a visual
representation of network activity.
Depending on the size or complexity of
the network being monitored, RDW can
spread from a single screen to multiple
screens in a videowall format - but
requires no specialist skills to install.

Providing Insight
What are users specifically looking
for? When transporting MPEG data
in an IP network, two parameters in
particular are typically monitored
closely: packet loss and packet jitter. If
there is no packet loss and packets are
transmitted at a reasonably even pace
through the network, the signal will
likely be received without transmission
errors. If, however, packet loss or
excessive packet jitter occurs, the
result will most likely be signal
impairments noticeable to the end user
- for instance, in the form of visible
picture errors. Bridge Technologies'
various visualisation options - such as
MediaWindow - are designed, among
other things, to provide that insight.
MediaWindow displays MPEG over
IP traffic performance in a single,
composite graph; packet loss and
packet jitter are indicated in opposite
directions from a base line. Different
colours show the network status, and
water-flow graphing ensures that
both current and historical data are
represented.

Significant Flexibility
Because it is HTML5/browser-based,
RDW does not require specialist
hardware or cabling. It can be
viewed locally - in a control room, for
example - or remotely from a distant
location. Significant flexibility is
provided to users in enabling them to
select precisely which data should be
displayed, and how. Data can also be
gathered from outside sources - from
third-party systems, for example,
and external information sources
such as weather stations, personnel
management systems, and booking
schedules. A widget can display, for
instance, windows from third parties,
such as the Dataminer management
system.
Instrument View, Media Window
and Remote Data Wall are only three
of the visualisation options available
from Bridge Technologies. The most
recent - the Widglets API - is potentially
transformative in the area of remote
production.
All, however, have a
common goal: to make complexity
simple.
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